My Guardian Angels

I'm not particularly religious but in the last 24 hours I have had enough miracles happen to make me believe in guardian angels.

I got on BART heading to San Francisco and after a few stops a couple entered and sat down across me. They seemed like your average, slightly crazed, bay area hippies. Then, out of the blue, with me only about three and a half feet away, they started making out. Now, I'm all for the modest PDA but this was hot and heavy, steamy windows, quick before someone walks by, I need you now making out. Now I'm not going to use the word sex, because as far as I could tell nothing was penatrated, but things were definitely happening and I was trying desprately to find something else to look at. This is where my first encounter with guardian angels occured. These two little old ladies, sitting several rows to the left of me. They caught my eye after a few stops and beckoned me to join them. But with two loaded suitcases, a full BART train, and the steady awkward motion of the train, moving several rows back would have been quite an ordeal. So I ignored the couple going at it a few feet from me and focused on the ladies. Old and wrinkled with old cotton hair. Eventually the PDA people got off the train but the old ladies stayed on the train with me all the way until Colma.

After that I thought my troubles were over, but I was mistaken. Everything went smoothly until my plane got delayed on the way from Heathrow to Rome. I was alreadying going to be getting into Rome pretty late and any delay might cause trouble. I got into Rome at 7 and headed to the UW Rome Center, hoping I could find someone to point me towards the direction of my apartment. I wandered around the area and happened upon a street performer who for the first time in several hours made my poor tired self laugh, which at the time seemed like a miracle and I named him my second encounter with a guardian angel.

After a few more minutes of hopeless wandering I heard my name being called behind me, only to find several of the other members of my program walking towards me. If they hadn't have had dinner there, if they hadn't have seen me, or if I hadn't have heard them call out, I could have still been wandering around. They were my third group of guardian angels.

Two of them took me to their apartment so I could look up the address and directions to my apartment. Then I started walking in the direction of the apartment, only to realize that I was in a very remote, very dark, part of the city. A part I was unfamiliar with and that I did not want to be walking in alone. Just as I decided to go back to the other apartment, one car drove by, a taxi and I saw my opportunity. I hailed him and he took me to my apartment. He was my fourth encounter.

When I arrived to my apartment I found the front door locked, I had no way of getting in, and no way of finding out what number my apartment was. But by chance, one of the program directors had stopped by, concerned that I had not yet made contact with anyone. He took me to his sister's apartment, where he was staying, and let me sleep on the fold out couch-bed. Guardian angel number five.

I woke up and got ready to go back to my apartment. While I was brushing my teeth, my professor's neice introduced herself to me. I asked her the simple questions that my frazzled head could remember and she rambled on fast about things I only understood about a quarter of. She did teach me what bear is in Italian, which at the time I didn't appreciate, but in hindsight, seems appropriate. She brought just a little bit of sunlight back into my complicated arrival. That's why she's my sixth angel.

When I got back to my apartment I was told my apartment was number three. I spent fifteen minutes knocking on the door to number three until an Italian construction worker working in the building informed me that that was indeed a storage closet. He let me borrow his cell phone, and with his surprisingly good English, helped me as much as he could. And for that he is my seventh guardian angel.

I had just talked to my program leader on the construction workers cell phone about how I still couldn't find the apartment number when I heard on of my roommates voices down the hall. They just happened to be going to the market and they found me and helped me up to the apartment. And if they hadn't found me, I would still be wandering around the building trying to find the apartment. They are my eighth encounter.

Oh, and it was the apartment on floor three, not apartment three. So, good times.

The last +24 hours have seemed impossible. They have been a little bit impossible. Last night they felt EXTREMELY impossible. But what I am beginning to understand after yesterday is that nothing is impossible when someone is watching out for you. Thank you, my guardian angels. Without you I literally do know know what I'd do or where I'd be.

Thank goodness for luck, chance, karma, fate, or whatever. It's a miracle.