Things turn up in odd places.
I have a large bookbag (it was actually a freebee I got from Books-A-Million when I re-upped with their discount club this year) that I carry journals, and drafts of papers, and stuff in - with the goal of "If I have it with me, I will work on it."
When I go home at night I put it next to the little end table I keep near my door. (It's sort of a catchall table - mail sits there, and the change I take out of my pockets, and keys I'm not using).
Sometimes stuff falls in it, I guess. Because this morning, I was digging for some note cards I had made on an article, and I found a horse chestnut in it.
It was the horse chestnut that Mr. Freeman gave me.
(I don't know how many people outside of my part of the world are familiar with this tradition: it seems a lot of people carry them in their pockets. I've heard (alternately) that it prevents arthritis and that it's a lucky charm. The idea is, if someone gives you a horse chestnut, it's sort of a nice gesture.)
It's funny, because a few weeks ago I was thinking of it, wondering what had become of the horse chestnut he gave me (he's the man who passed away, back in February. He was a very kind and friendly man and I kind of miss seeing him around).
It strikes me as odd, sometimes, how things I have turn up at certain times.
I also had a dream earlier this week that my grandmother was in. I think the last time I had a dream where she was present was shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.
I'm a natural scientist and my stock-in-trade is stuff that can be measured and detected and that has natural cause. And yet, sometimes, these things happen that don't seem to totally be coincidences, and they just make me wonder. Two things that remind me of people from my past. (Both of these people are people who have "passed" and that I miss; I find it hard not to take both of those things as some kind of "message" that "whatever happens, things will ultimately be OK." And no, I wasn't particularly thinking about either one of them this week.)
2 comments:
about 6 months after my dad passed away, i had a dream that i was talking to him, but all i could see was his head. everything else was black. we were talking, but i didn't hear any voices. anyway, i was telling him how we'd gotten my mom moved, and settled, and she was happy with her apartment, and that she was doing well, all things considered. he said "good." i actually heard this, and immediately woke up. no radio or tv around, and the hubbie was sound asleep (and no history of talking in his sleep). i think he was checking to make sure she was ok (we always thought she'd die first, because of several health issues that actually resolved themselves, so we didn't quite know how to handle it when he died first). i miss my daddy
I feel like, being a scientist, mostly what you learn is that the world is so complex that we'll never know it all, so I never discount those possibilities. At the very least, our minds find the patterns comforting, so why logic that comfort away?
I had a dream about my grandfather shortly after I traveled to Italy. We ended up going through a sort of 3-d slideshow of all the places where I'd thought of him. He laughed in all the right places, then asked me to say hi to my dad and woke me up. The memory still makes me smile.
Post a Comment