How Much Coincidence is Coincidental?

There is an interesting thing that happens to me every time I spend time working on my first novel — all these strange coincidences start happening. I don’t know what that is all about but sometimes is spooks me a little. I started the book years ago after a disappointing trip back to Erie, Pennsylvania where I went to college. The idea for the story began then but languished for a long time. But it grew inside me and when I got around to beginning the book it seemed like every time I was hard at it astonishing things began to happen.

The main character of the story, Clair, is a college girl whose early life is not unlike mine — write what you know. The largest part of the story is set in a waterfront diner where she takes a job as a waitress, this is a thing I did though that’s about where the similarity ends. At the time I was working in the diner I shared a little house with two other women whom I have not stayed in touch with over the years. One of them had a very unique name.

When I finished the first draft I was living here in Gloucester. I was so happy with having finished it that, though it was a cold, rainy day, I walked down to the boulevard to the statue of the Man at the Wheel just to watch the waves in the harbor. On the way back I stopped to buy a newspaper. They were out of Gloucester Daily Times so I bought a Salem Evening News instead. I was walking back up the hill looking through the paper when I noticed the words “Erie,PA” in column. It was a poem that had been submitted by a woman in Erie, PA — my former roommate with the unique name. I don’t think I had seen her name anywhere since I moved out of that house. And that fact that I would find this poem on the day I finished a novel based on experiences while we were roommates knocked my socks off.

There have been a lot of stories like that — going into a bookstore in a small town I had never been to and finding a mis-shelved book about the maritime folklore of Brittany (an important part of my story) and then the store owner gave it to me because he didn’t recognize it and there was no price tag on it. When I was doing a re-write I was almost at the end and needed a powerful simile. I was fixing dinner and using a cookbook I rarely used — one of those kind that are a combined travelogue and cookbook — and there was a story about Sir Galahad that was exactly what I needed. I remember crying when I read it I was so astonished at finding it.

This week I have been back at ruthless editing. In the book Clair lives in a little carriage house (much like one a friend had when we were in school) and falls in love with a Breton mariner-turned-musician who plays the guitar in taverns. I was online looking for the latest album by my favorite French musician, Francis Cabrel, and went to his web site. There was a photograph of him standing with his guitar in a wooden room that was straight out of my book. It is now my wallpaper on my computer.

I wonder what is going on when stuff like this starts happening. Is it just that your mind is more open to certain ideas and so you notice them more? Carl Jung called it synchronicity and he believed that it was the universes way of prodding you in a certain direction. It is as though the collective unconscious we are all a part of gets together and gives you support for your endeavor.

I don’t know but it amazes me and makes me think I am doing a right thing. Well, I’ve always believed that God moves in sneaky ways. Who knows? But it makes me want to keep moving forward, despite all the frustrations and disappointments. And that’s good.

Thanks for reading.