THE SANTORINI SYNCHRONICITY

In the fall of 1979, I was traveling around the US. I was 25 years old and completely lost. My girlfriend back home had just left me for someone else, and I was miserable. We had been together for maybe six or seven years, and I had no idea how I would manage on my own. I didn't know how to sleep alone, and I didn't even know how to cook a meal for myself.

I met some nice people in San Francisco, and we rented a car to go to LA. It was Françoise from Canada, two Eng­lish guys, an Austrian guy (I can't remember their names), and Monika Hauri from Switzerland. Somehow Monika and I found each other, so when the group broke up in LA, Monika and I continued our journey together. I have vague memories of staying in Santa Monica for some time, but eventually we took a night flight to Mexico City. We drank lots of Tequila in the restaurants at the Plaza Garibaldi. Mariachi bands played in many of the restaurants, each playing different tunes at different tables and asking for tips. It was a fantastic racket. I also remember we always had to run across the street to escape all the mad taxi drivers.

Anyway, after some time, I told her I was going to Isla Mujeres – alone. I needed to think things over. A week or so later, she found me there, but I didn't want to continue our relationship. I was looking for adventure, and adventurers don't travel hand in hand with women. So I told her to fuck off and went to Guatemala.

After a few months, I was back in Stockholm, more miserable than ever. I didn't know what to do with my life. I didn't fit in anywhere. My friends had little home parties, and I was bored to death with all the coziness and their boring small talk.

In late September 1981, I had had enough and bought a one-way ticket to Greece. I had no plans for my trip, and I figured Greece could be a good place to start. The first thing that happened to me was that I caught a terrible flu. I was completely knocked out for a week, and after another week of recovery, I realized that Crete was not for me. Crete was for couples. They sat there in the taverns in silence, sipping their cocktails with tiny paper umbrellas as decoration. I was desperate. Where would I go now and why? Wouldn't it be the same thing wherever I went?

I checked out of my hotel room and went down to the harbor without any idea where I was heading. The next boat was to Santorini, so I took it, glad to leave Crete behind.

It was a horrible trip. The sea was rough, and people puked all over the place. We arrived in Santorini late at night, maybe 11:30 pm or so. The harbor was crowded, with a lot of hectic hustle and bustle. I put my backpack down and smoked a cigarette while trying to figure out where to stay at this late hour when a young boy came up to me.

" Hotel room, mister? Do you want a hotel room?"

He asked me to wait a moment after I said yes, then disappeared into the crowd. When he came back, he had a young woman with him.

Then we took a bus up to his parents' hotel. I fell in love immediately. She was so pretty and seemed so bright. I liked the way she talked; I liked everything about her. At the hotel, they made us a late dinner. Suddenly I was sitting there on the warm Mediterranean October night, with all its stars, chirping cicadas, a beautiful young woman with brown eyes across the table, and a bottle of wine to the moussaka. I thought I was dreaming.

We had some wonderful days and nights, and I was madly in love. One day I asked her what she did before coming to Santorini, and she told me she had stayed in Lucerne, Switzerland, for some time and worked as a waitress in a hotel there. Then I told her I knew someone from Lucerne, Monika Hauri. I can't find words for the fe­elings that came over me when she told me she knew her. She told me what had happened to Monika and that she was now happily married to a Canadian guy.

Then the love of my life suddenly left me, just like that. She ditched me. She had had enough of my neurotic negativity, and I was all alone again.

The next day I took a night boat back to Athens, and if I had been confused before, it was nothing compared to my confusion that night. I spent the whole night on the upper deck looking at the stars, the moon, and the endless dark sea. And the sea, the night sky, and my consciousness kind of merged into an extraordinary experience. I was all alone in the universe. I was feeling so alone. At the same time, I felt connected. We were all connec­ted in some strange way, through some kind of invisible web.

Well, long story short, I went to India. One day there in India, I bumped into Monika again. She wasn't particularly thrilled to see me, but we briefly talked in a chai shop in Pushkar. I told her I knew a little about what had happened to her, and I remember asking her if she didn't find the whole thing very strange. She couldn't see anything odd with people bumping into each other. She said, "It's natural to meet some people again if you're traveling along the same routes."

Eventually, I came back home to Stockholm, found myself a girlfriend, an apartment, and a job, and everything was alright for many years: pasta dinners, TV nights, and everything. This relationship also ended in a disaster. I've lived alone since then. And I am quite happy with this. I have finally learned how to live alone.

In July 2005, something interesting happened, though. I found a letter among my bills and junk mail when I retur­ned home from work. It said: Greetings! Do you remem­ber me? If yes, send me an email. It was from Doreen. I hadn't heard a word from her for almost 25 years, so I was, what should I say, a bit surprised.

I emailed her immediately, eager to know what had happened to her after leaving me in Santorini. And I had so many memory gaps to fill in. I have periodically expe­rienced many strange coincidences, but what happened to me in Santorini was the most peculiar. Isn't it weird that I fell in love with someone who knew Monika Hauri on another continent almost two years later? What is the probability of such a coincidence? And Doreen dumped me much in the same way as I had dumped Monika. Isn't it weird that I got paid back with the same currency?

I had thousands of questions I needed to discuss with her. Is it an angel that sometimes engages in the course of events and directs our steps, or is it something in our unconscious minds that creates the synchronicities? Are synchronicities some kind of guidance? Or is all this about synchronicities just an illusion? Billions of events take place in the world every second. Do we only notice the ones that stand out?

Doreen

Doreen

Me

Monika