Fran Lynggaard Hansen, a Brattleboro native with deep connections to local history and to people everywhere, is a Commons reporter and columnist.
BRATTLEBORO-I began teaching abroad in 2012 and spent three years in two cities in China, one year in Egypt, and two years in Kuwait. After three months in Sudan, I left only because the school hadn't paid me, and I moved on to the eastern European city of Yerevan, Armenia and began teaching there.
This gorgeous city of a little over two million people has a charm like no other place I'd ever lived. Yerevan is older than Rome and used to be a part of the U.S.S.R. The Velvet Revolution had taken place in 2018, when pro-Russian politicians were ousted from power and a reformist government took its place.
Amazingly, this revolution was accomplished by everyday citizens of Armenia standing in their government plaza over a period of days. The entire country shut down. School was cancelled, workers went on a silent strike. There was no violence; not a single shot was fired.
Women with baby strollers stood shoulder to shoulder with workers, all showing the corrupt government that they had better yield to the wishes of the entire nation - and they did.
* * *
I was working as the head of primary in an international British school in the heart of the city and had been living in Armenia for three years. The only transportation that I owned was a bicycle. During the winter I would usually walk to work from my apartment, about 3 miles from my school.
It was Feb. 12, 2020 at 7:15 a.m., and the sky was still black as the night. With winds whooshing and the thermometer stuck at 17 degrees Fahrenheit, I had just decided not to walk to school and instead punched in my location on the local taxi app on my phone.
As I walked toward the street to wait for the taxi, my boots slid on the icy, saltless sidewalk. I congratulated myself on making a wise choice.
The day before, I had trudged on ahead regardless of the ice on the sidewalk. What would have been a 15-minute walk turned into a 30-minute trek as I tried to sidestep the built-up ice and slipped and slid my way to work. I have few fears, but falling is one of them.
So, despite the cold and the wind, I was happy to wait for the cab by the side of the road. The sky was crystal clear. The stars were still out and twinkled above me. I smiled, thinking that if it was a pleasant enough day, I might get a view of the snowcapped mountain twins, Aragat and Ararat, later in the morning - an awe-inspiring sight.
The cab was now approaching. I double checked the app, which said that the vehicle was purple.
As the sedan rolled down the hill to greet me, I checked the license plate number and chuckled as I realized that indeed, the beat-up Opal now before me, was truly a deep shade of purple.
It was an unusual color for a taxi, but this would turn out to be an unusual ride.
* * *
With the taxi a few steps away, and crunchy, squeaky snow and ice beneath my feet, I slowly inched my way to the passenger-side back door and opened it. To my surprise, I found before me not the usual young person in their 30s, but a very handsome driver in his 60s, just about my age.
"Good morning," he said, warmly, his welcoming smile growing wider, into a grin. A little surprised, I returned the greeting with a smile of my own.
In my experience, it was unusual for this taxi company to have drivers who speak English, and even rarer for one to be in such a fine mood at this time of day. Add in the unusual vehicle, and I felt some kind of odd magic in the air.
My backpack and I quickly settled into the back seat. I shut the door and relaxed into the warmth of the car. I shivered for a moment, and the driver kindly responded by turning up the heat. He looked back at me in the rear view again and nodded to acknowledge to me that he had realized I was cold.
He turned on the radio. Other cab drivers would typically choose Russian music, traditional Armenian music, or even the news. This man, now gazing at me in the rear-view mirror, chose a soft jazz station. Playing at that very moment, was Rod Stewart, crooning his cover of "The Very Thought of You."
The driver's warm eyes were meeting mine now in the mirror again as he said, "Isn't this a beautiful song?"
I smiled and nodded.
Rod Stewart serenaded us: "The very thought of you … and I forget to do/The little ordinary things that everyone ought to do…."
My driver was now singing along. He had a sweet, mellow voice, even if it was a tiny touch out of key.
Surprising myself, unable to stay silent in this magical moment, I suddenly found myself joining him in song, stumbling a bit through the lyrics, and keeping my voice quiet while I considered my behavior.
I was feeling happy, but hesitant. I'm a world traveler and every country is different. I would never consider singing along with a cab driver anywhere when I lived in the Middle East.
A Western woman can be viewed as "easy." Even smiling at a cab driver could illicit questions about whether I had a man in my life. Or worse (as happened to me several times), a proposition could be made to go directly back to my apartment. Sometimes there were even marriage proposals to make that question a bit more palatable.
But I quickly came back to my senses.
One of the most important things to me is to live my life, not worry through it. This was Armenia, the country where just days before, a young man saw me struggling with a heavy parcel and stopped to ask me where I was going and if I would allow him to carry it for me.
It was the place where I fell off my bicycle, dropped my phone on the sidewalk, and it was still there an hour later, kindly placed alongside a garden where I could easily find it.
Of course, one must always be cautious out in the big, sometimes-bad world, but in my experience, 99.9% of the time, people are good.
* * *
Maybe it was because it was February. Maybe it was because Valentine's Day was just two days away. Maybe it was the kindness of the driver. But suddenly, all my thoughts of worry were set aside.
My courage intact, my heart delighting in the song - for the rest of that 3½-minute ride, the magic of the music took us over. Two people in their 60s, grins glued on their faces like middle school kids who've just discovered romance, crooned as many of the lyrics as they could remember to this 1934 pop standard.
Living the moment, our voices raised together, the stunning old-world city of Yerevan, Armenia, passed by our windows as this enchanting taxi driver became my partner in song.
"I'm living in a kind of daydream/I'm happy as a king/ And foolish though it may seem/To me that's everything...."
He looked back and smiled at me again in the mirror, and we laughed when we both forgot the words. Our purple sedan continued southeast down Mesrop Mashtots, a main route through the center of Yerevan, as we laughed and warbled together.
"The mere idea of you, the longing here for you/You'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to you...."
We whizzed through the underpass and slowed at the light for the turnaround point by the Yerevan Brandy Company Factory. Sadly, the song was over. The light was red, and we waited in silence as the magic was paused.
Suddenly the cab was too quiet. We both felt a tiny bit awkward. He stopped glancing back at me in the mirror. We pulled up to the school steps, 30 seconds later.
I handed him the fare, 300 drams (62 cents.)
It seemed wrong. I felt like I should have paid more for the experience, or nothing at all.
We lingered for a few seconds and smiled at one another.
"That was a wonderful ride," I said with a tiny bit of hesitation. He replied with a grin, "Yes, it was."
Now there was silence in the car.
We'd just shared a truly intimate moment, and the silence was awkward.
As if on cue, the sound of his next call rang through his phone app. He looked at me. I looked at him.
And with that, I exited the cab, still smiling.
The security guard at my school raised his eyebrows as I arrived to sign in to work with a huge grin, humming our song, which lingered with me all day long.
It lingers with me still.
This Voices column by Fran Lynggaard Hansen was written for The Commons.
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