Friday, Apr 15, 2016

Happy Friday! I can’t believe another week has gone by. They go too fast for my liking.

I had a strange thing happen this morning. When Easton and I walk in the mornings to meet our workout group, we pass a house where we have seen a guy doing exercises outside in front. On these days we have said Buenos Dias to each other as we pass. Once I saw him, his wife, and two kids walking on the malecon.

On the way back from working out today, I passed this guy’s house and I started to think about something. I had a guy make a comment on my blog that I found encouraging. I looked the guy up on Facebook (FB) and from what I saw, I liked what he was about so I asked to be his friend. He accepted.

I really don’t like FB but I have found it necessary since I have become a Life Coach. I still rarely actively go looking to friend anyone, and as a rule I do not friend people I don’t know. The belief I live in is that friendships mean something, and to keep them meaningful for me, they require intention, a certain amount of energy, and an investment in time. So I am not interested in my friend count on FB; I’m interested in who my friends are as human beings when we are face to face. But I diverged. Back to my story.

So as Easton and I are passing this house, I am thinking the guy who lives there looks a lot like the guy I just friended on FB. The guy on FB had pictures of his family, and they could have been the same age as the family I saw on the malecon with the guy who lives in this house.

In the middle of my thought, Easton says, “Oh hey dad, do you remember a guy named Carlos commenting on your blog? I was walking by this house yesterday and the guy living here asked me if my dad is Todd. He’s Carlos.”

I had a triple-whammy of universal connectedness. First, that Carlos found my blog, commented on it, and lives around the corner from where I am living. Second, that I asked to be his friend on FB which is out of my norm. Third, that I was in the midst of a thought that the guy I’ve passed here reminds me of Carlos on FB, and then Easton interrupts that thought to tell me it is Carlos.

Anyway, a hand clap to the Universe showing me how close we exist in relation to one another…and a shout out to Carlos! I’m looking forward to having a face to face conversation with you.

I learned something in Spanish today that is going to affect my usual “Chao” sign off. When I first started taking Spanish lessons here I was taught that most people in Ecuador will say Chao and not Adios when they part company.

The reason, I was told, was that Adios is used more when someone parts company angry. So being the good student I am, I choose to use the word Chao when speaking and writing…but I initially was going to spell it as “Ciao”. Remembering however that “Ciao” is how it is spelled in Italian, I looked up Ciao in Spanish. My translator spelled it “Chao”.

Today in class I came across Chao spelled as “Chau”. I asked about it, and learned that in Latin America and Ecuador, goodbye is spelled “Chau”. All my other posts have ended with Chao, and today I begin doing it differently.

Whether it is Ciao, Chao, or Chau, what really matters is the feel of living here. Ecuador has many beautiful, carefree moments and I will leave you with one of mine…20160407_162249

Chau.