Coincidences

I just had a lovely evening.   For all appearances, it was a completely normal evening.   But sometimes, you are just in the right mindset to turn something ordinary into something inspiring. 

My day actually started off in a rather creepy manner. I awoke to a mysterious sound emitted from my phone.  Confused, I knocked over four items to pick it up, and on the third try correctly spelled my password to access the screen.  Finally able to look at it (much easier to do in the morning since I had my LASIK a few years back), I noticed that I had just received an e-mail from Mom.  My phone shouldn’t be buzzing when I get e-mails.  Slight spooked, I read it.   Gramps isn’t doing so hot, and is waiting for blood tests to see if anything is wrong.

Not only was I sad about the news, at this point I was also confused and feeling superstitious.  Why had my phone alerted me to wake up and read bad news?  It very tactfully had ignored all of the other e-mails I received throughout the night.  But it seemed to know I’d want to read the information about Gramps right away. 

On its own, this isn’t too weird.   After all, I was sleepy, and had gone to bed with a fever.  I didn’t, but maybe I COULD have imagined the e-mail sound….   But to add flames to the fire of confusion, last night my computer was burping.  Yes, you read that right.  Burping.  I have no other way to describe it. It sounded like a random burp every few minutes or so.  Irregular and infrequent enough that it startled me and made me jump each time it occurred. It was, in an odd sort of way, scary.  It wasn’t a funny, nice burp, like my computer was playing a joke on me.  No, it was a loud and aggressive, mean one.  Like a good scientist trying to explore all possible sources, I closed my Firefox windows.   It still burped.   Now that is just plain weird.  So I have no idea how or why it happened.  And now my phone is mysteriously alerting me to bad news.   I’m beginning to think my inanimate objects have emotions.  Or digestive problems.   I guess Terminator 3, Rise of the Machines, is about to start….

By the evening, I had forgotten about the new, living status of my various pieces of technology and was excited to meet a new friend. 

You know how parents are.  They love to talk about their children.  Having always been perfect and wonderful children (please note that there is no sarcasm in that sentence, it is the full truth), they like to talk a lot.  For example, I was congratulated on my engagement many times before I was engaged.  He had asked my parents, they promptly told all 1000 people in our town, and I had to very politely act confused when people would congratulate me before he had actually asked me. 

So it comes as no surprise that my Mom fell into conversation with someone doing volunteer work at her school. Naturally they start talking about their children.  At some point, they realized that my sister had dated his son, back in 8^th grade or so.  They then discovered that their daughters have the same name.   Eventually they hit the jackpot and discovered that their daughters both happen to live in the same suburban Mumbai neighborhood!  Not your typical discovery for two white parents in a Michigan school! 

A few e-mails later, and we had an ice cream date for tonight. We smiled at each other, and then proceeded to internally debate the merits of adding walnuts or almonds, chocolate or white chips to our ice cream.  Once the important decisions were complete (she went with a small ‘vanilla’ with white chips and almonds, I had the medium ‘vanilla’ with dark chips and walnuts), we walked outside and sat at the glass table.  

It was a very nice evening, and the loud honking car horns were, for the most part, easily ignored.  For once, the mosquitoes were occupied elsewhere, and the giant rat that lives in the shop only ran across the floor twice.   All in all, very nice and peaceful settings for a good back home conversation. 

After a quick warning from the shop employees not to lean against the plastic chair backs (which had permanent marker ‘x’s on them to remind us), we, sitting up straight and munching on ice cream, settled into an hour and a half conversation.

 We shared our basic life backgrounds.  Further coincidences propagated quicker than our ice cream melted. It turns out that we both went to the same college.  We even lived in the same dorm, and enjoyed the same dorm foods!  But the best coincidence, I think, was to find out that I actually already knew her husband!  We were both in SNRE, and frequently even sat next to each other in Woody Plants (which we both claim is the greatest class on earth and we both still attempt to discuss the Latin names of trees with our spouses)!  He is actually one of the very few people I distinctly remember, and I always wondered what he has been up to these past few years.   It was my own personal episode of “Where are they now?”

But despite the many similarities in our lives, there was one thing that was completely different.   Our attitudes here in Mumbai.  She is so incredibly happy to try everything offered to her.   I have sat around, being grumpy.  She is busy, taking classes six days a week.  She isn’t spoiled with a car like me.  She even takes the train each day!  The train in India is an adventure only for the strong-willed.  Despite classes, and working to start a ministry here, she still has taken time to see and travel all over Bombay.  And she loves every minute of it.  Yes, she has frustrations here, too.   But her attitude- it was great.  She can just brush the troubles off and remain happy.    I really envy her great attitude.

Meeting her inspired me to try harder to enjoy myself.  To relax.  To put some effort in being here, and taking advantage of what Mumbai has to offer me. I think I am going to be a better person for having met her.  

I’m quite happy for the many coincidences that lead to our ice cream date tonight.  Thanks, Sis, for dating her brother twelve or so years ago… who would have thought it would led to this chance meeting?   

I just hope the coincidence that, in one night, two pieces of my inanimate technology apparently developed emotional and digestive capabilities was just that, a coincidence.   I’m going to trust Louis Pasteur and believe that there will be a much more mundane outcome than the beginning of T-1000 world domination…  But, to borrow a line from John Connor, “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves”.   So I’ll work to make my Mumbai fate a bit brighter! 

P.S. Upon re-reading this, many sentences probably won’t make much sense to you unless you have Terminator 2 memorized, as I have….  It is a great movie.  Watch it again. 
P.P.S.  Apparently Gramps just had the flu bug and is getting better.