With around 8 billion people currently, how is it that it feels like such a small world sometimes? But it does- we bump into each other after years, or meet mutual friends in far flung places. It’s like each of us has a circle of people in our lives and all of these circles overlap into the hugest Venn diagram of humanity. I love these stories and want to hear yours!
The way this will work is when a story is written that you are in, you are invited to tell your own small world story with whoever you want in it. (Maybe leave last names out so nobody has to play if they don’t want to.) Then, if you have a way of contacting that person who was in your small world story, they are welcome to add a story, too.
I’d love to figure out a way to make it searchable or cataloged so that “Kati from Albuquerque” could be cross referenced with “Kati from Sellwood,” but maybe I’ll figure that part out. This will be a fun work in progress!
When you have a story, please send it and any photos or art that you want included to: gazinjeanlea@gmail.com
Then send a link of your story and this site to someone from your small world encounter and we can all share some good stories!
Let’s agree that this is for fun and to keep the small world stories PG rated, nothing too incriminating since some of us aren’t as wild and crazy as we maybe used to be. If someone wants a story or identifying information that they are in to be removed, I absolutely honor everyone’s right to privacy. And let’s keep it to true stories, since life can truly be stranger than fiction sometimes.
6 degrees of separation
Maybe you have heard the idea that we are only 6 people away from one another, but if we took the time to figure out who and what we have in common I think that we would discover that really we are all much more closely connected. Across time and space, our paths cross & re-cross…
Here is a first small world story to get the ball rolling- I name dropped more times than necessary to spread the love a little and illustrate how easy this is. A simple story- a whole world of people and lives crossing and re-crossing!
Jean Lea’s story about Kati – Albuquerque to Sellwood
Picture the first day of high school, a new school after moving from the other side of town- Richmond, Virginia- walking into a huge commons area at lunch without knowing anyone. The first table had an empty seat and I asked if I could sit there, desperate to not have to wander deeper into that sea of kids, and that was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted all this time. Kristen was also new at the school, sitting there with her brother. Turns out other new kids have the same instinct- Carter also wound up at that table, another new 9th grader, and although he has changed dimensions already he lives on in a million small world & big personality stories.
Back to Kristen- she and I have had so many adventures, including but not limited to driving to Graceland, bringing trans sex workers home to hang out (I lived in a rough part of town and took the bus, the workers on the corner often offered to walk me to my apartment at night), an awful historical theater production, raising alley cats, and enjoying beach time in the middle of the Pacific. However, this small world story is about her cousin, Kati, who I must have met sometime in high school.
After high school, I was waiting tables in Richmond Virginia, maybe in 1994, making money but sensing change in my life was imminent when I dropped a tray of 5 margaritas on a table- glass and drinks and upset people- and I just froze. I had been working enough that my wrist had just collapsed and it felt like this epiphany that now was a good time time to do something else… I didn’t stop to apologize to the people or clean the table, co-workers jumped in and did that. I walked to the back and put my two weeks notice in the schedule, took a deep breath, and finished my shift, then finished my two weeks, and left.
I had a friend, Ethan, who would be driving to Santa Fe and I asked if I could catch a ride. I had never been out west and had saved enough money from slinging all those margaritas that I could go have an adventure. Kristen mentioned that her cousin Kati lived in Albuquerque and I should go stay with her. I got out there just in time to join Kati as she was headed into the desert for a psychedelic canyon experience, complete with wise elders, cops, and a helicopter spotlighting us on top of a mesa. Whoa.
Life goes on, I lived all over the world, Kati spent a long time in Hawaii, and we weren’t really in touch except for updates through Kristen or social media. I lived in Portland, Oregon, for 18 years, leaving in 2021. When we left, we rented our Portland home out to a super sweet family, they even took care of our chickens! I’m sure the magical matriarch of that lovely group of humans, Hilary, has a gazillion small world stories since she is Fair family and knows everyone.
Anyway, Kati moved to Portland in 2020 to be closer to OHSU, the huge research hospital, for treatment. Somehow in all of the world, she wound up talking to Hilary, who works at OHSU, and making the connection that they somehow both knew me. Kati now lives in our old Portland neighborhood, Sellwood, right down the street from our old house and I get updates about the neighborhood.
************************************
So now I will share this with Kristen, Kati, and Hilary ask if any of them have a totally unrelated small world story to share, and they will have the opportunity to tell a story and then reach out to any characters from it…
and we’ll figure out how to make it searchable and more user friendly as it goes on!
***************************************
Kati’s story about lots of people all over the place, but especially Jake and Mary, Maui and Sellwood
In 1993 I met Jake, moved from Philly to New Mexico, he had been a student at U Arts in Philadelphia, it’s relevant. So about two weeks after moving to NM I was in Blockbuster and ran into a friend from U Arts we had no idea he moved there vice versa. (Eric Stuben, we’re still friends, he lives in the Dominican Republic)
Jean Lea came and stayed with us around that time, we went to play in a canyon in moonlight, then we randomly bumped into her at the Aspen reggae fest a few months later.Fast forward we moved to Everett, Washington, a block from where my father had originally moved to when he came to the United States, we had no idea! We then moved to Seattle, I worked at Pyramid Brewing Company, at one point Jake and I split and I went back to Philly for 6 months. That’s a whole book lol. I worked at Cherry St Brewery in Philly at that time. I eventually went back to Seattle to Pyramid, then we decided to go back east to NJ. My last shift at Pyramid I looked up and saw my bar manager from Cherry St Brewery in Philly was standing there, he had just moved and was my replacement! Jake and I decided to actually move to Corvallis, Oregon, to obtain residency so I could go to Oregon State University vet program, we had a plan. Than some wild lady im’d me on aol next thing I knew I moved to Maui!
One of my first and still closest real friends on Maui was a woman named Mary! We met because her dog pooch had a megaesophagus (poor thing!) and she needed help with his feeding and medications. Jake and I had three good friends who all were at U Arts when he was there, who all call Maui home and we are all in touch.
Mary helped me leave Jake and gave me her ohana (guest house), she walked me through my departure from vet medicine, got me an amazing job at the Five Palms where I met James.
James, who had moved from Corvallis to Maui the second week in July of 2004 when I did.
James, who lived on 33d when I lived on 31st in West Seattle.
James, who was the kitchen manager when I was a bartender at Pyramid in Seattle. Our paths have been crossing our whole lives.
When I moved out of Mary’s ohana her bff from childhood, Beth, was moving in. Fast forward to August of 2023, the horrific Lahaina fires, and Mary took in my cousin Kristen, which I’ll be forever humbled and grateful for. Then in January 2024, James and I needed a new home in Portland, Oregon, and Beth, who I mentioned above, opened her ohana to us. I now live in Sellwood, a few blocks from where Jean Lea raised her beautiful family, next door to Mary’s mom, with an old Maui friend behind us. Beth is my landlady.
Maybe it’s full circle. I just know I wouldn’t be who I am if it wasn’t for all of the amazing humans around me. Thank you all for being a magical part of my life.
************************************
So now, Kati can send this to friends mentioned in her story and ask if any of them have a totally unrelated small world story to share, and they will have the opportunity to tell a story and then reach out to any characters from it…
Small World 