For those of you who don't know, This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 2.1 million listeners. It's produced by Chicago Public Media and is also often the most popular podcast in the county. So in this particular recording, the show was called "No Coincidence, No Story!" and is a compilation of people's stories of coincidence. Boring, right? Wrong. I listened to a man tell a story of how his new friend sent him a picture of herself as a child, and in the background, was the man's grandmother walking by. Coincidences are exacerbated by things like time & space. This was decades earlier, the families did not know each other, and it was in an unpopular vacation spot thousands of miles away from their respective homes. The list goes on.
Anyway, after listening to this podcast I got to thinking of all of the things I have as coincidences in my life. Perhaps I should mention that this podcast leans towards "coincidences" as sometimes divine intervention; I don't know my position on that. Coincidences are things that are statistically possible (at least in my mind), some sort of universal force playing a part is something else. I believe in both. First, I tried to think of what was the BIGGEST coincidence I ever experience in my life. Here are a few: The time I was sitting in 8th grade math or english class and one of my classmates said, "I have a piano lesson today." In my true form and in what I thought would be funny, I figured I would just throw an obviously incorrect piano-teacher-name out there for some laughs. "Oh, you mean with Pat?" I smirked. The reply I received was, "YES! You know her too?" #dumbfounded. This also happened again this year, but with a different name, person, and location. What are the chances this would happen? With all the names out there? Is it hard to imagine? Of course. Is it statistically possible? Yes.
Another great coincidence story I have, perhaps my favorite, occurred the morning after the turn of the century: January 1st, 2000. The previous evening, I was dining at an upscale supper club in New York, called the Jazz Standard. My friends: Heidi, Josie, and Hartley, were enjoying a fine dinner here before embarking on a host of random "celebratory" events, and in our company, at dinner, was a precocious 6 year old named Lulu. Aside from thinking she was adorable in her trendy, asymmetrical haircut, I also noticed she was the only kid there and was the offspring of MUCH older parents. Who brings kids to these places? New Yorkers- now I know. I kept saying to my friends: "this kid has to be in movies or tv. She looks like she could be in a magazine."
The next morning, when I got back home to Westchester county, on the kitchen table was an issue of Parenting magazine. I flipped through. In the magazine was Lulu; to this day, I still have her ripped-out photo in my nightstand. I wasn't holding onto her picture- quite frankly, I didn't know her-- I was holding onto what I felt was the miracle in things.
Now, above all of these other kinds of coincidences…those which are statistically near or entirely impossible. They are the things that haven't really happened to me directly, but have happened to things involving me or my loved ones. At the risk of sounding hokey, I will share the abridged version here: I lost my handheld digital camera after being home around Christmas-time. On it, were recent pictures I had taken of our family during our annual Christmas tree outing up to some-farm in Connecticut. Anyway, I could have sworn that when we returned, I put the camera in my bag to take back to PA. I needed to edit those pictures and run by my family for approval before sending out to get out Christmas card printed (yup, we still do that). I returned to PA, and opened my bag: no camera. I kept seeing myself place the camera in the bag, so I tore apart my car thinking that the camera would be there- perhaps it fell out?: nothing.
Next: I called my mom and asked her to search my living quarters (the attic) back at their house because for-sure the camera had to be there: nothing. For days: nothing. Even after video footage taken of all the places she had searched (thanks mom): nothing. I had resolved that the camera was gone, untraceable & unfound, and I would just have to move on from it.
2-3 weeks later, a picture was sent to my phone from my mom: my camera sitting on my bed. You're probably thinking that we just didn't see it. Maybe it it was caught up in the sheets, right? Nope. On the video footage my mom had sent weeks earlier, was a bed stripped and its sheets washed. Nothing was on that bed. Nothing was in the sheets my mom picked apart, and most thankfully, nothing had gone through the wash. I have two angels who look out for me, and my mom reminds me sometimes that in the small gestures of seemingly statistical impossibility, things happen because we are meant to find or experience them. It is the intention of those looking down on us. It is statistically impossible that a 3 pound camera can move itself to my bed. It is statistically almost certain that a human is able to pick up and place a camera on that bed. It is statistically improbable that ANY of the humans who live in that house would have taken this camera and place it on my bed; and here is why:
4/5 of them didn't and don't know the camera even exists. No one remembered anything about the camera I used at the farm. And like me, 1/5 of them believes in the beauty of the things we just cannot explain. And if we do- you know, believe in these types of miracles- we have to accept the reality that our words have reducing powers; this reduction, the one we throw around so effortlessly: the "coincidence."
-Christina