Today I want to talk you about this man.
I just met him yesterday.
Someone I want to be, someday.
A man like everyone else. Someone like you and me, yet somehow different.
This is his story.
He was alone, sitting in the corner of a little Café.
It was the evening of a long summer day. Sunlight filtering from a big window making everything shine at his touch. I was contemplating this precious moment drinking a short, warm coffee, knowing that he would’t have lasted long.
The place was quiet and empty, only a soft music was playing in the background.
I looked at this man. The only other client beside me. Like me, he was enjoying the warm sunlight. A cup of sencha Tea in his hands.
He was reading a book. A little, small, book with a yellow cover and a strange title like: “the story of everything”, or something like this. I still have to figure out how can a story about everything fit in such a small book, but it seemed interesting… it certainly made me curious.
From time to time he would stop reading, write down some notes on a notebook on the table in front of him and take another long sip of tea.
Beside him there was an old, rusty, leather suitcase that he was always carrying with him.
He was a little bizzarre. And interesting.
Has it ever happened to you to find someone who catch your attention and you suddenly want to know him more? That happened to me. I wanted to know his name, and what he was writing down. But I didn’t wanted to ruin the silence around us.
I watched him writing on his notebook for some time. Then he suddenly stopped and raised his head towards me. An awkward moment broke between us, when we crossed our stares for a few seconds. Then he smiled.
I felt relieved. I tried to ease that moment by telling him that I was curious to know what he was writing.
He smiled at me and answered to me in a perfect British accent.
He was writing about the journey that brought him to this little café in the middle of the Italian Alps, in a city he didn’t even know before coming.
He told me that he was traveling. In the latest few years he never stopped traveling around the world, and he doesn’t have any plan to stop, either.
Traveling taught him to appreciate every moment. And he was inspired by this right moment where he could enjoy a cup of tea and feeling at peace.
“Every journey brings you to a destination. No matter what. You always end up somewhere.
My journey brought me here, and I’m happy to fully appreciate this moment.”
I was intrigued by this mysterious man. He invited me to join him at his table and he showed me his diary. He wrote about everything. The places he visited, the people he met. Good and bad things.
“Good things make you feel better, but bad things make you grow”.
He opened a pocket of the suitcase and he took some photos. Polaroids of his journey. He saved every moment.
Everything was special to him.
“… and what is your destination?” I asked him.
“I don’t have any” he answered.
He actually has to find his destination, yet. He was just traveling, asking questions to people he met, trying to find the right destination for him.
He told me he was a naïve. Someone that has to discover the world.
“And what about money?” I asked
“Money is not the problem” He just answered mysteriously.
He was a believer.
He didn’t believed in anything, yet he believed in everything: destiny, Karma, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hebraism and everything else.
He believed in humanity.
“I love people. These are the best, most fascinating, paradoxical and bizarre creatures I’ve ever met.”
We had a nice conversation together.
Before leaving, he just asked me if he could take a photo of me in this café to remember this moment. I gladly accepted.
He had a polaroid camera. He cracked a joke while I was posing for the photo and the flash froze me in this moment. I was laughing hard in front of the camera, He instantly showed me the result and I smiled. I had better pictures of me. But I guess it was the most spontaneous side of me.
“Time to go.” He paid my coffee, shaked my hand and he leaved the café.
“Wait!” I said. “I don’t even know your name!”
He didn’t answered but he searched something from a pocket inside his jacket and he gave it to me. “Goodbye!”
A white, blank business card.
Only a big black name in the middle, that said:
Mr Robinson.
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