On a Bench in Florence

In the summer of 1988 I was living in New York City and had decided (several years prior, during a brief visit to Italy) that I wanted to live in Florence for an extended period after college. The time had come to make good on this promise to myself. I was working in my field and studying Italian in NYC, participating in language exchanges with native Italian speakers, who were attending a program at Columbia University. I met one, Yvonne, who was a blond model of Swiss origin, from the Italian speaking quarter of Ticino. We spoke regularly and she promised that if I went to visit or live in Italy that I should contact her once she was back home in Ticino, Switzerland. Months passed and she disappeared without a trace, leaving me with no contact details. I signed up for an Italian language program in Florence starting in January of '89. I’d be travelling alone. I didn’t know anyone in Florence, Italy. I had lived and studied in Paris in 1986, as an F.I.T. college exchange student, so I wanted to stop in Paris en route to Florence. I stayed with a friend, Robert, one night while in Paris. Then I boarded the train for the solo trip to Italy. Robert was the guest of an artist, Regis, whom I had never met. I only stayed one night in his home. When I arrived at La Scuola Lorenzo di Medici in Florence to register, the secretary announced to me that I had a message. “A message from whom?” I asked. “I don’t know anyone here.” “Apparently you do,” she replied, handing me a piece of paper with a women’s name and number on it. When I called the woman, Sandra, she said that she was a close friend of Regis, the master of the house where I had stayed in Paris as a guest for one night. She said, “Our trains and paths crossed. I arrived precisely the day after you left Paris.” They told me that 'this nice American girl' would be studying and living in Florence, so I wanted to invite you for dinner.” Two days later I then went to look for a place to live. I was temporarily staying in a bed and breakfast. With some leads from the language school secretary, I proceeded to the bus station to go check out one apartment. An elegant woman caught my eye. It wasn’t just her look, yet her mannerisms that seemed hauntingly familiar, despite her striking, jet black dyed hair. I could hardly believe it. I had to ask, “Yvonne, is that you?” She replied, “Oh no, what are you doing here?” It was that Swiss model that I had been doing language exchanges with in New York, whom I’d lost contact with and never thought I’d see again. And, she'd dyed her hair black. I then asked, “What are YOU doing here? Don’t you live in Switzerland?” She replied, “Yes, I do, yet I’m in Florence now on a modeling assignment for a few months. Do you have a place to stay?” The next thing I know I’m on a bus with her back to her flat, where she invites me to stay with her. Not even a week has past here in Florence and I have a new friend, Sandra, who is inviting me for dinner at her place every week and Yvonne, an old Swiss acquaintance, who is providing me with a place to stay until I find my own place here in Florence. What are the chances of running into a woman in this foreign country, at this precise time of day, at this one bus stop, on this one park bench? Recall that I’d met her in New York many months earlier. My entire sojourn in Florence was marked by these sort of outrageous coincidences, these 'interventions of grace'. My arrival and decision to stay and study there for months, now seems to be a fated chapter in my life that I was destined to fulfill.