My Evening With Robert Redford

The ice-cold evening froze my feet as I was making my way to my 7:00pm appointment. 

The grass was stiffened with snow bursts on it. 

It was chilly. 

A December night that sounded quiet as I walked from my hotel room to the spa within the property. 

We had never been to Santa Fe New Mexico before. 

The hotel was situated just 20 minutes outside the city. 

The glacial like air I was breathing in my short walk to the spa nearly made me want to turn around and go back to my room.

I persisted with my head down walking up to the main desk to check in. 

Two smiles greeted me as if they were happy to see me. 

I smiled not baring my teeth. 

Making small talk about the weather. 

And how dark the night seemed away from all the city lights. 

They walked me to the changing room and showed me where I should go and sit after I changed. 

They pointed me towards a warm lit room with a golden fireplace, and medium size chairs all around it. 

I thanked them and proceeded to put all of my belongings inside the locker, including my phone. 

I grabbed my key and put it inside my robe pocket. 

And started to make my way towards the fireplace room to wait until someone would come and get me for the massage. 

I gently opened the door and as I looked up I saw one man sitting there.

It took me less than a second to recognize who he was. 

Robert Redford himself. 

He looked up to see me, and I think he knew, I knew. 

He was the only person in the room. 

I made a split second decision and walked towards him and sat on the chair right next to him. 

Leaving all the many chairs around us empty. 

I sat there sinking into my big robe.

No makeup, no eye shadow and my uncombed hair in a ponytail. 

Unprepared, underdressed to say the least. 

It was the most loud silence I ever heard.  

This was not like running into a famous person in the streets and asking for a photograph. This was something else. 

What forces could have orchestrated such a meeting.

We must have sat there in silence next to each other for possibly 5 to 10 min. 

Towards the end I started to doubt the experience. 

Maybe this is not Robert Redford I told myself. 

Maybe a lookalike. 

In that moment of doubt the door opened and two women walked in. 

One stood in front of me and the other infront of him. 

One said Ms Rasmussen and the other said Mr Redford. 

We both got up together. 

I followed the woman who said my name and he followed his. 

We turned left, they turned right. 

And that was it. I was back in my own life. 

I learned something that day. 

You can be inside an ordinary day, feeling as if the whole world is on your shoulders and something deeply extraordinary can happen. (Click to tweet!)

Something you could have never expected or imagined. 

The moments I spent sitting in silence next to Robert Redford felt like someone else’s life. 

But yet I knew it was my own. 

Incredibly unlikely, impossibly true. 

As we are traveling towards a new decade I want to remind you that at any point, and at any moment in time you can walk inside an extraordinary experience. 

As I got back to the changing room picked up my belongings and made my way out into the icy night, somehow I could no longer feel the cold. 

My feet did not stumble upon the frozen grass but instead a dark night full of stars. 

Smiling by myself walking back to my room, excited to tell my girls about what had just happened. 

And when I did the girls responded with “Mommy who is Robert Redford?” 

And I just laughed out loud, knowing this was the perfect ending to an evening I was never going to forget. 

I know you too have had a moment that defied the odds. 

Don’t you forget it. 

You live inside a universe that makes no sense, for both unexpected tragedies and miracles. 

But we spend so much time focusing on all that we lost that we forget our evening in front of the fireplace with Robert Redford. 

With a few unforgettable moments,

Christina