little miracles

So I have this friend. He works in a shop around the corner that's crammed with beautiful clothing, jewerlery, shoes and everything imaginable in all the colors of the rainbow, with a lot of stuff from India. It's one giant treasure chest for a girl like me. He always invites me to tea, and makes me the house brew, a mix between jasmine and I dunno, lemon and herbal wonderfulness. He's an old, kind of round Indian man who lived a long time in California and has now lived 20 years in Vienna, working in this shop. He has kind eyes and a gentle voice that switches between English and German. He also tells me always to just enjoy myself and spend hours trying anything on, even though he knows most of it is too expensive for my student budget.
We had tea this past weekend and had a pretty intense conversation about life. He has a lot of spiritual beliefs, part Christian and also part Indian, about energies and astrology and stuff. He had me hold my palms out and close my eyes and it felt like my palms got wonderfully warm, and like there were flashes of light and sparks happening before my eyes. Afterward, he said that was my energy coming from my soul and connecting with God's energy and that I needed to know how much was inside of me. He told me I have a beautiful heart, and that I was full of light which I needed to share with the world, and share especially with Boston. That he had "no words" for how big my heart was.

To some people this would sound crazy. To me, it just sounds like things God has been trying to tell me for a while. Guess I haven't been paying attention, since an old Indian man had to spell it out for me.


My friend and I have tea pretty often now, in the afternoons when I have time. Last time we had quite an astrology conversation, which was funny, but still interesting. We also talked about the 5 elements, and he said that I was very much an air person. That I want to travel the world and always be free flying around, but that I need to remember to keep a connection with Mother Earth and have some feet on the ground. My favorite thing he has told me came at the end of our conversation. He said that a miracle was going to happen in my life. Maybe soon, or maybe later, I needed to be patient. And ever since he told me this, it's funny because I feel like there are all kinds of little miracles happening every day.

Take today, for example. I'm hanging out with these brothers, ages 3 and 5, once a week to speak English with them. They lived in the USA the past 4 years but are now back in Austria and automatically switched back to German, but can still understand everything I say. Today was my third time hanging out with them, and everything they did was a small miracle. Wolfgang kept taking playdough and wrapping it in paper with tape, giving me present after present. After much coaxing, I finally got Viktor to sit on my lap so I could show him "trot trot to boston" and they loved it and kept taking turns and making pig noises. They are speaking more and more English with me automatically, and by next week will have the "trot trot" rhyme down pat. We talked at length about stinky feet, and at one point all took our socks off and smelled each others feet (I kept "dying" because theirs smelled so bad, and then would have to turn into a zombie). I then asked them what their mom was cooking for dinner, and told them it was definitely stinky feet, but it would taste good. They were a bit worried about it, though! We said "bye bye" with high fives and giggles, and I was giggling the whole ride back to the university.

Or take yesterday: after making my Turkish friend italian espresso (her first time, she loved it!) and going to the pool to do laps together, she invited me to eat dinner with her. I was introduced to an amazing Turkish meal that comes from the little villages and has to be cooked "just right" and believe me, it was delicious!

Even the way the air smells right now. Every time I go to the kitchen, I open the big window all the way and stick my head out, breathing in deep the fresh, just-rained-and-everything-is-washed clean air. And then breathing in deep the aroma of ground espresso beans...

I'm not sure at this point if I'll even recognize the so-called "miracle" that my friend says is going to happen...because every day is revealing its miracles to me.

It's kind of like, when you decide to start looking for beauty, you see it in everything. My eyes have been opened again to the glitter that is hidden, and I am seeing it on every surface.

-lab