Finding Familiar Faces in Unfamiliar Places
I walked into my new staff house on the other side of the world. I had arrived alone and there was no one there waiting to meet me. The many new faces were all friendly and we quickly exchanged basic info. “Oh you’re from Canada?” someone remarked, “Do you know Adam?” “Is he six feet tall and built like a tank?" I replied. Sure enough, it was the same Adam I knew from home.
At first, stories like these were mere coincidences. It could be argued that there are only so many mountains in the world to work at. I was bound to run into someone that I knew.
But then it happened again on a beach in Costa Rica. I had made plans to meet up with friends I had met in another country only to see someone else I knew approach at the same time by chance.
And again, it happened on a remote river in New Zealand, stemming from a backwater town with a population of 540 people. I looked over at the paddler next to me to introduce myself. His name was Jono, I already knew him from the stories I was told by the paddlers that had taught me years prior.
When I first started travelling, the challenge was navigating unfamiliar places. Learning new customs, finding housing, making friends, and figuring out where I belonged. As I learned to understand myself, I better understood the world around me. I started to find comfort in places and people I had never met and then I started meeting those same people around the world.
What started as a string of coincidences began to point towards something bigger. Recently I worked a random event after contacting the team last minute. I didn’t know the artists and didn’t know the hosts. When I arrived I felt a little lost, it was clear that there was a large community there to support their friends performing. Yet someone kept catching my eye - I was almost certain we had met before. After speaking, initially it seemed like there was no connection. Then it clicked. We had crossed paths many times but never quite connected. We had lived in the same places, doing the same thing with the same people. And now finally, in a completely different city, our paths crossed. This has begun to evolve into a community. A community that isn’t defined by borders
Often people remark that it's a small world. I’ve realized I’m not running into the same people because the world is small. It’s because we are all moving through the same communities: snowboarders, paddlers, photographers, and travellers. Despite our differences the same curiosity that has pushed me to leave home and explore is pushing them too.
The world is still enormous. There are countless places I'll never visit and people I'll never meet. But each time I travel, it feels a little less intimidating. Not because the world has become smaller, but because I've become more certain of who I am. The clearer I become about the things I care about, the easier it is to find people who care about them too.