Monday, September 09, 2019

Synchronicity, Irish Style

Reporting From Dublin, the Republic of Ireland...

Sometimes, even my wife Linda still gets amazed at the weird zone of synchronicity / coincidence (you pick) in which I operate. At the last minute Saturday morning, I decided we should go to Howth instead of Glasnevin Cemetery, where we were planning to go. We just made it to catch this particular train. I took this picture without her knowing, and without any thought to who else was in it. See the three folks on the left (two men and a women - you can barely see the top of her head). We wound up sitting down next to them on the full train, and I realised quickly that they were Canadians, as they were talking about Canadian politics (something only Canadians would do). But then I saw the woman was wearing a ring... a ring that I would recognise anywhere. It was an “X” ring. So she had attended college in Nova Scotia. 
Anyway, we didn’t interact with them, but as we were all leaving the train at Howth, I walked up to her and said, “As an Acadia grad, I have to admit you X folks have the best rings,” and she laughed and held it up in front of me, and we had a good chuckle. Then we went our separate ways.
Linda and I spent about four hours in and around Howth, including a death-defying walk along the Howth cliff path, and then we decided to head back to Dublin. I wanted to catch the train at 5, but she wanted to go at 4:30, and that was fine by me, so off we went. The first car we walked onto was jam packed with students. Not a seat to be had, and I didn‘t want to stand for half an hour, so we hopped off and then hopped on to the next car in line. Crowded, but there were two vacant seats across from each other, so we grabbed them without looking at who was sitting there, and then I looked up and saw the X lady right across from me. We both laughed, and she hummed the Twilight Zone theme.
Turns out she grew up in Halifax, not far from where Linda and I live now (she lives in Ottawa now). We had a lovely chat on the way back to Dublin.
Linda posted the picture above before we knew any of this, just after I took it. It was only when we got back to our room hours later that she looked at it more closely, and then turned to me and said, “Of the six pictures you took on the platform, look who is in this one photo that I posted, but none of the other ones.”
Cool.  
And then a whole bunch of other synchronicities / coincidences happened. It starts with one...
Paul Kimball