People I meet during travels: A Collection.
Tags: Memoir, Strangers, People, Travel

When we finally got to the arch, we took a couple of pictures in front of the monument from the garden. She even asked me to make some poses. It was awkward for me. Then we decided to see what was on the other side of the arch, luckily enough, we were able to witness some sort of army inauguration or event of some sort. There were a lot of people attending. I remember how we were moving around to get a good view of the center, she filmed some bits of the show. We stayed for a while watching until the end after which we continued exploring the area and then decided to just take a break near La Tour de Tournai. We both sat on the grass silently. I remained sitting while she first tried to lie on her back to enjoy the blue skies and the peace. None of us spoke during that time. Thinking back to that moment today, that’s all that I can remember, we felt at peace.

We watched as two women came into the park with their dogs. This made Sally get up and walk over to them. I stayed put but I could see that she was talking to the women about their dogs. They spoke in English. Sally was tall with long light-colored hair and she had a very fair complexion. I remember her having round cheeks. I got up and joined them but stayed away from the jumping dogs.

A while later we continued walking around, we didn’t have any particular aim in mind. But I remember that walk. As I’m sitting on my desk in my bedroom in the middle of December, recalling the memory of that day has never been easier. The images appear in my mind so vividly. I can see the bright white light from the April Sun, the greenness of the plants, a lady wearing a multi-color scarf standing at the side of the street waiting for the bus, and how bright blue the sky was. We came across the Marie Louise Square and I can recall the stillness of the neighborhood, even with children playing not far from us. It was very orderly. We sat on a bench not far from the pond and we talked about our respective lives. She even shared a traumatic event that happened recently during her trip through Europe and I can even remember an elderly woman walking past us to whom we saluted with a Bonjour! or how we spoke of the swans and the ducks in the pond…

At first, it all seemed so far away to me but the more I write about this memory, I can picture it in my mind like I’m reliving that moment, even if it’s just for a glimpse. I don’t have any trace of it, no pictures, no videos, no receipts… Yet I am able to appreciate the beauty of that encounter. The randomness of it. The unlikelihood of it. When I try to imagine whatever force brought us two souls from opposite parts of the globe to share an unplanned day walking in the upper-streets of Brussels together, I become overwhelmed.

At some point, we had to part ways but it wasn’t without exchanging our Facebook contact. The separation happened rather abruptly. There was no sad feelings or a good-bye speech, it just happened organically, without force. A few weeks later I contacted her to ask how her travels were going, she was in Germany visiting the Neuschwanstein castle. She seemed to be enjoying her time there a lot. She described the sceneries and spoke of the hills to me. After that, I never heard from her together or thought of her again, until today that is.

Wherever she is, I really hope she is doing well and I hope that she thinks of the day we spent together light-heartedly and that it brings a smile to her face the same way it did me.