A few years ago, during writing class, I read a draft selection from the middle of my book. Perhaps because the story had to do with my first marriage, juggling children, job, household and entertaining, one of my classmates noted a parallel with Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea. I didn’t remember having read the book but knew I had a copy on a shelf at Vanaprastha, like a pretty shell on display. Over that weekend during an afternoon lull and too tired to write, I decided to organize the books piled in my den and on shelves here and there around the house from guest room, bedroom to basement. There in the oyster bed of the basement was my father’s copy of Gift from the Sea. He had written a dedication to my daughter with the idea that she would pass the book along to her two cousins and her brother—all four ‘moon shell’ grandchildren. At various parts of the book, my father wrote notes, the most telling at the end of Chapter 1, The Beach: “Give yourself some solitude,” told his grandchildren. “Fear it not! Let your ‘inner’ selves tell you who you are, what to do.” Huh, I said to myself. I had reached that point in my life where I treasured solitude, the shedding of distraction, hypocrisy and vanity, the creativity of work and relationships and purposeful giving. Letting go of false ambition, pride of possessions, and the mask of ego. This is liberation, according to Anne Morrow Lindbergh. My classmate’s comment, finding the book and my father’s words, coincidence?
There is something magical about bumping into someone you know, in a place neither of you expected to be.
There was the time I was working in Liverpool and I wandered into a ginormous fast fashion shop, Primark, on my lunch break. Normally I would go and buy a sandwich. But that day, without noticing what I was doing, I walked up to the second floor of Primark and right up to my cousin, who was on a spontaneous trip to the city. Coincidence or weird magnetic energy?
I’ve bumped into my friend Jen in London four or five times. We’ll be on oppositie escalators, her going one way, me the other. The joyful surprise when I spot her or hear her shout my name. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WAIT AT THE BOTTOM/THE TOP.”
The strangest and most awkward was in Barcelona, on my first holiday with my boyfriend. A friend of a friend I had ‘hooked up with’, as Americans say, spotted me in the crowd at a huge venue. I don’t think he realised who I was with until he tapped me on the shoulder. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence I guess.
I have a similar anecdote. Years ago, a friend took me to a party hosted by a common friend. My kid was in daycare, I had just started film school, and I was eager to see new faces. Listening in on the various conversations, one in particular caught my attention: he was talking about being a dj, studying sound engineering, and holding down an eclectic phone job to pay the bills. Soon, he and my friend went off to play foosball, and I went home to family life. Fast forward to four years later, when I dropped in on the then-host after a dance class, and he invited me to join him and some others in a nearby bar. That friend of his was also there. Much had changed since we had first met: my previous relationship was over, I had moved twice, and was finally finishing film school. In contrast to myself, the friend had no recollection of our prior meeting, and we didn’t speak much. Still, the next day, I decided to reach out, and a tentative relationship began – first through YouTube, then Facebook, and Skype, all fairly new communication channels. The stars – and technology – were finally aligned for me and my future husband.
It is the coincidence that keeps on giving. I call him our little Christmas miracle because he showed up and plopped down in the gravel driveway on December 25th. A little black ball of fur perfectly framed by our front window. How can someone abandon a puppy on Xmas day? Did they know something about us? Something about the increased odds of adoption on a holiday? The whole village knew we hadn’t had a dog for six months, a mourning period brought on by the murder of the family’s 12-year-old podenco, Pod. We had recently been thinking about finding a new dog with very specific attributes and, whaddyaknow, there he was. At times you must accept the message, take the plunge, and welcome the responsibility. We kept him, now call him Ragazzo, “The Gatz” for short. He is pure love.
When opportunity comes knocking, be ready, take it. The signs are out there, to be noticed into destiny.
Two Sundays ago, my sister was visiting the UK from NC. We were walking home from the supermarket, which is almost always my husband's routine, and noticed a flyer in the window of The King's Head pub, where we almost never go despite it being a block from our lane. The black & white photo of a man playing harmonica caught my eye and instantly brought to mind the magnificent performance I happened upon with a friend in Brighton maybe a decade ago. As soon as we got home, I looked him up on youtube and sure enough, John Crampton is that terrific foot stomping one man blues machine I've been looking for for years, without knowing a name, and now he was playing in my back yard. We had a plan that day to walk along the Ouse River into Lewes and train back which put us passing that pub about 10 minutes before he was due to play and my one and only sister was here to experience his soulful brand of Americana with me. What a happy, complex origami of coincidence!
A few years ago, during writing class, I read a draft selection from the middle of my book. Perhaps because the story had to do with my first marriage, juggling children, job, household and entertaining, one of my classmates noted a parallel with Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea. I didn’t remember having read the book but knew I had a copy on a shelf at Vanaprastha, like a pretty shell on display. Over that weekend during an afternoon lull and too tired to write, I decided to organize the books piled in my den and on shelves here and there around the house from guest room, bedroom to basement. There in the oyster bed of the basement was my father’s copy of Gift from the Sea. He had written a dedication to my daughter with the idea that she would pass the book along to her two cousins and her brother—all four ‘moon shell’ grandchildren. At various parts of the book, my father wrote notes, the most telling at the end of Chapter 1, The Beach: “Give yourself some solitude,” told his grandchildren. “Fear it not! Let your ‘inner’ selves tell you who you are, what to do.” Huh, I said to myself. I had reached that point in my life where I treasured solitude, the shedding of distraction, hypocrisy and vanity, the creativity of work and relationships and purposeful giving. Letting go of false ambition, pride of possessions, and the mask of ego. This is liberation, according to Anne Morrow Lindbergh. My classmate’s comment, finding the book and my father’s words, coincidence?
There is something magical about bumping into someone you know, in a place neither of you expected to be.
There was the time I was working in Liverpool and I wandered into a ginormous fast fashion shop, Primark, on my lunch break. Normally I would go and buy a sandwich. But that day, without noticing what I was doing, I walked up to the second floor of Primark and right up to my cousin, who was on a spontaneous trip to the city. Coincidence or weird magnetic energy?
I’ve bumped into my friend Jen in London four or five times. We’ll be on oppositie escalators, her going one way, me the other. The joyful surprise when I spot her or hear her shout my name. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WAIT AT THE BOTTOM/THE TOP.”
The strangest and most awkward was in Barcelona, on my first holiday with my boyfriend. A friend of a friend I had ‘hooked up with’, as Americans say, spotted me in the crowd at a huge venue. I don’t think he realised who I was with until he tapped me on the shoulder. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence I guess.
I have a similar anecdote. Years ago, a friend took me to a party hosted by a common friend. My kid was in daycare, I had just started film school, and I was eager to see new faces. Listening in on the various conversations, one in particular caught my attention: he was talking about being a dj, studying sound engineering, and holding down an eclectic phone job to pay the bills. Soon, he and my friend went off to play foosball, and I went home to family life. Fast forward to four years later, when I dropped in on the then-host after a dance class, and he invited me to join him and some others in a nearby bar. That friend of his was also there. Much had changed since we had first met: my previous relationship was over, I had moved twice, and was finally finishing film school. In contrast to myself, the friend had no recollection of our prior meeting, and we didn’t speak much. Still, the next day, I decided to reach out, and a tentative relationship began – first through YouTube, then Facebook, and Skype, all fairly new communication channels. The stars – and technology – were finally aligned for me and my future husband.
It is the coincidence that keeps on giving. I call him our little Christmas miracle because he showed up and plopped down in the gravel driveway on December 25th. A little black ball of fur perfectly framed by our front window. How can someone abandon a puppy on Xmas day? Did they know something about us? Something about the increased odds of adoption on a holiday? The whole village knew we hadn’t had a dog for six months, a mourning period brought on by the murder of the family’s 12-year-old podenco, Pod. We had recently been thinking about finding a new dog with very specific attributes and, whaddyaknow, there he was. At times you must accept the message, take the plunge, and welcome the responsibility. We kept him, now call him Ragazzo, “The Gatz” for short. He is pure love.
When opportunity comes knocking, be ready, take it. The signs are out there, to be noticed into destiny.
Two Sundays ago, my sister was visiting the UK from NC. We were walking home from the supermarket, which is almost always my husband's routine, and noticed a flyer in the window of The King's Head pub, where we almost never go despite it being a block from our lane. The black & white photo of a man playing harmonica caught my eye and instantly brought to mind the magnificent performance I happened upon with a friend in Brighton maybe a decade ago. As soon as we got home, I looked him up on youtube and sure enough, John Crampton is that terrific foot stomping one man blues machine I've been looking for for years, without knowing a name, and now he was playing in my back yard. We had a plan that day to walk along the Ouse River into Lewes and train back which put us passing that pub about 10 minutes before he was due to play and my one and only sister was here to experience his soulful brand of Americana with me. What a happy, complex origami of coincidence!