Karma - My Love Story

On November 9, 2000, a very significant event took place in my life. I fell decidedly in love with my would-be husband in an instant. It wasn't love at first sight, but it hit me like a lightening bolt. We had become the closest of friends over the previous months. We laughed together in the truest form. When we were in the same city, we were inseparable. We nursed each other's scratched up hearts and we found an honesty that was unyielding.

A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer was celebrating his birthday that night at a popular restaurant in the capitol city, Niamey, called the Blue Hippo. We were a large group of folks out for some good pizza (not Naples good, but consider that our perspective came from ground up millet mush and slimy okra sauce in the bush) and dancing. A small crowd of us was on the dance floor in the middle of the evening and Josh and I were among them. Unbeknownst to him at the time, that was when it struck me...BAM! I had walked into the place with my friend Josh and I was walking out with my heart pounding.

It wasn't a look he gave me, a certain groovy dance move or anything obvious, but it just about knocked me over and I panicked. We were such good buddies, how could I let my feelings for him ruin this developing friendship? When it came down to it, I didn't have any control anyways. My heart wasn't going to be able to ignore these feelings regardless of what my head thought of the situation. Still, I didn't say anything to him about it, that night.

The next day, we embarked on a week-long AIDS awareness event. Twenty or so Peace Corps Volunteers were riding bicycles down one of the main highways in the country to attract attention from villages that we passed along the way. Once we had an audience, our education specialists conducted workshops on HIV/AIDS prevention. At night, we camped along the route, under the stars, in tents and mosquito nets.

On the first night, friend Josh and swooning Tiffany went for a walk to sit under a tree on the river bank to talk. Just when I thought I could begin to broach the subject of how my feelings for him had changed, he shared a little about his feelings for someone else who he had left at home in the States before moving to Africa. Doomed!

Or was I? In all of our chats, he had never mentioned this person, so she couldn't have been that important to him, right? After reading this blog, have you picked up on my endless optimism yet? At the end of the evening, I walked back into where the female volunteers were sleeping, tears welling up, but determined to prove to him that we were what was meant to be.

The next day was our first full day of the ride and we'd had so much fun teasing and making up different stories along the route that day. At one point, I remember telling my teammate that I was head over heels in love with him and could hardly contain it. She simply wished me luck and suggested that we might be married someday, which seemed obvious to me at the time. As we arrived at our final village of the day, we set up camp and gathered for dinner. When the sun finally set, a full moon was rising and setting the stage for the rest of our lives together.

After dinner, Josh said he was just going to go for a walk around the village, alone. My heart sank. I was sure that I had given it away and he was trying to distance himself from me. I thought I was becoming Pepe le Pew and he was Penelope Pussycat. In fact, he was just a boy who wanted to take a walk. So I took a walk too.

I walked for a long time under that full moon, along a still River Niger, and looked up often seeking guidance for the path ahead. I really thought I was all alone. I let myself cry some emotions out and tried to gather an understanding that this was a friendship not worth losing, so I had better pull it together. And then, he appeared.

I heard him before I saw him. His velvety voice was singing Billie Holiday's "The Moon Looks Down and Laughs" as he strolled, lit by moonbeams along a sandy path, with his hands in his pockets. It really felt as unlikely as if I'd run into him in a secluded chai shop in the middle of crowded Mumbai, which I realize is a bit of a doe eyed sense of reality considering there weren't many of us in the town, and fewer of us walking along the river. Still, we ran into each other. He gave me a hug and we kept walking together. I felt an understanding that we were going to begin a shared journey to see where it would take us, without any verbal commitment.

After everything we'd been through with relationships in our young lives so far, and in a country with village names like Djelibougou and Boulkassombougou, I've always thought it was particularly special that the name of this town where the sparks began to fly for us is Karma. We always celebrate anniversaries on full moons because of that sweet beginning. Simply, Karma is understood as that which drives the entire cycle of cause and effect.

Fast forward to 2010 and you'll find the happily married couple in Denver, Colorado. We're at home on a chilly night in November and hungry, but not interested in cooking. We decide to bundle up and walk down the street for noodles at a restaurant called Karma Asian Fusion. On the way, we look up and notice that it's a big, bright, clear, full moon...our dating anniversary from that special start 10 years prior...and we're on our way to Karma! I couldn't have planned it better, and really we didn't. In fact, we didn't plan it when the exact same thing happened in 2011. But, that second kiss from fate left an impression, and this year we planned it.

Tonight, we'll be on our way to Karma Asian Fusion for our dating anniversary dinner under the light of the full moon. After the twist of events our summer and autumn took, I'm more than hopeful that tonight's full moon brings Karma back our way. We've certainly put a lot of good out there. Could there be a better time to learn that our family will be growing soon? Keep your fingers crossed for us.