Helping my dear friend find a place to live today, he’d arrived with a pile of addresses gleaned from a thorough scouring of the Internet rental listings. I drove him by three places, one of which might prove livable, and we cruised through a couple of neighborhoods that were completely out of reach. Returning home, I heard myself saying how nice it would be if we could just drive down some idyllic street, happen upon a perfect place with a big fat For Rent sign out front, and be done. I said this like it was a Disney Imagineer’s pipe dream. Completely out of reach, well within the realm of the absolutely impossible. Fantasy personified.

It was right about then that a Big Fat for rent sign appeared. I felt myself feeling compelled to insist that this just does not happen, even though it was happening. I had spent four months searching for a place just last year, and four months looking for a place three years before that. I knew, from admittedly scant evidence, that this does not happen, even though it seemed to be happening right before our eyes.

I really hate it when that happens and I notice it happening. Talk myself out of grace. Convince myself I’m damned while surrounded by abundance. We were never banished from the garden, I suspect, just convinced that we had been banished, then started reinforcing that poison meme. Surrounded by genuine garden, we die of hunger or thirst.

I suspect that synchronicity rules this place. No roll of the dice, but some strange cohering force pulling disparates together. I can always deny the convergence. I can wear the blinders preventing me from perceiving the plums plopping into my palm, even while my palms fill up with plums.

Of course its possible that my friend will not be able to rent this place. A thousand complications could emerge to prevent any deal’s consummation. Ten thousand other possibilities might well be swirling into emergence, too. I don’t know. We are influenced by more than the iron-clad rules of cause and effect. I almost know this. I am still learning, reminded sometimes when the fates, lady luck, or some god-blessed accident demonstrate that I almost talked myself out of satisfaction again.

None of us are merely corks bobbing in an indifferent stream. I believe in strange attraction, though I successfully try to talk myself out of believing in it more than I actually experience its grace. Opening up, I might accept these weird gifts without ever really believing in them. Or I might simply believe in them to open myself up.

OrdinaryTimes might well be determined by magic as easily as tragedy. The difference seems tiny tonight.

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Working, Writing, Living