The perfect moment

Spalding Gray — the great storyteller and cerebral traveler — had a fixation on waiting for The Perfect Moment when he was on a journey. He couldn’t complete the trip and go home until it happened.

Many of us don’t wait for it; don’t even know when it’s happening; but looking back, it pops out of the landscape of time like a bright red poppy.

What’s interesting is that the Moment so rarely has to do with traditional tourist enterprises. It doesn’t usually happen while you’re walking through a building, or looking at a painting, or sitting on a train, or enjoying a nice hotel room…

It usually happens when you have an encounter with something that touches your heart and mind; and that usually means another person. A real, honest encounter with someone — even if you don’t speak their language or understand their culture. You see them, you are seen by them, and the connection is everything.

I was honored to hang around with the nursing students from Mesa State College when they were in Quito this summer. They were a magic bunch: lively, warm, open, and anxious to find a way to help. They brought boxes of medical supplies and used clothes, they worked in clinics and hospitals, they toured the city and Otavalo, they took salsa classes and went to dance clubs — they were more fun than kittens.

But after all that activity, the Perfect Moment happened one afternoon, on a field in a park in the city. They’d carried down a bunch of soccer jerseys donated by Mesa State athletic department, and they wanted to give them to a team who needed them. Pablo, the wonderful Country Coordinator, took them out to find a team — and they did. A great women’s team who were city champions, but lacked funding.

Alisa Farabee of Mesa State College (in blue) wearing the new shirt she was given in exchange for the soccer jerseys they distributed to a women’s team in Quito

When Alisa Farabee handed a shirt to one of the women, the woman removed her own shirt and gave it to Alisa, saying, “You give me your shirt, I give you mine.”

Kelli Sullivan Marx, who was part of the effort, says “Sometimes it’s the little things that can really make for amazing memories. I was so glad to be a part of this day. I too agree that this was one of my favorite memories and I’m not even the one who got the jersey!”

“This by far is the most memorable keep sake of my whole trip,” says Alisa Farabee, “I was so touched with emotion that I had to hold back my tears. Bless her little heart:)”

The whole idea of United Planet is just there in that moment: that our common humanity — shirts, sweat, laughter — is so much greater than what divides us. We just need to find it.

An afternoon on a field in a city in the mountains far away — and there it is. The Perfect Moment. The Connection.