my friend leila

so i seem to be making a tradition of posting blogs of those people who are close to me, on their birthdays...if that sentence made ANY sense, good. today's candidate: leila.

so, i'll start from the beginning. back when i was young and naive...ooh...20 years old i think. the summer of 2004. i was gearing up to go the world peace programme. they attempted to connect participants as they arrived in so that they could travel to the school together. i was told that i would meet someone named leila, and another girl named hoda.

step one...arrive in prague. walk through all the check points and come out to the visitors greeting area and my eyes immediately go to this hippy little girl sort of bouncing their expectantly. she runs up to greet me (and me being the loser i am) simply stick out my hand in greeting. "oh, hi, nice to meet you"..."i'm geoffrey"..."my name's leila". she had a think belgian accent. so, its my first time out of the country, but she is a world travelor. i'm uncertain about what to do, and she was wanting us to both make decisions about how to proceed from the airport, to the busy station, to the train station, which would then take us to the town we needed to go.

bus tickets, no problem. ok, so now we get to the train station...i'm doing my best to blend, try to notice the little czech i learned before coming... now we are supposed to take the green line. so, we look for the green line. i thought well, the names of the lines should be color coordinated with the trains themselves...so here comes a train, has green, but looks like its all wrong. we stand, or rather, i stand their waffling for minutes on end, when leila finally saves the day laughing at my color coordination theory. we have to later on connect to another line, but we get on the train and pass the time with small talk. she is instantly cool, calm, relaxed, happy with life and comfortable with herself - so, so opposite with me. we connect to the next line, meet up with hoda (from finland) and take the train for to the town. the rest of the trip passed uneventfullly, we may have fallen asleep, it was a good couple of hours. but that initially traveling buddies connection really blossomed in to one of the best friends i've ever had and still have. we spent the next couple of summers together again at the programme - oh, and i can't leave out nadim, without him we wouldn't have been the beautiful trio that we were.

leila is kind, sweet, funny, open, witty, full of energy - and just emmanates this quality of softness that brings people in. we taught each other songs, shared games, loved children and had such great conversations passing time walking around townshend.

she is one of the few, few people that i've shared all my poetry with - that took it in, digested it, and related. she knew exactly the right things to say.

i do wish often that leila and nadim could simply join me here. hopefully some day in the future it may happen.

until then, happy birthday mon ami.