Serendipity

Sometimes the universe sends us a wink.

Maybe it isn’t a wink at all, but merely coincidence, but even that explanation is fine by me. It’s still entertaining when it happens. Do we find meaning in random events? Is it merely statistics that dictate we’ll eventually encounter something that has personal meaning to us?

Probably. But we can still enjoy the moment and run with it.

Let me back up a bit. Originally, I was going to use imagery related to history and romance for my website pages: vintage stereographs of brides and grooms, old-fashioned lace gloves, pretty candles affixed in puddles of wax, and a beautiful stone pot that I reimagined as an ink pot for a writing quill. I went to an antique mall and bought several items that fit the bill. I took numerous photographs but, as is often the case with art, the concept and the results didn’t quite mesh. After several failed conceptualizations, I nixed the idea entirely and settled on outdoor photographs from my past vacations and day trips instead. I kept the beautiful stone pot, though. Someone had taken the time to mold it and fire it, only for it to end up on a shelf in an antique mall among hundreds of jars and crocks and bottles. I wondered about the artist who had sculpted it. I wanted to position it someplace where it could be admired, and so I placed it on my kitchen windowsill.

​I never thought to turn the pot over and look at the bottom. Last week, I filled its tiny reservoir with water and placed a sprig of catmint in it. When the purple flowers began to fade and it came time to dump out its stagnant contents, I blinked in astonishment at the letters engraved on the bottom of the pot: Mae.

My heroine’s name was on the bottom of the pot.

I laughed aloud and placed the small clay pot back on my kitchen windowsill. Who cares if it’s only hubris that makes us think the universe stops to send a wink our way? It’s comforting, even if it’s only our imagination at play.

Now, if I somehow get my hands on a bowl with “Creighton” engraved on the bottom, I’ll sense a conspiracy is underway…

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