hitchhiker

I went to Gananoque on the way home Sunday,  to check out the cabins I have rented for my extended family over Thanksgiving weekend. Just back on the 401, I picked up a hitchhiker. I noticed him as he crossed a barrier from the ramp to the 1000 Islands, in order to join up with the 401.  He was still heading for a place where he could stick out his thumb for an eastbound ride, and I would not have been sure he was headed my way except that I could make out a cardboard sign that said Ottawa. From a distance I had thought he was a college student, but it turns out he is 33.  Francophone from Quebec City.  He has spent the past 11 years hitchhiking around North America, picking up work to eat now and then, reading.  Reading.  Reading.  He dropped out of highschool at age 16.  Now his favourite stuff is archeology, anthropology, theology and classic literature.  He was 200 pages into the 1986, The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho (a rewalking of the pilgrmage of Saint James of Compostella). He called himself a 'traveler' and referred to others like himself with whom he keeps in touch via the internet, which he uses in public and university libraries.  He was well acquainted with internet ride and service notice boards.  This winter he is planning to make his home base the make shift cabin of friends of his who have poached land in a little woods at the University of Guelph.  And in February he has his first trip outside of North America planned:  Peru with a group that sounded quite like Habitat for Humanity. He said he had just been dropped off by a Hindu man and they had spent the previous 4 hours discussing the teachings of Sai Baba (born 1926) who I quite like as well... though I know relatively little about him. When I dropped him off at his downtown Ottawa destination he expressed humble gratitude.  Sincere.  And yet I wonder at what level he understood that his company was a gift to me?  I suspect he knew.  Just before I picked him up I got frustrated and fussed at Tim Hortons.  Unlike me to be agitated over mundane issues.  But I kid you not, every imaginable trick of line ups, burned toast and neglect, conspired against ME in the Tim Hortons.  And only ME, to the point that other customers noticed "are you still waiting for your sandwich?".  I found myself inwardly surly as I left... again quite unusual for me. And then, when I dropped off the hitchhiker it suddenly struck me:  the universe itself had conspired to hold me back in that Tim Hortons as the universe itself had a specific purpose ... and only if I were delayed a few minutes, would I cross paths with the hitchhiker. He was a bit smelly, but a lovely soul, a fellow traveler. And a beautiful gift to me.  Ah... 'magical thinking'.  Don't let it frighten you. My intellect hovers vigilant, though I allow the universe itself, to speak to me.