Surreal and speechless

I met a Lebanese turned Louisianan man on the plane from Philly to Paris. A real family man, a doctor, he excitedly showed me a picture of his kids (in school uniform) before we opened the overhead compartments and disappeared from each other's lives. I really liked this man, I liked his face, I like that he offered me Spearmint gum once we had nestled into our uncomfortable US Airways seats. It was another 7 hour moment that told me that this was a good start, just as a tear-free goodbye at SFO had told me, and a warm-lit and warm-hearted dinner the night before my departure had. This time around, after all, I was the one who was helping people get luggage on their pulleys, my taxi driver smiled and charged me half of what another of his counterparts had charged two years prior. To top it off, my new room is cuter than thou. I am already feeling the itch to get a job, sign up for classes, essentially to get a life. The tectonic plates inside are shifting slowly, but I feel better equipped to withstand them now.