I believe in real life magic, so Im addicted to stories of synchronicity. They offer evidence to my mind that such magic is everywhere, and they calm the part of me that doubts and questions. If youre like this too, let me share with you one of my many synchronicity stories. About five years ago, I bought a large silk tote bag in Chinatown. It only cost about $40, but it was the PERFECT bag. I always travel with it as the carry on bag big enough to fit my computer and even my whole pillow! But its somehow still light enough and has enough pockets to be the perfect travel companion. About two years ago, it started looking pretty ratty. By last year, it was downright embarrassing. The silk had shredded into tatters. It was stained all over. When I travel for public speaking, they often send these fancy cars to pick me up, and men in tuxedos stand at airports to greet me with a sign with my name on it. When they try to take my bag for me, I wont let them. I tell them I have to carry my own hobo bag. I honestly dont want to burden these handsome, polite, well-dressed drivers with my ghetto bag! Its the Scarlet Letter I carry through airports with my own sort of walk of shame. Now mind you, I have tried my damnedest to replace this bag. I went back to Chinatown on a mission a couple years ago, trying to find one just like it. But alas- no luck. People who love me and have seen this bag have tried to buy me new bags, many of them fancy and expensive. But theyre not quite right. Theyre leather and too heavy. Or theyre not big enough to fit my pillow. So Im stuck with my embarrassingly perfect hobo bag. But when my mother and I went to Chinatown last week to go tea tasting, I had a strong sense that the right bag would find me that day. I decided to pull a Tosha Silver and surrender the whole thing to Divine Order. The perfect bag is already selected and it will be shown to me in the perfect timing. I offered it up, and let it go. As we passed shop after shop, I kept waiting for the magnetic pull that would draw me into the right shop, but it didnt come. So I shopped anyway, going into shop after shop, asking the shopkeepers if they had anything that sounded similar to the bag I described. I even found one bag made of the same silk fabric! But it was too small. Finally, one shopkeeper told me she knew exactly which bag I was describing. But alas, she sighed, they had discontinued making it in China years ago. I exhaled, resigned. In that moment, I knew I wouldnt find it in Chinatown, but I still sensed my bag was waiting for me that day. I trusted that if I was meant to find it, it would make itself known. Mom asked if I had ever found another bag that came close to being right. I told her that I had found a bag in a Tumi store in the airport in South Africa that had been almost perfect. But I was in a rush and had my hands full and I figured I could just write down the item number and find it online when I got back home. Only it had been discontinued. I searched Tumi online, even on Ebay, but I couldnt find it anywhere. Just as I was telling this story, I heard a sound in the distance, someplace far outside Chinatown. It was the sound of an angel singing. Im not kidding. An angel was beckoning me. I beelined towards the music, dragging my reluctant mother, who was still certain we would find the bag in Chinatown if we searched every last inch of shop space. The sound got louder as I exited the gates of Chinatown, moving towards Union Square. A thousand city sounds buzzed around me in downtown San Francisco, but I was deaf to everything but the angel music. I walked straight to it, as if Something Larger Than Me was magnetizing me to the sound. And BOOM. There she was. An opera singer wearing a bonnet and Victorian style gown was piercing the air with the most crystalline voice I had ever heard. She was standing all by herself in a small alley with an empty basket for spare change in front of her. I was shocked that people were walking right by this angel without stopping. I couldnt move. I dropped $20 into her basket, riveted. Mom and I fell to our knees in rapt awe. Taking a break for her singing, she told us it was her favorite place to rehearse, that the acoustics were better than the San Francisco Opera hall. Within minutes after we stopped, other people started stopping to listen, dropping money into her basket. We stayed for over an hour. By the time we left, there were hundreds of dollars in her basket and dozens of adoring music-lovers circled around her. Mom said, You did that, didnt you? I said, What? She said, You called in all those people for her, didnt you? You made them give her all that money, right? I said, IT did it, Mom. This woman who tried her best to raise me to be a good little Methodist looked at me with puzzled eyes, like I was some sort of alien who couldnt possibly have come out of her belly. Thats when I turned around to find... you guessed it- a Tumi store. I had never even heard of Tumi before, and I certainly had never seen one in San Francisco. I knew before walking in that my bag was inside. I walked straight to it. It was even better than the silk one from Chinatown or the discontinued bag from South Africa. And it was this beautiful golden color. Perfect. Mom picked it up and handed her credit card to the sales clerk and said, This ones on me.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:15:57 +0000
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