coincidence

Today a teacher dragged into school, barely remembering her role or function. Appearing at the appointed hour seemed accomplishment enough, given the jet lag and the time change. But, she'd been gone for more than a week and a new semester was starting; no time for easing in or for sleeping. And there was a fact that she'd persuaded her director to send her across the ocean to be rejuvenated and recharged. Slacking upon return would be untoward, especially now that she's a supervisor. Or so Tatiana from Latvia explained to me, during the one evening of our lives that we'd share.

We met in the Canal St. subway station, trying to determine why the street-level sign promised R and W trains while the platform only indicated a 6. Ah! there's the passageway! Ah! there are friendly but erroneous New Yorkers who promised that we couldn't get there from here! So from there we shared a mission, a walk back through Little Italy to another station with a W train which stopped right back where we were (sometimes tourists with maps know more than the locals), a circle on the Staten Island Ferry. And then more walking, her introduction to the Village, dinner, and her first margarita in six years.

Turns out that one of things that Tatiana and I have in common is that we both spent a year living in Wisconsin. Tatiana, the EFL teacher from Riga, Latvia, whom I met on the Chinatown/Canal Street subway platform in New York City, once lived for a year in Wausau, Wisconsin. Sometimes I love the world. And good conversation and serendipitous meetings and knowing that thousands of miles from here the thoughts and memories of an educator in a former Soviet republic have been the tiniest bit informed by running into Allison, the teacher from near St. Louis, not San Antonio, who just happened to be standing there.