Just Say Yes
Welcome back to Wandering Wednesdays!
This week, I'd love to share a true story from my travels this summer… a magical one that never would have happened had I not been embracing the ideology of simply saying yes - endeavoring to be the most agreeable opportunist and eliminating no from my vocabulary entirely.
This instance of travel magic unfolded just a couple weeks ago during my time in Croatia. A series of serendipitous events led me back to a friend that I had met days prior on the island of Hvar. Flash forward several days after meeting, we found ourselves arriving back to mainland (in Dubrovnik) on the very same ferry.
After this wildly small world moment, we decided to do a Game of Thrones walking tour together… and during the meal we shared at the tour's conclusion, he told me about how his mom had traveled to this very city 55 years prior. He then showed me the faded photograph she had sent him from her time there.
It was taken outside the old city walls, from a local's garden - a local who had taken her into her home for the night. It was a memorable act of kindness and hospitality, and so she had written the generous woman's name underneath the photo in her scrapbook of the trip. After several drinks, my friend proclaimed that he wanted to try and find this place to recreate the photo for his mom - which is when he asked me to join.
Truth be told, I love a good side quest, especially a sentimental one with such a beautiful backstory… but I also saw this as a perfect opportunity to exercise my just say yes philosophy. So even though he insisted I didn't have to join and that he didn't want to hijack my night in Dubrovnik, I happily agreed… and so we ventured off.
We headed outside the city walls, and were using the landmarks in the photo to guide us. The cathedral, and where it was positioned, was one major clue. The other clue was the cable car lines that thankfully still exist nearly six decades later.
So by this time, it's about 1030 at night, and we're meandering around the local city with no clue where we are and just a hope and a prayer that if we look hard enough, we'll find it by the grace of luck and determination. As we're walking through this neighborhood in the darkness, we started to get closer and closer.
At a few different points, we were confused, not sure we were on the right track… but then we checked the photo again and thought - we're getting very, very close. We reached a gate where there was a small pathway leading down past someone's garden, and we decided that it was a moment in which we could ask for forgiveness instead of permission, and headed down it.
As we got about halfway down the path, we turned and looked out over the horizon towards the old town and noticed that the duomo was exactly where it was in the photo - and so were the cable car lines just to our left.
We looked at each other, unsure and excited that we may have just found it… when a man spoke from behind us and said, “excuse me, can I help you?” In broken English, he asked us what we were doing. So my friend quickly pulled up the photo that his mom had sent him, and explained the mission that we were on.
The Croatian man quickly ran inside and grabbed his wife, who came outside and looked at the photo… then looked up at us with wide eyes, and said, “that woman (who’s name was written beneath the photo) is my mom. This photo was taken at my house.”
We had not only found the correct house (and the exact view from the photo), but we had found the descendant of the woman who took his mom into her home nearly six decades prior. Unfortunately, her mother had passed away about 17 years ago, but nonetheless it was the most profound and beautiful moment for us all.
And her daughter, who still lives there now, was so excited to talk to us about this unbelievably small world moment and also to share in the way that my friend’s mom had spoken so fondly of her mom.
It connected us all in that instant, and when we walked back to the old town after chatting with them, we were both in awe of how small the world can be… and how magical things are when you just dare to try.
And I couldn't help but think - I wouldn't have experienced any of this had I not bumped into this friend at the ferry port, and had I not just said yes to venturing off into the Croatian night with him on a possibly questionable, but truly epic side quest…
It was magic I would have never experienced had I not been willing to say yes.
So trust me when I say that the stories that you'll have at the end of your life all hinge on your willingness to be agreeable, to say yes, and to take adventures that may not have been a part of your original plan… but will likely end up even better than you could have imagined.
xoxo - kell
