inconsequential everyday freakish incidents
Did anyone notice, on NPR this morning, that reporter Libby Lewis was reporting on the trial of Cheney's former top aide Lewis Libby? I love it when that kind of thing happens--not the criminal misconduct of the Lewis Libbys of the world but, rather, the freakish coincidence of names. What are the odds? As I told some friends awhile back, I got plum googly-brained when an NPR reporter stumbled through a mention of "Minority Whip Dick Durbin". I spent the rest of the morning laughing to myself and twisting my tongue around that. And now the Libby Lewis on Lewis Libby thing. By god, I thought, I have to tell someone about this!
It may strike someone as odd, the things I get excited about. But when life gives us word play or tongue twisters or just odd coincidences, it is a small thrill to me. For instance--when someone spills an off-the-cuff sentence in which every word begins with B, unplanned and unbeknownst even by the speaker until all of them are tumbled out. When I glance at the clock and it is 11:11 or 12:34. Or balance my checkbook and subtract the check I just wrote from my balance of 90.85 and get 58.09. (It has happened!) I was once married to a man whose age digits always added up to the same number as my age digits, exept when I turned a round number: 24 and 33, 25 and 34. Turns out it was fluke, rather than fate, but interesting just the same.
To me, there is a fleck of the miraculous in every coincidence, every unexplainable oddity, every fortuitous glance at the clock, every second of synchronicity, every time unconnected things connect themselves for a brief, combustible moment in time, roll themselves into a ball, slip into my ear, and detonate inside my head. And leave me, here, walking around with this head full
of tiny, exploded miracles.
It may strike someone as odd, the things I get excited about. But when life gives us word play or tongue twisters or just odd coincidences, it is a small thrill to me. For instance--when someone spills an off-the-cuff sentence in which every word begins with B, unplanned and unbeknownst even by the speaker until all of them are tumbled out. When I glance at the clock and it is 11:11 or 12:34. Or balance my checkbook and subtract the check I just wrote from my balance of 90.85 and get 58.09. (It has happened!) I was once married to a man whose age digits always added up to the same number as my age digits, exept when I turned a round number: 24 and 33, 25 and 34. Turns out it was fluke, rather than fate, but interesting just the same.
To me, there is a fleck of the miraculous in every coincidence, every unexplainable oddity, every fortuitous glance at the clock, every second of synchronicity, every time unconnected things connect themselves for a brief, combustible moment in time, roll themselves into a ball, slip into my ear, and detonate inside my head. And leave me, here, walking around with this head full
of tiny, exploded miracles.
Comments
i'm reminded of the time we got one of the first clocks that had the numbers printed on the little cards that flipped over each minute. do you remember those. my sister would always call us over to see 3:33, or 12:34. We felt lucky standingthere, like we were in on something.