A Serendipitous Moment
A Serendipitous Moment…Okay that was my sister’s favorite word for years, so she’ll love that I used it …Hi all on a rainy Monday nite near Jakarta.
I was restless (and so hot) being home too much of the day, and so at 5:30 just as getting dark, left the place, and with rain about to come, I went for a walk to Malabar (local market, a few minutes away) and after such a sweltering day, was enjoying the cooler wind before the rain. I bought some mandarins and mangosteens (a lovely little number), and then the rain started down hard, so I took shelter under some tarps in a little lane to back alleys and more market stalls…I was just enjoying the moment with rain pelting down…and noticed an older man with a beat up old guitar in the stall beside me, so I gave an approving nod as he was strumming and singing somewhat. After some moments, he motioned to come sit down beside him to give me a break…I did, and listened as he sang a song…nice voice, terrible guitar and strings…then I asked for guitar and sang a song…and within 30 sec.’s broke a string, whooops…I felt bad but he was unphased, and I kept playin and singin’ and he yells for some guy across the road to come over, pulls out some money and sends this guy out to buy him a new string (after quite some discussion), upon which this guy returns a few minutes later with string, and between the two of them, eventually get it on the guitar, which was I noticed, tuned way way too high…so he’s winding the snot out of this string, and I’m thinking it’s gonna bust eventually, and wondering how can I communicate to him to lower all the other strings first…and in the meantime…snap went the brand new string. Again, unphased, he yells again for this guy, whips out some cash and sends him down the street on the same errand…so we’re having a deja-vu moment, only this time, I asked for guitar once they loaded the string, and lowered all the others first…so after all this, he hands me back the guitar, and tho it was painful to play, hammered out a few tunes, some he knew (like ‘You are my Sunshine’) and all the while rain bucketing down. So was rather enjoying the spontaneous meeting and subsequent little sing song. Merry called worried I couldn’t get back in the rain…(I would’ve just come when I was ready, and when it broke), so she came with umbrella and feet soaked and eventually found me. This guy didn’t want me to leave yet…Merry was somewhat distressed about me in the market at night on my own…but really was okay.
Told him I’d be back another night, (might bring my guitar next time) and gave him a CD. I so enjoy these unscripted moments and meetings in peculiar places…and as the rain and cooling breeze refreshed my body, I found my soul refreshed as well.
But that guitar was painful to play.
Love and prayers, rob
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