I hadn’t eaten since late morning. The sun was gone. And now I was being stood up by a pregnant woman who clearly was not coming back.
I remembered when I first told Lina my plan, she asked me, “Well, what happens if you don’t find anyone to help you?”
At the time I had scoffed—what a ridiculous and yet absolutely rational question.
I believed as anyone who is about to embark on a trip around the world with no money and no gas that things would inevitably work out. But as I sat there on that park bench, I began to wonder: What if they don’t? What if no one offers me a place to stay, a meal to eat, a tank of gas? What happens if my trip ends on this park bench in Barcelona, and I have to go back to the shipping company and beg for them to pay for a flight back home? I looked over at Kindness One and couldn’t imagine abandoning her to such a fate. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, I had to find at least one person in all of Barcelona who would help me in my moment of crisis.
And then I saw him. Hercules was in his mid-twenties. And yes, his name was really Hercules. He looked like a student, but more than that, he looked like he was the kind of free spirit who wouldn’t ignore my cause.
I opened with the only truth I could think of: “I’m stuck, man.”
And that’s how I found a place to stay for the night, and a meal, and a tank of gas, and more than all of that combined, that’s how my faith was restored in the European Union.
I left Barcelona with the same joy I had felt driving out of Los Angeles. It was once again just Kindness One, the open road, and me. All it took was one person. All it ever really takes is one person to say, “I hear you, brother, and I’m willing to help.”
Hercules was my one person, and he had given me the fuel to cross the rest of the world—or at least the better part of Northern Spain.
On the way into France I met an assortment of characters: a retired clown who put me up for the night, a single mother of six who thought I was a celebrity of some sort (blame Kindness One and the magic of yellow!). “C’est très magnifique,” she kept repeating as I took some of her children on a spin in Kindness One before she offered me a tank of gas.
As I drove through the French countryside, I couldn’t help but feel that I had just snuck across enemy lines. The English and the French aren’t exactly BFF’s (sorry about Waterloo, old chaps!). I hoped that where my British accent might fail me, Kindness One’s yellow-y charm might help.
I drove into the small provincial French town, Aix-en-Provence, just north of the French-Spanish border, and about two hours west of the notorious wealth of the French Riviera. And that’s where things started to go, well, topsy-turvy again. I had been on Kindness One for over eight hours; my arms were numb; my legs sore; and let’s not even talk about my “derrière.” I hadn’t found a meal all day and was beginning to worry that I was hallucinating—in general not a very safe way to ride a 1978 motorbike with serious mental issues. When I finally found a place to park my bike, I didn’t even care that it was in an illegal spot.
I started walking through the local farmers’ market to see if there were any crumbs of kindness to be had. There weren’t. In fact, I was facing rejection left and right. Finally, I saw an Internet café. I was able to get the café to give me a few minutes on the Internet, but oddly enough, not even a croissant to eat. I sat down and decided to email Lina to let her know I had arrived in the old world. I thought maybe she would even be online, but I could see by her status that she wasn’t.
My fingers hovered above the keys. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. Was it fair that every time I doubted this trip I called the one person who hadn’t wanted me to go? I closed the laptop and left the café with time still on my card. I walked out into the square again, wondering if maybe I had overestimated the world’s ability to care. Maybe I would have been better off just staying at home and not even bothering with this whole connecting-with-humanity business in the first place.
As I settled into my “woe is me” crescendo of self-pity, I couldn’t help but hear far more upbeat music playing at a restaurant nearby. I moved to see two African men playing a wide array of instruments. They seemed to be filled with all the energy that I was now shamefully lacking.
The moment I saw them, however, all my worries deserted me. Their music floated above the café tables and across the courtyard where they played. But it wasn’t just two men who knew how to play instruments. These men were playing with all their hearts. People were smiling in the square; a little girl was dancing to the music. The music didn’t just entertain; it soared. As it weaved itself immediately into my psyche, I could hear a more intimate song, that of the adventurer’s soul, of people who had seen too much pain and had traveled too far from home.
After they finished collecting money from the café patrons, I approached them. Both wore gently used clothes, but I could see that they prized the guitars that surrounded them.
“Guys, that was absolutely phenomenal,” I said, unsure if they spoke English. “You literally just changed my whole day.”
“Thank you,” replied Finesse, the taller of the two. He had long dreads and a wide smile and the charisma of a man who loved to perform.
Knowing we at least shared a language, I continued, “If I had any money I’d give you some, but I don’t. I just wanted you to know that was really beautiful.”
I quickly found out that Finesse and Tchale, who was short and slight and less outspoken than his friend, were both from the African country of Benin.
I told them about my travels, and then basically invited myself to coffee with them. Thankfully, they agreed not only to chat with me, but to pick up the tab, too.
As we walked to a café together, Finesse told me, “Our dream is to one day become big stars—big singers, to get a message to people. A message of love.”
Finesse and Tchale had been performing on the streets of the world for twenty years, surviving solely on euros tossed into hats and fees from the small gigs they were able to book, even sending money home along the way. But their real income was the love they derived from making music.
Some scientists say that human DNA can actually be reduced to musical notes, meaning that our whole being—the way we think, the way we feel, the way we act—is actually a previously written symphony, unique only to us. We have rhythm in our souls, but even more, we are literally made of music. Finesse and Tchale understood that, and they wanted to share that music with the strange and wondrous world around them.
We found a quaint sidewalk café with woven chairs and marble tabletops, and they offered to buy me lunch. Two practically penniless Africans taking me to lunch? Suddenly my crappy day was turning around. All those unpleasant thoughts I had about mankind were being reversed over a two-course meal of chicken and ice cream. After lunch, Tchale and Finesse invited me back to their small, one-bedroom apartment. They slept in the same bed out of necessity. It didn’t take long for them to pull out their instruments, and engage me in a really terrible jam session. Not their fault at all, of course, but mine. Thankfully my terrible voice didn’t prevent them from offering me a place to stay for the night.
The kind men gave me their bed, offering me an African nightdress in which to sleep. We all had tea as Finesse looked around their small living room, sitting on the couch they were adamant about sleeping on so that I could have a good night’s rest.
As I found out, Finesse and Tchale had left their families when they were very young. They had been playing music in Benin since they were twelve, but there were no jobs for them there, and being a musician in Benin paid even less than being a street musician in Aix-en-Provence.
“Not as many tourists,” Tchale joked.
They had rarely been back since, moving around Europe over the years. They never called any place home for longer than six months, until they had found this little apartment in the South of France, where they had f
ound enough success to believe that they could do more than just survive: They could inspire.
“Sometimes, I think, should we go home?” Finesse explained, his voice weary. “But then I remember, we are carrying the music of our home to other people. How would we ever learn to speak the same language if we were not willing to leave our villages, our cities, and share our hearts with other people?”
“You are bringing them the music of Benin?” I asked.
Finesse leaned forward and said in the clearest English he could muster, “We are bringing them the music of love.”
I woke up the next morning with my own spirit’s rhythm humming within me. It didn’t hurt that Finesse and Tchale were already outside on their patio, playing music. I joined them in the courtyard for breakfast when I heard a French voice calling down from above. There was no way that God could be French, and I’m not saying that just because I’m English. But it wasn’t the voice of God, just Finesse and Tchale’s neighbor Wilfred, who was intrigued by the men’s bald visitor.
Wilfred explained, “They play music all day, every day. They work music; they live music. They don’t play for themselves. They play for all the people.”
He laughed a little before adding, “They play for the world.”
The two men had long given up on returning home, but what they had received in return was the ability to connect with the world.
After Wilfred left, I shared with them, “To me, the fact that you are doing this, inspiring other people, is an inspiration to me. You know, when I saw you on the street yesterday, it was your music that made me come talk to you. Your music has touched my heart. And so have you.”
The night before they had told me that the one thing they really needed in order to spread their message, in order to introduce themselves to the world, was a music video. Like with Willy, I realized I didn’t just want to help people fill a need; I wanted to help them fulfill a dream. And their music was a dream worth hearing. Just like me, they wanted to make it around the world. They just needed the fuel to do it.
“And so,” I continued. “I have decided to help pay for your video.”
I could feel time slow as Finesse and Tchale realized what this gift could mean, what it might look like to see their hard-earned dream come alive. They looked at each other in total shock, and then they began chatting quickly in French. Although I had studied the langue de l’amour for nine years in school, I must admit I never learned a word. (Sorry Madame Beauvais and Monsieur Parfour.)
I could see that the two chaps from Benin were getting emotional. Tchale seemed the more stoic of the two, but Finesse had tears in his eyes.
Tchale looked at me and said two simple but powerful words, “Thank you.”
“No, no,” I replied, my own eyes filling with tears. “Thank you. It’s passion like yours, not just for music, but for people, that touches everything. That changes others.”
“You have changed us,” Finesse replied.
“And you have changed me,” I told him, knowing that should I ever question my journey from this point on, it would be Finesse and Tchale’s music that would carry me along.
I remember months before I left London, I had a dinner with eight of my closest friends. I told them of my plan to travel to America, how I needed a change in my life. Only one person at that table believed I would do it. That person was me. The rest told me to stay put, that the feeling would pass. They didn’t mean to shoot me down, but sometimes going out and changing your life is even more terrifying to those who can’t.
I know that’s why vagabond hearts scare so many people. It feels safer to have a family, to stay put, to let the need for adventure, or even connection, fade into the quiet comfort of a predictable life. And living for music, living your dreams, loving strangers can be scary.
Though I could have listened to my friends and stayed in that London apartment, miserable and static, I didn’t give up on my dream. Che inspired me, and now, I was inspired by Tchale and Finesse. Inspired by their absolute commitment to doing what they loved, no matter the cost.
I walked from their house to Kindness One with that goodness pumping through my soul. As I turned the corner, I saw a small blue and white envelope on my bike. What could this be? A love letter in French? Not exactly. It was rather a very expensive souvenir from the chaps at parking enforcement. I told you those French didn’t like the English. I had received my first parking ticket for 45 euros. Now what? I decided to keep the ticket as a memento, and if the French army wanted to chase me to India, they were more than welcome. I wasn’t turning back—the music would play on.
Chapter Four
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
—Epictetus
In many ways, the only reason you are reading these words is because of a life-changing meeting I had nearly twenty years ago. This probably comes as no big surprise, but my adolescence wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was a rough couple of years before I became the only slightly less awkward man I am today. At home, I was the infamous middle child, stuck between two brothers who somehow had been given the manual on life that I failed to receive. The only respite I felt was when I was walking home from school. On that brief walk, I could be whoever I wanted to be—and that was often anyone but Leon Logothetis. But then I would get home, and whatever little self-worth I had would slip away between my much more boisterous brothers.
Thankfully, I have a good mother who noticed that things were not going so well for her middle son. She sent me to see Dr. Susan Mann, an after-school teacher of sorts. It was Dr. Mann who lifted me out of my slumber. She showed me two things: One, that kindness was everything. And two, that I was worth something.
“You are special, Leon,” she would say as she sat across from me in her bright, window-lined office. “Your talent is unlimited.”
Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in you, in order to believe in yourself. The world is often much better at telling us when we are wrong or what we need to fix or how we’ve screwed up, but really all it takes is one person to look inside us, and tell us that we can be whatever we want to be, for us to believe. As I walked through the wealth-drenched town of Saint-Tropez, hungry and homeless, wondering again why I—once that gangly, pimple-faced kid—had thought I could pull off an adventure like this, I couldn’t help but remember Dr. Mann’s words, so many years after they were first uttered.
I had seen firsthand how believing in someone else was not only the medicine I needed—it’s the medicine the whole world needs. I saw it in Tchale and Finesse’s eyes when I offered them the gift of the music video. I wasn’t just giving them something, I was saying to them, I believe in you. I have faith in your gifts. You are special, and your talent is unlimited. We all need to hear those words.
Which brings us back to Saint-Tropez, the legendary French playground of the rich and famous like Bridget Bardot, Brad Pitt, and, more recently, the great man himself, Justin Bieber. As I drove along the French Riviera, I was sure that I was on my way to the best night of my life. I saw myself sleeping on a ten-million-dollar yacht, replete with hip-hop stars and some caviar. I envisioned David Attenborough narrating my experience in his thick British accent, “And here Leon docks for the night on the decadent yacht of Mariah Carey, enjoying fine Michelin dining and sleeping under two-thousand-thread-count sheets.” I saw myself falling asleep to violins in the distance and awakening to the lapping waters of the French Mediterranean.
I did not fantasize that it would take me three hours just to get a free crepe for lunch. And sadly, nearly everyone else I approached either laughed at me or pretended they couldn’t understand what I was saying. This was Saint-Tropez, half of them were from the UK or America, so I knew they spoke English. They weren’t bloody fooling anybody with their “Non Anglais.” I know you Anglais people!
They say tho
se who have a lot give a little. I had been given much by those who had little, but despite what was happening that day in Saint-Tropez, I reminded myself that I had also been given much by those who had a lot. Because for every Tony, who lives on the streets, there is a Taso, who lives in a Midtown high-rise. Both of them had offered me hope.
I was wondering where to head off to next, and then I remembered I have friends in Italy. I opened up my magic bag and quickly dug out the number of the family I had met in New York City, the ones who were visiting from Torino. It had only been two weeks since I had been in New York, and yet it felt like scenes from a movie I had watched and not necessarily memories from my own life.
“Haha,” I cried out to no one in particular as I pulled out the Italian family’s phone number. Torino it was. I got back on Kindness One with a new verve. I revved that little engine and swung back out onto the highway. It would only take me seven hours. Surely I would find a bed there.
Seven hours later, Kindness One was running on fumes, and I was running on my last drops of adrenaline. We drove into the main square of the ancient town. Like most Italian piazzas, it had been a part of the city for hundreds of years, its stone structures worn smooth by time, a reminder of the millions of people who had lived there and long since gone. If you listened carefully, you could still hear the horse-drawn carriages clacking down the road.
Unfortunately for me, I was receiving little help in this Italian town. You see, in order to call my Torino friends, I needed to find a phone, and in order to find a phone, I needed to find someone who would be willing to let me use theirs. This was apparently a far more difficult request than I had anticipated.
Finally, I came across a local man who spoke English and seemed willing to hear me out. Ricardo was in his twenties with blonde hair and an easy demeanor, as though he were waiting to go out on that yacht I had been expecting in Saint-Tropez. He couldn’t help me with a place for the night, but he offered to let me use his phone to call my Italian friends. Unfortunately, it went to voicemail, but then Ricardo offered to call a friend who lived about twenty minutes outside of Torino. He spoke to him briefly and explained my situation.
The Kindness Diaries: One Man's Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World Page 6