The Ink-Pot and the Palette

Inspired by oursin's consistent and fascinating 100 Things Meme posts (about London--I mean, my God, what a rich topic), I've decided to dust off my own iteration of the meme, One Hundred Moments of Magic, Synchronicity, and Interesting Coincidence.

For years and years, a favorite saying of mine has been "It only takes one white crow to prove that not all crows are black." It's shorthand for keeping an open mind, believing in possibilities, looking for the anomaly--the exception-- watching for signs.

The other day, on my way to the grocery store under cloudy, drippy skies, I saw a white crow.

I'd never seen one--didn't know for sure that they existed. It took me a second to process it: a caw got my attention and there was a familiar corvid wing shape against the sky, and...white wings. Not pale, not gray, not pigeon-esque: white. Crow. I fumbled for my phone but by the time I had it in hand the white crow had vanished into the white sky.

It was the beginning of a fresh string of little miracles and wonders that I hope will continue for a while.

One hundred moments of magic, synchronicity, interesting coincidence...I started doing this meme back in May when my life was seeming magical. Not that it hasn't been awesome since, but that special awareness seemed to fade, and only three things got recorded here.

There was a fourth one today.

Graydie the not-so-stray cat disappeared three weeks ago. She was a peripatetic creature with a checkered past, but she seemed to have settled in with me, never vanishing for more than a day. When I didn't see her for three days, I gave her up as very likely dead. She had a wide range, the neighborhood is not without traffic and dogs, and I knew for certain that if she could have come home, she would have.

I had to force myself to stop looking for her in the usual places--on my porch when I come home from work, underfoot and mostly invisible against my black kitchen floor, following me to the grocery store up the street. I had to have stern talks with myself about looking out the front door in the middle of the night in case she was out there and looking for food.

You know how this ends.

I rode up to my path today from the grocery shopping run, and the neighbor's big tabby was hovering there. I was delighted to see a cat--I usually am; I like cats a lot--and I pulled my bike up as Big Tabby skittered off. When I turned around with my grocery baskets, there was Graydie.

She feels like she's lost a pound or so, and was hungry, but not starving, sick, or hurt, as far as I can tell. I guess she just went walkabout. I don't even know.

Anyway, I was awfully glad to see her. Good thing I kept the cat food, huh?

After a ridiculous two weeks at work (during which a single bad posting in the financial system resulted in...well, many hours of overtime and phone calls to Germany and hair-on-fire crisis mode, and generally a collapsing universe), I finally escaped late yesterday for four days off.

I planned to be happy and positive and all living-room-painty. But when I went to bed, I found my thoughts straying to the negative. I felt outside myself, alienated. Stress does that. It's awful. I woke up this morning in a tenuous frame of mind, rested but not chipper. Where, I wondered, are my happy, positive thoughts?

So I got dressed and made coffee and started my laundry, and pretty soon there was a knock on my door. A nice group of Jehovah's Witnesses were standing there--a man, a woman, some little children--holding out a leaflet.

( Funny how things come along. )

I got this from ruric--the 100 Things meme. You agree to blog about a hundred things (in some category of your own designation). Then you blog about them, and when you're done, you win!





Per the rules, The idea is to generate content that's considered, fun, focused, and interesting, and to make 100 entries featuring 1 Thing each. And also to stem the hemorrhaging of content from journal sites to...you know, all those other places.

So what the hey.

I propose to note little miracles. Synchronicities. Cool coincidences. Signs and wonders. I don't propose to define those terms very closely. :D

Of course, I have to wait for them to happen. But it's been my experience that they do.