More often than seems reasonable according to the so-called laws of probability, life will grab my attention with a jaw-dropping coincidence or bit of synchronicity. For example, a rarely-encountered phrase or word or piece of information will show up in two different locations within hours. Just last week, I read a piece in Slate.com about John McCain’s challenges in the upcoming election. Tucked into the article was a reference to the guy who bought the actual London Bridge and had it shipped to Lake Havasu City to be reconstructed as a tourist attraction. Later that day, I read practically the same thing in an early chapter of the book I had just started, Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven.
Or this. Back in January, in the midst of writing Asa nisi masa for the Trond Saeverud and the Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra, “nearly done (quoting now from the note I wrote for the concert program) but struggling to get the ending just right, I took a break and dashed off a melancholy little tune to cleanse my compositional brain. I had intended it as only a diversion before getting back to work, but immediately started wondering whether the tune might actually be the ending I was looking for. Was it too sweet and simple, though, too tuneful to fit in with what had come before? That night or the next, Jeri and I watched Fellini’s 8½. When we got to my favorite scene, a nostalgic moment where a little girl chants ‘Asa nisi masa’ as other children are settling in to bed, I was quite astounded to hear something very much like my little tune on the soundtrack. I took it as a sign that I should go ahead and use it.”
Another kind of synchronicity is running into people from my past in unexpected places. It gets me pondering about the years-long, meandering paths we’ve been following from the last time we met that got us to this unexpected convergence. So, why should Naoto Inoue be eating at Thanh Thanh II exactly when Jeri and I spontaneously decided to stop in there for a late lunch several weeks ago? For that matter, it still amazes us that Jeri and I had a single date back in 1994, with only one other brief contact (that she doesn’t remember) in all the time since then until eHarmony, with the blessing of charmed luck and timing, brought us back together about 20 years later.
Today’s photos: In March, three variants of essentially the same still life showed up on my Facebook timeline within minutes, from three different Facebook friends, who actually have never met one another: Tobey, a former UMF student of mine now living just blocks from us (and a frequenter of Bard Coffee?); my brother Douglas in Walla Walla, in the midst of working on his play inspired by Waiting for Godot; and Anna, one of my son’s best friends from high school, with an outdoor shot in Mt. Vernon during their sap-boiling operation. The drinks? Coffee, tea, and maple sap.
