And what struck me recently is what a small world this is. We get reminders of that fairly often, particularly here in West Virginia where a conversation with a stranger usually ends in finding that we both know (and in my husband's case, are related to) someone in common.
Three things brought the small world to me recently:
First, this coffee mug. It's made by Homer Laughlin, part of their Fiesta line, and has the logo for Marshall University on it. I bought it at a thrift and listed it on ebay. It was the shipping address of the buyer that struck me--Chester, WV. Which is right where this mug started its journey, the home of the Homer Laughlin china company. Talk about full circle.
Second was a video posted on Facebook by my niece in Virginia. I don't know where the video was filmed, but I loved the spontaneity of it, the "random woman" from the crowd who joined the singer on a Bob Marley song. I liked it so much that I re-posted it--and a friend in the Netherlands commented that he knew that woman!
That in itself was surprising--who actually ever knows people in these viral videos? But the way I know Rob, the man who recognized the woman, is also small-world. Some years back I wrote about meeting a man named Leo East in Ireland, and posted a photo of us together. I got an email from a man named Rob in the Netherlands who wondered if Leo could possibly be his childhood friend and schoolmate.
Rob and I became Facebook friends and remain in touch, and I saw Leo again in 2015 when I was in Ireland. Maybe one day I'll meet Rob in person too.
Third is my longtime storytelling friend Betsy in Idaho. We met online in the Storytell discussion group when we were both beginning storytellers. We went on to meet in person at conferences and visited each other homes too. She recently learned that her husband has roots in West Virginia--just a few miles from where I live. He'd never known about his connection to this place until recently. So I'm planning to go looking for his family's cemetery when the weather is fittin' and take some photos for him.
Small small world. Have you had experiences like this, where interconnections are really brought home to you?
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
When we lived in Kansas in the mid to late 70s, we sat down at an event and began chatting with the man next to us. It didn't take long for talk to turn to California (we had just moved to Kansas from California) and it turned out that we knew his cousin really well - we had such a nice chat - and then never saw him again. We are still in touch with his cousin and she says he is doing great. Small world indeed.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy it when connections like those are made.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took Dad to S Dakota a couple years ago, for a cousins reunion, we stopped on the Madison River. We watched a fly fisherman for a while, when he came back to shore where we were. Dad talked to him and found that he lives not all that far from Dad's house in Calif.
Small world indeed.