Incidents of Odd Coincidence

I think I may have super powers.

When I was a lad, all healthy and vigorous, shy and lonely, I had quite the fantasy world in me head. You see, growing up in the strict religion of my parents I wasn't allowed to socialize with any "worldly" children. Well, not outside of school anyway. I've always been rather introverted, so it was no big deal. I spent a lot of my time entertaining myself by making up stories, whole inner movies I'd even cast. I had big dreams as a kid. I dreamed I would one day own my own film studio and make movies that never got anything below three stars from critics and won all the Oscars. All the actors, writers, and directors loved each other and the world was a big, happy fun park. My film company was named Blue Bird and our biggest star was the beautiful Marylinn Jane, a combination of Monroe and Jane Seymour (who I was obsessed with at the time). (How do I still remember all of this?!)

Anyway, with the good come the bad. In my inner life, I fantasized that around the age of thirty I would get seriously ill. When I was a child and serious illness was something I only saw in Hollywood movies I guess I assumed getting sick could be as glamorous as how Greta Garbo or Bett Davis portrayed it. I saw myself looking fabulous in the hospital bed, surrounded by adoring friends and familty, suffering from some mysterious disease. I would eventually recover, but I never fantasized past that point. What kid can see past the age of thirty? It is an unfathomable age. Like a drop-off point to the very young.

Fast-forward two decades and there I am in the hospital bed, just as I had seen, only it was anything but glamorous. Bette Davis is a lying bitch! But I can't help but wonder: did my inner filmmaker bring this about or is it nothing but a child's natural clairvoyance? I tend toward the latter. I believe as children we have deeper connections to other plains, existences, strings, whatever. There have been several other occasions in my life when something similar has happened. As if thinking about something hard enough, wishing it to fulfillment, has an effect on the world, causes ripples in the fabric of reality.

Par example: After I came home sick from Australia and learned my dog Spike had been put down I was heartbroken. Not only was I clinging to life and sanity, one of the sweetest dogs I had ever known was gone from the earth. That spring there was a night I was finding particularly hard to cope with things and the last thing I remember before I finally fell asleep was a hard wish for a new dog. I was awakened the next morning by Alex, who had been dropped off by someone at the end of the lane and was barking her way back to the house. She's nearly ten years old now, but she still acts like a puppy.

METAPHYSICAL RANT:

We could get deep here. Depending on your point of view, deep into thought or shit. We could have a discussion about why the world is in as miserable shape as it is. That if enough people simply turned off the bad news and started sending out good vibes maybe things would change. Our minds can do amazing things and myths become reality just as readily as what is real becomes myth. Look at the panda bear. Those fuzzy darlings were once thought to be myth as well. Maybe things are changing but at so minute a decibal that it won't be fully noticed for some time. You know what I think? I think we all need to listen to folk music. Screw religion. Religion is the big bad wolf at the earth's doorstep. Folk music has all the answers, I'm certain of it. Josh Ritter, Tracy Chapman, Dar Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Richard Shindell, Bob Dylan, and the new world prophet Conor Oberst...they know. They KNOW.

END OF METAPHYSICAL RANT

And for those who say all of this is only a matter of coincidence, I say what is coincidence? It's a hiccup. A reminder of some great connection. And once you have a whole string of coincidences happen to you like I have, well you just gotta throw your hands in the air and embrace it. Embrace your super powers. Embrace the crazy. Everybody else is. At least this type of crazy is a positive fiction.