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A Love Story
Monday, 1 Feb 2010
Matters of the heart often have a mind of their own. For many, finding love is one of those serendipitous affairs that simply couldn’t have been forecast, project managed or scheduled on a To Do list. Two years ago, former South Australian Colleen Peirce fell accidentally in love and is still happily reeling from the chance events that led to the love of her life.
Words by Colleen Peirce
It was 10pm and I was standing on a corner in Adelaide’s CBD with a bunch of flowers in one hand and a shopping bag of mangoes in the other, waiting for the traffic lights to change.
Little did I know that it wasn’t the only change about to take place: my life was about to be transformed forever.
Beside me stood a tall man with long curly hair and a camera slung around his neck. With my curiosity sparked, I asked whether he’d taken any interesting shots of Adelaide, to which he replied, "No!"
The lights changed and I stepped onto the road and into a conversation with a man who spoke openly and honestly. As we walked in the direction of my bus stop, he introduced himself as Mario, revealed he was from Hamburg in Germany and travelling around Australia. The conversation was intriguing and I appreciated his unguarded manner and the easy way we spoke about his adventures. Our chance meeting reminded me of the amazing affect such lucky encounters had had on my own travels: the freedom of the open road before me inviting soul connections to happen along the way.
It was unusual for me to be catching a bus that night. I usually got around by bike, and on the occasions I didn't pedal through town I would take a train home. For some reason I’d decided to head towards the bus stop. We stood talking until my bus arrived, then I wished him good luck on his travels around Oz and turned to join the other night commuters shuffling onto the bus.
"It's a shame you don't have time for a drink," he ventured. It took only a few seconds for me to reconsider going home – it simply seemed to be one of those opportunities I shouldn't pass by. Mario struck me as a man of genuine integrity and I was intrigued to see what else our conversation might reveal. "I can take the last bus home," I offered. The last bus came and went and before a taxi delivered me home sometime in the early morning, I suggested that we catch up again on the weekend.
Even though we had connected, I understood the impracticalities of making plans when you're on the road, so I was genuinely surprised to hear his voice again on the telephone. We arranged to meet and spent the most wonderful summer's day together before he had to catch a train across the Nullabor Plains, an arid stretch of land between South Australia and Western Australia. Though sad to see him go, I felt fortunate to have spent a short amount of time with him.
Fortunes continued to go our way, when an opportunity to dive with Great White Sharks brought Mario back to South Australia. Seeing him again reinforced within me what an extraordinary man he was. Yet it was to be his last night in Australia. Mario was scheduled to fly home to Hamburg the following day, ending our fledgling romance. We talked through the night until the sun came up and when the taxi arrived to take him to the airport I couldn't help but jump in too, just to extend our time together by a few more hours.
On the way to the airport Mario turned to me and asked if I would like to see him again. "Of course," I replied, wondering how it was going to be possible. He suggested changing his onward journey ticket so we could spend another week together. Needless to say, I quickly agreed.
By the end of that dream-like week, we had made plans for my trip to Germany to see how things might go. It was an easy decision. I knew in my heart that Mario was THE man I had secretly conjured in my heart. It was obvious to me that I had been waiting for him my whole life.
I've been in Hamburg for two years now, living in a fairytale, swimming in unfathomable depths of happiness and still bewildered about how it all came to be!
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