"I figure that my statistical innumeracy produces the bulk of my good fortune."

My father and my nephew were born on the same date, January 15. A favorite musician's wife and father were born on the same date, too, a fact that seemed downright synchronicitous to the wooing couple. My family always thought it a form of a miracle that my nephew and father were born on the same date, a terribly special blessing, though the probability of that occurring hovers at 365 to one, hardly long odds. Genetic family patterns might have significantly shortened those odds. Many families produce what are sometimes referred to as IrishTwins, and I suspect that each feel the warm hand of a reassuring fate caressing them when that happens, too.

I'm rather blind to probabilities. I do not naturally carry a sense of them. I do not parse my world in that way. Consequently, I stumble into perhaps more than my fair share of apparent blessings. I hold some days especially sacred and lucky. My first wedding occurred on the Winter Solstice. I'm especially superstitious about numerical repetitive dates. Six Six Eight, 6/6/88, was a day of profound significance, a date I credit as the one where I successfully blew up my former life. I'll forever remain uncertain whether that date delineates a blessing or a curse visiting me. Significance works like that. I'm always watching for some black swan to show up.

The middle of January needs a black swan or two because the days tend to drag along then. No matter how bright the sun might shine after the latest snowstorm passes through, the days still seem unnaturally short. I try to stretch them by rising extra early, rising to a sky overfilled with twinkling stars and a biting breeze, and still feel bushwhacked when the sky starts darkening just after four in the afternoon. I just turn my back for a short minute and find another night overtaking me, and not even slowing down to allow me to catch up. I stumble into bed before nine some nights.

Extremely improbable events are, in fact, commonplace. Put twenty-three people together in the same room and it's more likely than not that at least two of those people are IrishTwins, same month and day birth date, not the same year. Bump that census up to thirty and the probability grows to seventy percent. Who woulda thunk that? I've long believed that ravens serve as omens of change, so whenever I spot one, I sort of brace myself for some disruptive change, even when I spot one in New Mexico where they're hardly rare. I figure that my statistical innumeracy produces the bulk of my good fortune. How lucky is that?

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Reconsidering , #PureSchmaltz