The Divine Ripple Effect

In December 2011, a bit of travel magic brought Ciara Denham and her interestingly undetectable Irish accent into my life.  I was in La Paz, Bolivia, and I was feeling fatigued on the stock standard backpacker conversation.  Despite my anti-social-ness, I found myself in a greatly entertaining chat with two Israeli dudes over the hostel’s free pancake breakfast.  In the midst of the laughter, Ciara became involved, and I knew almost immediately that we would be great friends if we lived in the same place.  We philosophized about romance and dissected emotions.  We attended a WWF-style Bolivian wrestling match and went on a mini-adventure to some random ruins.  We drank fresh squeezed juices and shared life histories.  And, then, we carried on in separate directions, armed with email addresses but without any idea if we would ever see each other again.

That is usually where these travel buddy stories end.  However, I decided to give life in Australia a go.  Ciara had already been giving it a go in Brisbane for a few years.  Melbourne and Brisbane are not at all in close proximity, but being in the same country gave us greater inspiration to correspond, mainly in the form of me encouraging her to move to Melbourne immediately.  She did not relocate, but she did visit.  When I started planning my Greatest Hits Tour, I booked a ticket to Brisbane thinking that it was a good idea to experience the Queensland sunshine and an even better opportunity to catch up with a friend.

BUT, part of the reason that Ciara and I connected was our mutual rolling stone nature.  I had not factored in her possible presence in other landscapes.  Unfortunately, she had flights sending her away from Australia indefinitely.  Bummer.

ENTER DIVINE INTERVENTION!

Two weeks before her departure date, she met a man.  Oh, and not just any man.  She met an extraordinarily good man.  The type of man who gives you a reason to dramatically change your plans.  There were lightning bolts and fireworks and an almost scary sense of certainty. 

So.

Ciara changed her plans.  She pushed back her departure date, and she turned a search for a new life into a three week holiday back to Ireland.  This meant that she was present for my Brisbane visit after all.  Yay!

The magic of this romance is the type about which I daydream.  It is the sort of thing that Ciara and I theorized about in the high altitudes of the Andes .  It is the sort of story that makes me insanely jealous, but it also makes me feel insanely inspired and hopeful.

Who knows what will happen with Ciara and Matt (that is the name of the extraordinarily good man) in the long run (though my intuition says this is the beginning of something that will last the test of time).  What I do know is that it was beautiful to witness their fresh, true, deep, passionate connection for my few days in Brisbane.  I also know that as divine as the intervention was for her love life, I believe that Ciara meeting Matt was divine intervention in the name of our friendship as well.  If Matt had not come along, it might have been a long, long time until our paths crossed again.  All of this was certainly divine for the Greatest Hits Tour, too.  Suddenly, I had a place to sleep, a dinner party date, an assortment of great recommendations, and the best company I could have asked for in the West End bar scene. 

So, perhaps ‘extraordinarily good’ is not a sufficient adjective to describe Matt.  Matt is divine.