As a believer in synchronicity, I regularly wonder about seemingly disconnected events that somehow MAY be connected if I can figure them out. I believe that close calls really were meant to be warnings, especially to teenagers and the elderly. Whether there were guardian angels hovering nearby or just the playing out of some mathmatical probability designed ages ago, I can’t say, and I have found when I can’t figure something out, it doesn’t matter.
It would have been about forty-three years ago, I remember one when good friend Bob and I had just gotten our licenses and for some adolescent reason were so proud of ourselves that we chased each other in old family cars out Airport Road west of Waterloo, Illinois. It wasn’t a drag race, just enjoying speed and freedom and our youthful exuberance. I had forgotten after one long straight stretch how sharp a ninety-degree turn was, and when I applied the brakes, they didn’t seem to work, I pumped them but not much happened. I didn’t know then that mushy brakes meant a master cylinder about to go. I was lucky in that a gravel private road led off Airport Road at the end of the straightaway and I didn’t have to make the turn. I couldn’t have done it, so I bounced down the gravel road until the car stopped. That was the end of my chasing anyone in a car.
Two weeks ago, coming home at night, we drove past our local coffee shop, The Froth House, and I slowed to peek in the large front windows because I knew on Tuesdays and Thursdays there was live music there. Happy people filled its “living room.” I had forgotten how narrow Allen Street is when cars are parked along it, and just in the nick of time, turned my attention back to driving to swerve and miss a parked car by inches. From now on, Ann will look in the window of the Froth House and tell me if a crowd has gathered for the music.
On Sunday mornings, I meet Ellie at a colffee house to talk, write this blog, and have a regular father-daughter breakfast. She usually corrects papers or works on her BetheSource blog. this time, I was so rushed to get a humidifier to ease my cracked fingers that I left Lazy Jane’s without my backpack and iPad. When I realized it, I called Ellie to see if she was still there. She had just left but drove back, found my pack, and asked the barristas to keep it. I drove back to find it in a closet. I now check for my backpack, even when I don’t take it with me.
A most recent version of CNN had an article about re-programming your brain, with four steps to be more efficient. The one I will practice most is to focus on one thing at a time. Women may multi-task. I don’t recommend it for men, especially once you reach 61 as I will, later this week. I believe with focus, slowing down, meditation, and simple presence, I won’t need as many close calls, and I’m sure my guardian angel, if I have one, will be a lot happier. Thank you, Bob. I heard that suggestion once in meditation that his name is Bob. That’s why I’m not sure that I have one. Who ever heard of a guardian angel named Bob? As Jimmy Stewart said to Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life, “Yeah, you’re probably the kind of guardian angel I would get.” No offense, Bob, but if you’re name is unpronouncable, couldn’t you use something like Uriel, or Barush?
Anyway, enjoy your close calls everyone, and heed them. Master cylinders don’t last forever.

A man and his wife walked along the lake shore on a nearly calm, cool evening.
“Look at that,” said the husband, “that rich bastard.” He pointed out toward a sailboat gliding over the smooth lake like a swan. “Do you know what a boat like that costs?”
“No,” said his wife. “Is it a lot?”
“More than what an honest man can earn, I’ll tell you.” He shook his head sadly, and one arm flapped uselessly against his thigh.
His wife took his arm and looked again at the boat, noticing how beautiful the scene was, the mirrored water, the sinking sun silhouetting the graceful boat, its filling sail and the curve of its jib. A thin wake rippled behind it, making the water look like furls of purple and silver, blue and white. Behind it, narrow streaks of clouds glowed pink. “Oh my,” she said. “It’s-”
“What?” said her husband.
“Beautiful, simply beautiful.”
Out on the lake, the captain checked the trim of his sails, smiled a little at the slight curl of his sails and felt the smooth glide of his hull. He wished for a few more knots of breeze, but it was not to be. He looked toward the shore and took in the soft curve of the beach like a reclining woman’s hip and slender legs. “Oh,” he whispered, “if only Mary were here. If only Mary-” but it also was not to be. He looked again at the deepening shadows behind the beach and saw the couple strolling in leisurely peace along the beautiful strand.
“Lucky bastard,” he murmured.
Who wins?