Big Tent

Four souls, thousands of miles from home, gliding over the terrain in a pristine late model Camry, the driver checking the directions on the iPhone on the dashboard, promising I would "reach your destination before 1:09", I gesture "no hurry" and the driver Ahmul sees and admires my two lapis lazuli rings--he made jewelry in his native Afghanistan and lapis is an Afghani stone, did I know? Afghani, but he grew up in Germany and I say, "Ja! Ich bin in Deutschland auch gewohnen," he in Frankfurt, me in Heidelberg it turns out, but not so far at all--"we probably passed each other!"--his German is much better than mine so I tell him in English about the snow storm I'm missing by being here and the Chinese mother and daughter in the back seat say "Yes!" they are missing an even bigger snowstorm in Toronto where they now live--and I say, "No kidding!" and tell them my brother and his wife live in Toronto--and it makes us all inordinately happy to have these connections. random travelers in the big wide world meeting in a late model Camry on the Hollywood Expressway--while we chorus "Small world! Small World" and meet each other's crinkly eyes--thinking, maybe Donald should ditch the limo, just once, and take an Uber ride.