To Those I've Met Along My Way

By the time I moved to Eugene, Oregon in 2005, I had lived in England, Italy and various places around the San Francisco Bay Area. I was only 19, but I considered myself well-adjusted and able to turn just about anywhere into “home.” But Eugene was different. Eugene was dark and cold and unwelcoming. I had never felt so lonely.

I found the move especially jarring because of how different Eugene was when compared with everywhere else I had lived, especially the Bay Area. While living in California, I would often take the train to San Francisco and spend hours wandering aimlessly around the dirty streets of Haight Ashbury and the Mission district, meeting interesting characters and sharing experiences. Most of the people I met were just tired of being shunned by the world and needed someone to reach out to them and listen to their stories. Once I became that person, I knew they wouldn't harm me. In turn, each and every one of them taught me valuable lessons that I will remember for the rest of my life.

People travel in and out of our lives, yet sometimes it is those we only meet for an instant who can truly change us. The way we treat other people, even total strangers, can have a lasting impact on both their lives and on our own.

It had been more than a year since my move to Eugene - a place in which I had originally thought that I would meet an abundance of new people and have the sociable “college experience” - before a stranger acknowledged me: a man who needed human contact just as much as I did.

I was walking home from school on a cold October morning when I saw him: a Native American man, probably in his late-thirties, with long hair tied in a ponytail and dirt stains on his clothes. He was leaning against a newspaper stand on the busy street corner.

“Hello,” he said, immediately making eye-contact. His soft, friendly eyes were surrounded by harsh wrinkles.

I greeted him back and he asked my name, to which I replied “Jessica. What’s yours?”

He looked stunned for a second, then reached into the chest pocket of his tattered jean jacket, pulling out a long silver chain. As I looked closer, I saw a pendant attached: a small silver horse with its legs outstretched, as if it was running to get away, no more than a quarter of an inch in size.

“Since I moved to this town, no one has told me their name,” he said. “I’m White Crane. Please take this. I want to thank you.”

I shook my head, uncomfortable taking jewelry from a stranger, but he reassured me.

“I want you to have this as an exchange for friendship,” he said. “The next time you see me, just say hello. It’s lonely when no one says hello.”

He held the necklace towards me and dropped it in my outstretched palm.

I carefully tucked it into my pocket as we continued to talk. He told me about his tattoos and his mother, and before we parted ways, he told me that he would do anything to protect his friends.

I never saw him again, but I will never forget him. For the first time since I moved, I didn’t feel lonely any more.

Many people have touched my life along the way, and while I probably wouldn’t recognize them if I passed them on the street today, the lessons they taught me will stay with me forever.

During my high school years, a homeless man approached me outside Amoeba Records on Haight St. He told me about his life and asked if he could recite a poem that he had written himself but never before shared; a beautiful poem about how everyone has an angel in this world. From him, I learned that everyone has an important story to tell, and I was motivated to become a journalist so that I could tell those stories for people whose voices would otherwise go unheard.

When I was eighteen, I met a 30-year-old musician on an hour-long train ride. He told me he sensed a sadness within and said that in order for me to be truly happy, I needed to make a drastic change in my life. He played me the most beautiful music on his Discman, filled with love and passion, then told me that the singer grew increasingly paranoid and jealous, eventually killing his wife. Two days later, I found the courage to finally leave my abusive boyfriend.

The influence we have on others is undeniably strong. Lives can be changed forever by our interactions with the people that we meet along the way. These people came into my life for just a moment, a brief flash before they were gone, yet I will never forget them. They have helped to make me the woman I am today.

As I write this, sitting at my cluttered desk in Eugene more than a year after meeting White Crane, the horse necklace hangs on the wall above me, a constant reminder to have faith in myself and in others. One day, when I am ready, I hope to pass it on to someone else: someone who needs it just as strongly as I did on the day I met White Crane.