the celestial dossier
In which strangers met by none other than peculiar kismet provide me guidance. I never forget anyone.
2/3/2025 11:14 am.
Part 1.
In Chronological Order
童诗茹 (J)—
I was working three jobs when I was nineteen.
Among those three had been at a Taiwanese tea shop, where mixing variations of drinks had inevitably become second nature. I met you here. You were twenty-five. You’d stuck out like a sore thumb, towering over the majority of the team. Your cheeks were always flushed, a pink so warm that it always seemed like you had gone running prior to clocking in. Your hair, a neatly trimmed bob that fell to your jaw, was jet black and shiny. You wore glasses and the same pair of lightwashed overalls every day that I saw you. The only slight alteration to your appearance would be the color of your sweater.
You spoke broken English, but it sufficed.
You were always smiling and remained soft—in nature and in voice, despite how cold our coworkers could be to you. The days we would work together, you’d at least speak to me, and we would share bits and pieces of our lives outside of the tea shop. You would ask me about my then-boyfriend, if he treated me well, and if he was handsome. You loved romance, always wanting the little details. I cherished these slow moments.
You came from Beijing a couple of years ago and have been living alone in California, bussing from city to city without family, without work, and without a home. You had savings in cash, but it had been stolen by the one person you knew, who was now nowhere to be seen. It was by chance that you found the shop, that an extra hand was needed, and that the owners spoke Mandarin. And so you worked, did what you could, and came in as often as possible.
Despite being met with unfriendliness and xenophobic attitudes, you always tried to help. And even throughout the occasional heatwave and the winter storms, you would decline every car ride I offered to you, and instead, would walk to and from the train station. From there, you would ride the free shuttle to the airport. I learned that this was where you slept.
Your source of food was at our shop and your means of communication was through the public computers at the local library. You would occasionally utilize the shower at the 24 Hour Fitness on the same street. You had nothing and yet asked for nothing. You offered only gestures and straightforward compliments to those who would give you their time in return.
You were so suspectingly intuitive, never failing to ask me if I had been struggling whenever you sensed I was not feeling complete. You would remind me to drink water, would suggest that I eat, would want me to take care of myself. Once, you’d foolishly even used a portion of your paycheck to buy me sunflowers. Don’t worry, you would say. I wondered if this was what you told yourself to get through. I always wondered what got you up in the morning. You said you’d rather live this way than return to Beijing.
I didn’t know it would be the last time when it was.
You’d stopped coming to work, and I stopped seeing you around the city. Many times before then I’d catch a glimpse of your bright yellow sweater and overalls at the train station, since I’d ride BART to school a few days a week, but at some point, even those moments disappeared. You’d given me your email once, and out of curiosity, I’d sent a message asking how you were. You replied a few days later, providing only that you were well and that you were happy to hear from me. The replies fell off afterward.
Parts of me had thought about if there was more that I could’ve done when I’d known you.
I can only hope that today, you are somewhere safe. Despite the hardships you never shared with others, you moved with grace and with this undeniable and inexplicable air of sincerity. You gave and gave and gave (sweetheart pastries, gifts, reassurance, time) and rejected anything I would offer you with a shake of the head. I was always curious about the way you lived. How someone could remain so tender within their circumstances was something that was hard for me to wrap my head around. You were so gentle while the world around you was anything but. Where everyone around us would express complaints over even the slightest of inconveniences, you shrugged, smiled, laughed. In the short span of time that I was adorned with your presence, I was moved.
Years later, I wrote a paper on learning how to have one’s voice heard. I detailed the impact of being met with communicative differences and feeling silenced, on persistence despite what is lost in between cultural barriers, and on the importance of a name. I thought of you as I wrote. This paper earned me the prize of a scholarship that would, four years down the line, end up paying for a portion of my tuition for a graduate program I would end up going to.
R—
You loved the Belgian waffles.
You would alternate between this and the eggs florentine every Sunday, seated at the bar a bit past noon, when the breakfast bustle had already died down. I’d be on my thirty whenever you came for your weekly fix. This was how we met.
You had been coming to this diner way before I had even started my weekend shifts. It was one of those classic, well-known, generational establishments; the kind with a consistent menu, the convenient location, and the same faces every week in their self-entitled chairs, present for decades.
You told me you’d loved one person your entire life, and that she had been taken by cancer in your early twenties, way before this restaurant had become one of your staples. You had no children, owned a tech services company, collected and fixed old clocks, and painted. You lived by the beach and invited me a few times, but I never came by. You had a big family, but you weren’t too close to them. All of your siblings were spread throughout the states.
The way you had become a frequent, yet subtle visitor in the background of my life happened seamlessly. You were always checking in to see how I was doing in my college courses, and if I’d like to catch up over a meal. You gifted me often, even when I told you not to: wristwatches, my first pair of tabis, an English translator to take to Japan. Even after I’d quit being a waitress, and even after I’d moved out of the country, you would check in. You’d buy me a coffee from the other side of the world, as I would occasionally notice transfers to my bank accompanied by brief messages—an Enjoy! or On me! The only thing you’d ever ask of me is to do well for myself.
With you, I learned how to simply say, “Thank you.”
The time spent was wholesome and sweet, and it always made me wonder if I reminded you of someone. I never asked. Kindness had many faces, anyway.
You passed away a few days before your birthday.
E—
I found you online.
Your passions were something I didn’t understand, but had a persistent curiosity in. I would read your work every week, and anticipated to see the content your wisdom would map out for the months to come.
You introduced me to an entire world unfamiliar and unimaginable. You read tarot, pulled cards every week, and provided guidance to a small audience. You were of mixed heritage, all light eyes and curly hair, olive-skinned, and living in Nigeria. Half-Filipina, I recognized.
After carefully reviewing your content for months, noting the accuracy of your predictions and the way you earnestly engaged with your followers, I felt that I could trust you.
I requested a couple of readings, interested to know if you would be able to perceive situations more clearly than I could, and with limited knowledge. I didn’t want to provide much to you, having hid behind layers of conditioned skepticism. Doubt is the man’s universal weakness; though can be combatted by hope. To be given some sense of clarity is what I chose to still hope for.
I gave you two names and asked about what I could expect.
Your voice was sensual and deep. You sent me lengthy paragraphs and an audio recording. Needless to say, you were the real deal. Illustrated in your response was a heavily accurate depiction of the two people, their relationship, the ways in which they met and connected, and your interpretation of the fate that lied ahead. You included even the most miniscule of details specific to each individual from their quirks and possessions to their habits and mannerisms, and with sole intuition, you provided clarity so profound and in-depth it left me speechless.
Thus began the beginning of my faith in what could be deemed the divine.
F—
There was blood on my pants and on my face, and all I wanted was to sleep. It was nearly six in the morning. The flight to Los Angeles would only take an hour and nine minutes. The flight to San Francisco would be roughly another hour and twenty. Until then, I’ll breathe. I’ll try to sleep. I’ll try not to replay every part of the hours leading up to this moment. I’ll try to ignore peering over at my phone, completely shattered from front to back. I’ll try not to hope that at some point it will light up anyway with a message that I know is impossible to come. I’ll subconsciously graze my fingers over the cracks. And then I’ll think of hands with fingers so long and so quick, and how I had loved them, and how they had touched me, and how they had the power to also—
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I blinked, looked up, and met curious eyes. The gaze reeked of sympathy. I knew I must have looked dreadful. Scary, even. I had not cared to wash up; partially because I had feared seeing myself. In the few minutes after the policemen’s departure, I’d packed my things, trashed a few items, wrote a small note to leave with sentimental trinkets I no longer wanted to carry, and a flight was booked.
“I’m sorry, you don’t need to tell me.” The voice continued. I guess I’d forgotten to respond. “Just know that you can, and I will listen.”
Call it vulnerability, desperation, or naivete. With you, I decided to put my trust.
I don’t remember how I’d shared the recollection of my night with you; if I had stayed in chronological order or if I’d directly catapulted into a stream of consciousness run-on sentence, branching off into relevant and yet haphazard commentary over realizations made as I shared. Surely it had been the latter. I don’t remember if I had cried next to you while speaking or if I had been crying the entire flight and had only been speaking between sobs. But I do remember what you said and how you spoke.
“Just to let you know, I will be interrupting you now and then just to remind you that none of this is your fault.”
And you did.
You spoke slowly and kept your voice calm. You told me that I was most likely still in a state of shock and adrenaline, and warned me that as time goes on, more emotions will settle in—that I will feel guilty, and ponder over what I could have done differently, and if it could have all been prevented, and that I will cycle through anger and anguish in the process of grief. You told me that it will be completely normal to feel these things, and that I had done the best that I could, and that that was more than good enough.
I learned that you were a professional trumpet player, flying back to Los Angeles after performing in the Austin symphony. Apparently one of your sisters was a licensed marriage and family therapist, and you’d picked up a lot of the terminology and counseling skills from her. I saw it in the way that you chose to communicate: in the silent moments of patience between my sentences, and in the receptivity of your comments. I felt more than listened to. I felt cared for.
You asked me if I was going to seek therapy.
I said it was expensive and that I was not currently working.
You countered me by saying you were in contact with a few women’s groups in the Bay Area, and that you could have someone contact me, free of charge.
I, then, told you about how I wouldn’t be in California for too long, as I was set to move out of the country in a month’s time.
When you asked me where I’d be going, I told you. I swore I saw you smirk.
“I’m in contact with organizations in Spain, as well. Specifically—in Barcelona.”
It was because of you, that I was emailed by a woman shortly after returning home. She introduced herself and mentioned that you were adamant about “this girl on the plane” needing her help. It was because of you, that I’d been given free counseling by a woman who welcomed me so warmly. I met with her several times before my move. It was because of you, that I was led to having a coffee with a professor from the University of Barcelona, who had conveniently been visiting San Francisco, and had offered to pick me up from the airport and take me to my accommodation upon my arrival in Spain.
It was because of you that I started to believe that everything is seemingly, somehow, always connected; that the world works in mysterious ways. With you, it became clear to me that intuition will guide us, as long as we allow it.
My grandma said I’d met an angel on the plane that day. I believe her.
Q—
On a sunny day in Sant Just Desvern, we painted side by side on the second floor of the studio in the home you built.
You didn’t know much English, and I didn’t know much Catalan, but we both knew of the magic that seeps out of colors tenderly smoothened onto a cotton canvas with flicks of the wrist.
Though many of our conversations were heavily carried through Google Translate, your words have stayed with me and continuously pester me about being an artist in any capacity, no matter what. You’d studied architecture and have had such an undeniable knack for interior design, making your living by constructing homes from scratch. And yet every day, you painted.
Your house was spacious, color scheme simplistic: hard maple and white oak wood, black furnace and decor, large ivory walls, emerald green for the bathroom tiles to match your many plants. Your furniture was meticulously chosen and specifically placed: the Herman Miller lounge chair and ottoman at your fireplace, your bicycle perpendicular to a wall primarily made of glass, a ladder to reach the second floor found in the bathroom. Your house was uniquely designed, unconventional and gorgeous, and entirely curated with your paintings.
You asked me if it was normal of me to get onto a stranger’s motorcycle; mentioning that I take risks, and I asked you if it was normal of you to offer strangers motorcycle rides. We both said no, shrugged, and sipped. For me, vermouth, for you, beer. You told me you were a pisces then, and we bonded over what we knew. Pisces are open-minded, you suggested. The English was impressive.
We talked of romance long gone, and of family, and of changing seasons. You told me that Winter felt heavier for you, and asked if seasons affected me, too. You said everything gets better in the Spring.
A newfound sense of confidence was instilled in me upon our brief meetings of art, gardening, and tapas. No matter the circumstance you’d found yourself in, you had always made your way through, and you had never let your passions escape you. Whether they guided you or provided comfort, you’d been able to embed your creative energy into the process of each endeavor needed to succeed in this world of societal inflictions. Art was your foundation. You would set up your paintings on the street. You brought a camera to events and sold your photos to the media. And then you started to build homes. You are like me. You will find a way.
X
Side notes—
I wanted to find a way to commemorate those who have changed me in some way; specifically the strangers who were present only briefly. There are a few people I chose to not include. (Maybe in another piece, a pt. 2.) I feared that writing about these encounters could come across as hard to believe; maybe “too coincidental” or “too detailed.”
None of it is fictitious, nor feigned. I believe we all have moments like this, or at least, are all able to receive such sentimentality. Look up. Smile at someone. See where it leads you.
I like to pay attention.