Budapest 1998 -
Courtney and I are sitting at large table in a Mexican
restaurant celebrating the birthday of a friend. Coming in late,
we had to squeeze in next to a couple already seated whom we
didn't know. We started talking and it turns out the woman's
family is from Abilene and her grandfather, Dub Wooten, was an
old friend of the family. Not unusual to have such relationships
in a small town, but unusual in Budapest and having just randomly
sat down for dinner. We enjoyed the couples' company for a few
evenings before we eventually moved to Spain.
Abilene 2001 -
Courtney and I are buying a house here - we have driven
through neighborhoods since arriving and kept coming back to
one - a two story older home in a wonderful area closer to the
center of town. We finally made the decision to look with a broker
and, lo and behold, the house was on her list. We looked, found
it to be as wonderful inside and out as we thought from looking
at the street. The other homes where nice, but didn't have the
feel of this place, which was somewhat reminiscent of our home
in Budapest when we were there. We went back and decided to proceed
further. on Wednesday, we decided to have a dinner with some
new pals downtown. After dinner we weren't ready to finish so
we thought where we could go to enjoy something else - we walked
down the street to one place which would have been ice, but discovered
it was closed for the evening.
We then decided to drive out to a restaurant/bar not far
from where we live. A nice time was had by all. As we were leaving
another friend, Scott, walked in. We waved him over and he explained
he was picking up some food to go after along meeting (he is
President and CEO of a large bank here in town).As we spoke we
mentioned we had been looking at homes. He said, "you looked
at one on Elmwood this afternoon."
Not surprising, as it is a smallish town,but unusual nevertheless.
It turns out that his CFO and he, who were just in the meeting
together, had spoken and that it was the CFO's house we looked
at. I said, that's a great COINCIDENCE and mentioned for Scott
to put in a good word for us. After this we heard from other
people that they knew we were looking and that they mentioned
how perfect the house was for us, etc. Needless to say, we are
now under contract and will be closingin a month. In doing some
more poking around, it turns out a family namedWooten lived in
the house some time ago - the same family as our Budapest based
friends from Abilene! The granddaughter, now living in Budapest,usedto
play in the house as a small child! That coincidence turned into
a wonderful synchronicity for us all.
Richard and I listened to your CD on the evening
of the summer solstice, while we had our power turned out for
the voluntary black out people used to protest Bush's energy
policy. We listened to it on a battery powered CD player, with
Eli asleep next to us. It was our 3.5 year anniversary, and made
for an enjoyable evening!
We both really enjoyed the stories, and feel
you've done a great job of articulating a very cool, and as you
say, mind broadening phenomenon. Since we listened, I've already
noticed more synchronous events in my life than I've noticed
in a while. Richard seemed to think that studying synch was a
lot like studying ecology. Looking for patterns in systems and
trying to understand the meaning underlying those patterns. We
thought you did a
nice job of getting people to be more observant about the events
surrounding them without assigning causation to a higher power,
necessarily...
I thought the penny story was very cute. Part
of me thought, hey, everyone finds pennies. But then I realized
that not everyone finds meaning in finding pennies. That's what
it's all about, I think, finding the meaning and using that meaning
to find out more about yourself and your life. Anyway, GREAT
job! And let me know when your book is going to come out!
