That One Time I Remembered My Magic

Once upon a time I walked across Spain. It meant so much to me that I got the symbol of the pilgrim, a seashell, tattooed on my wrist.

Once upon another time I was living by myself on a farm in western Kansas. I was lonely, so I would go to bars and restaurants by myself in Hays to pass the time. One night I was drinking by myself and I heard people with accents speaking behind me. A few drinks in - so, inhibitions lowered - I swung myself around to face them and unashamedly asked, “Where y’all from? I hear accents!” Admittedly this wasn’t the most polite way to meet people, but it worked. A few of the people at the table seemed annoyed by me, rightly so, but one of the guys laughed and said he was Max from Germany, and the woman next to him was Pilar from Spain. Upon hearing Spain, I naturally got giddy, so I asked her where in Spain she was from. She was one of the annoyed people at the table so she just waved her hand and said, “Oh, a small town.” I persisted, “But what town?? I might know it.” She finally said, “Tarragona” which is a town about an hour south of Barcelona. Even giddier, I jumped up and down clapping, exclaiming that I’d been there before and ate one of the best desserts ever there. She still didn’t seem very amused.

Max asked if I spoke Spanish, and as people tend to do, basically had me prove it, so I busted out all the best Spanish I could - aka, all the slang and “bad words” I had picked up from Yago, not knowing how truly appalling they were. They were all pretty entertained, and I think surprised at my fluency. Max noticed my tattoo and asked if by chance it had anything to do with the “Camino de Santiago.” I got super excited and said yes, to which he responded by pulling a necklace out of his shirt that had the exact same shell.

Turns out he and Pilar were Spanish professors at Fort Hays State University, and apparently Max had done the camino several times, and took students to do part of the camino every year. Max explained that the next week he was going to have a meeting with the students he was taking to Spain that year, and would love it if I would come share my experience with them. Of course I obliged.

I ended up meeting some super cool people in that group that became really great friends. One of them now lives in Wichita, and we get to hang out frequently. A couple of others have made the trip from Hays to Wichita to visit me from time to time. And through others, I met an insanely awesome group of international students that I got to visit in Germany.

The travel restrictions have been getting to me. Hard. My soul misses it. I miss the exploring of the unknown, the exotic locales, the blossoming friendships with locals. I even miss the getting lost, the flight delays, and having to suck it up in bad weather - hello Stonehenge. But then I remembered this run-in with Max and Pilar. I am somehow a magnet to magic. If I am patient enough. It’s so easy for me to forget that it took a lot of nights sitting alone in that bar before that little spark of magic happened, but eventually it did. Somehow my people and I always find each other.

Just recently another offspring of that random winter night in Gella’s popped up in my life, and I am so excited about it. If my people and adventure can find me in Hays, Kansas, they definitely can in Wichita. I might not have travel right now, but I still have magic.