The Perfect Fit
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Not all encounters of consequence will go on to reveal their meaning in the moment. Some will take root and linger inside for days, months, even years after first touch. They’ll resurface only when life bears down on us just so. Pressing for action or stillness, contemplation or clarity, release or ignition.
When we do finally extract their fruitful, hidden messages, as purposefully deposited as they were purposefully held on to, it’s like unwrapping an unexpected gift. These collisions are but another reminder that Travel is a journey, not a series of disconnected episodes. That if our hearts are open to it, something from a past season of our lives, can inspire us quite intentionally in the next.
In the Summer of 2024, I took a trip to the Nordics as the signs started to stack up that my career at Wilson Sporting Goods was coming to an end. My first stop was Helsinki. It was the Summer Solstice. The city was humming and buzzing through the change of another season – some places quiet others lively in celebration.
Restless for some retail therapy, I took a day trip to Porvoo, Finland a quaint little riverside town 30 miles east of Helsinki. The drive there was quite spectacular. The sun was shining, the shops were open and I felt just the tiniest surge of optimism flow through me.
I popped in and out of little boutiques and artisan shops, the most memorable of which was A La Louko, a hybrid Design Studio-Shop awash in pastels and linen. As I browsed, I engaged in light, casual conversation with the shopkeeper. I tried on a few things that caught my eye including a bone colored dress with a matching jacket. It was a one-of-a-kind classic-set that the shopkeeper had only recently designed. It felt like the Summer Solstice.
The moment I stepped into it I knew I had to have it. But I’m not sure who was more delighted when I walked out of the dressing room. It was such a perfect fit. For me, a special find, and for the shopkeeper/designer, her work finding the body who seemed always meant to fill it.
Eight months would pass before I ever thought about A La Louko again. It wasn’t until I wrote about Finland for Tessera 15 that I saw this moment for what it was – a collision. A slow and mysterious transmission of purpose.
At the time, the dress was nothing more than a happy find. Withtime I came to see it for the spark of possibility it was – a calling to my own creativity that had been set in motion by a simple, passing exchange between strangers. The Finnish shopkeeper’s conviction to live into her own entrepreneurial spirit and creativity had inspired an awareness and awakening in me.
She had helped me see in this journey of life, it was time to start dressing for the job I truly wanted, not the job I already had.
