A Beautiful Series of Encounters
COLLISION 00027
It was early in my travels through Slovenia. I was doing my best to make sense of my new surroundings the only way I knew how, through taste and the unpredictable power of encounter.
Upon arrival, I was processing all at once a change in climate and time zone; an unfamiliar rush of vitality from the epic landscapes spread out so generously around me: clear blue skies, fresh air and scenic mountain views; and a shake-your-head-in-disbelief kind of charm that emanated effortlessly throughout every Slovenian town and village.
More than once, taking it all in, I asked aloud, “Is this for real?” To move anywhere, literally anywhere there, was to be hyperaware of all this natural beauty around me. I grew accustomed to my breath being taken, my heart skipping a beat, a bend in the road, a cloud, a pasture stopping my restless monkey mind in its tracks.
I couldn’t help but reach for over-the-top words, then and now, like stupendous, divine and magnificent. I didn’t have to wonder if I had fallen in instant, mad love with Slovenia. I had.
I felt incredibly fortunate to have even been there. And I wouldn’t have been there at all had it not been for the generosity of my friend Marjan and his wife Nadine. Marjan not only lent me his condo last fall, but he also recommended I meet his good friend, Peter, a local jewelry-maker based in Ljubljana.
Peter owned a boutique, Peter Dragolič, inside Juvelirij, a jewelry studio, in Ljubljana’s Center Rog, a once-abandoned bicycle warehouse that had since been reimagined into a sprawling creative compound. Today, it is home to artisans and makers of every imagination and ilk: metalworkers, textile artists, ceramicists and jewelers, like Peter.
Center Rog buzzed with the kind of creative energy I hadn’t felt since leaving the corporate world. I used to love in-person meetings with my agency teams. Their offices gushed with sky-is-the-limit thinkers who asked what if instead of over-explaining why not.
When I first arrived, Peter took me for coffee on the building’s second-floor patio overlooking the Ljubljanica River. There, over a latte, I learned more about Peter, his craft and the building we were about to tour. His story and background were inspiring, and his work was exquisite. I didn’t realize how badly I had needed this creative shot in the arm.
It all made my brain tingle.
Then, Peter introduced me to the women who worked with him in his workshop, Sanda and Kristina. Both women were beyond welcoming, talented and lovely to chat with.
Sanda was a lapsed marketer who had decided to chase her dream of making jewelry. As she stood at her workstation, she shared a little more about her story, filling in a few blanks around why and how she’d made the decision to finally go for it. I absorbed every word, surrounded by all the delicate and brilliant evidence, the actual physical proof, that she hadn’t just found and heard her inner voice. She’d followed it.
Her words landed that morning with a ferocious and motivating impact. Joseph Campbell’s words echoed again from somewhere deep inside me. “Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before.”
After I said my thank-yous and goodbyes from the path that cut between the entrance of the store and the river, I traced back how I’d gotten right there – to this building and to this spirited state of mind.
It had all started with a couple’s generosity, a new acquaintance’s over-and-above hospitality and a young woman’s tenacity. Slovenia, behind a most beautiful series of encounters, had orchestrated a most extraordinary series of realizations early in my journey of becoming.
My brain was tingling.
