six degrees

It all started with one of C's stories, one of the long and rambling ones, where I sit there and think to myself, "How on earth did she get onto -that- topic?" and tilt my head and stare at her bemusedly until she stops and says, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Do you remember my friend Elizabeth?" she asked, "The one who was supposed to take her comps next week at the same time I do?" I nodded absently. I've never met Elizabeth.

"She had to move it up a week," rambled C, embarking on what I assumed to be some comp exam horror story as I stood leaning against her doorway. "Her family is coming into town or something... I think it's some kind of emergency. So she's taking her exams this week."

As I sat there and tried to figure out what relevance this tale had to me, she began an adept transition to what seemed to be a completely unrelated topic. "She's in my class at school, and she's been putting off presenting all semester, and so she had to present today, during her comps! She came up to campus."

At this point, I think I started nodding off, but the conversation continued.

"...Guess where she's doing her research!" C concluded, after a while.

I shrugged absently. "I don't know, where?"

"Guess!"

"I hate guessing."

"Guess!"

"No! Just tell me!" I answered, annoyed. I'm awful at guessing games.

"What small town in South Texas do you know?"

"I know five million towns in South Texas," I replied. It's a slight exaggeration, but I grew up in South Texas.

"No, no, what small town in South Texas do you know pretty well? You've spent several nights there!"

Up until that point, I was convinced she was talking about Weslaco. We went there with my dad last year over winter break.

"Corpus Christi?" I asked lamely.

"No, what -other- small town do you know?"

"Ramirez?" I asked half-heartedly. Ramirez is a tiny town in Duval County, where my mom's boyfriend grew up. His family owns a ranch out there, and we've been out there several times, including for the last few New Years Eves. It's nice out there, and the ranch has a grove of orange trees that bear the sweetest, juiciest fruit around Christmas time.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, very pleased with herself.

And then another rambling story.

"... She's researching migrant workers ... researched in Mexico ... festival ... statue nearby of San Isidro..."

"San Isidro? Isn't he the patron saint of rainfall or something?"

(For the record, I don't normally keep track of patron saints. The only reason I know of San Isidro is that my mom asked me to keep an eye out for a saint candle of San Isidro, to burn for rainfall. This was a couple of years ago, during a major drought. It's been a fairly wet year this year -- no need for San Isidro right now.)

"Farmers," C corrected me. "And harvests and fertility or something. But she's going to Ramirez to do some preliminary research."

At that point, I made her pause her story, and I went to go call my mom. My mom knows about San Isidro, after all, and I figured she'd think it was interesting.

It was 9:10pm, and my mom wasn't answering her phone. I figured she was asleep.

Sure enough, she called me back early this afternoon.

"Did you call me last night?" my mom asked me.

"Yeah, I did!"

"Did you mean to call me?"

"Well, yeah... it was only 9:10 -- I thought you might still be awake."

She had been asleep.

So I start telling her the story of Elizabeth and San Isidro and Ramirez, TX, and she got really excited.

"You know who would know more about that, is Leo," she told me. Leo is her boyfriend's older brother. "He's always been in touch with the community. Let me give him a call and see if he'd be willing to talk to that student."

A few minutes later, she left a message on my voice mail. "Leo wants to talk to that student, and his wife knows a lot about the tradition, too, and they know other people..."

Rock.

So Elizabeth, who I've never met, is off stressing over her comp exams, and doesn't even -know- that I've set up the social networking necessary for her to start her research in the middle of nowhere in South Texas. And all this is possible only because one person, a Romanian in one of her classes, has been to Ramirez, of all places, and recognized the name when she heard it.

It's all serendipity, I think, and the power of the six degrees of separation.

And, as C says, that was my story.