Synchronicity in the Harbor of Grace — Guest Blogger: Judy
Sometimes the universe conspires to meet our desires.
With typical foresight, weeks before the pilgrimage, Denis reserved two nights for us in the Old Chesapeake Hotel. All the other B&Bs were booked due to Memorial Day weekend, so he found an extended stay suite with full kitchen, a den, living room, dining room, and huge bedroom–way too much space for two people–but the generous owner knocked down the price to support the Walk.When I walk in, I exclaim, “We ought to be having a dinner party.”
After settling in, we wonder the quaint riverside town full of antique stores, 
small restaurants, and historic brick buildings and end up at a local wine bar before dinner. A resident couple notices Denis’s Walking With Nathaniel cap, and we start a conversation. By the end of it, they have invited us to a music gig at the Laurrapin Grille on Saturday and have recommended Price’s seafood — the local favorite where you order your steamed crabs in advance. Sounds like our kind of place.
We head to Price’s to make our reservation for Saturday, and outside the restaurant, I notice three heavily loaded road bikes, reminding me of our two-month biking adventure in France 31 years ago. As we book our table for Saturday night (afternoon, actually; the only time available is 4:30), I tell the waitress about Denis’s pilgrimage. Her face lights up and she says, “Well, you need to talk to these guys…” gesturing to three young men at a table covered in brown paper and the remnants of a pile of steamed crabs. They are the owners of the bikes.
Stephan, Danny, and Dave are en route from Manhattan to D.C. where Danny will continue cross-county to San Francisco to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. Coincidence? We exchange cards, and when we realize they have yet to find a campsite for the night–they have already biked over 65 miles, and it is 8:00 at night–my dinner party materializes. We invite them to spend the night at our palatial suite, and they politely decline, planning to hunt first for a campsite.
Back at the apartment, while Denis is making an online contribution to Danny’s website for MS, they call to take us up on our offer, and we spend a terrific evening sharing our stories over a bottle of Pinot Noir that they have brought for us, along with a gift certificate to Price’s. Denis shares fund raising tips with Danny, we share stories about our bike trip in France, and we admire their hi-tech biking gear; our crossed paths seem so right.
After they set out this morning on their last leg to DC, Denis and I have a sumptuous breakfast at the Tidewater Grille where our waitress, Windy, tells us she is a massage therapist and NLP practitioner interested in brain patterning. She takes a card and promises to make a contribution.
Bright sun and strong wind accompany our walk through town where we buy an antique chestnut bench for our living room, two basil plants and a dozen eggs at the farmer’s market, and adorable felt slippers for Zoe Feierman from Ellie at the fair trade boutique — who snaps our photo for her website.
Our experience in the Harbor of Grace matches its name: we are in the right spot, at the right time, meeting just the people we should be meeting. Perhaps this is true every day of our lives, if we can be awake to the opportunities that surround us.
