Times and gaps

Have you ever had an acquaintance, friend, or family member who you connected with but then lost contact? I mean one of those enjoyable connections where with serendipity you listen and talk with interest. Under no obligation you find commonality or friendly differences which are stimulating.
I often meet people whose lives offer a sort of travel or experience by proxy. And then there are those people who are knowledgeable about subjects which effective cause them to serve as expert guest lecturers and tutors in the university of continual life learning. Occasionally, you may encounter a light hearted witty person who seems to hover apart from controversy and without introspection, satire, sarcasm, or agenda you simply dismiss the turmoil of weightier issues.
My reason for finding a connection pleasant may differ. But since it is a meeting more or less outside the relationships which I am responsible to maintain I may lose contact. Or maybe it was at camp, on a holiday, at work but outside my direct area of responsibility or normal routine, possible a more distant family member, some one has moved , a student, a transient or traveling worker, a builder who came for a time, a tour guide, or the guest of someone else with whom we have regular contact.

Time passes and you don't see the particular person, for a month, a year, five years, or twenty years. Can we just pick up where we left off? Will they be the same? We wouldn't be just the same (at least I wouldn't be). But have you ever noticed in these situations we sometimes revert back to a former self? None the less there you are in the presence of a past joy.

I used to walk the street of Sheffield feeling very much the foreigner and quite priviledged to be here in such a far flung, out of the way, wild and exotic place compared to Lakeview or Entrican Michigan. And as I walked along I would expect one of these people from my past to walk past and be completely surprised to find me in Sheffield , England. I'd ask if they had some time and we'd go and have a coffee somewhere and catch up.

The book I'm reading entitled Austerlitz is so far about the chance meetings between the author and the man named Austerlitz.

I am the kind of person who can meet and get to feel a connection with practically anyone quite easily. But the length of the connection and the future of it seems an unpredictable element in life.
As I ramble on I have a strong feeling that the same thing I feel for people I actually feel also for places. Places I used to go often and grew to enjoy and now I hardly ever get to go to at all.

This summer Alasdair, Samuel, Paul (an acquaintance from Luke Dudenhofer's church in Chicago) and another Bulgarian friend of Paul's I think called Marcus went swimming at the Indiana Dunes State park on the shores of Lake Michigan. It was one of those idyllic days with the boys that you would see in a movie. The people I was with, the weather, the lake, the swimming, the train ride to get there, the big city(Chicago) we left behind for the day, the exciting yet down to earth guy that Paul is, the walk I had on the beach and around the camp sites, the meal in the old big brick state park building and the gates to the park, the short walk through the woods all added up to a real memory and I only wish somehow without changing it I could share it in a meaningful way with others. It will be a one off in my life. But one I'll remember with fondness for some time to come. It is an experience I wish on their own Lyssa, Emily, Wendy, Bethany, and Daniel could have.