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Synchronicity

Synchronicity "is the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, whereas they are unlikely to be causally related.  The subject sees it as a meaningful coincidence, although the events need not be exactly simultaneous in time."

I have an example of synchronicity that happened last week.  At knit night Tena gave me a couple of surprise gifts.  She and her husband, Ron, had recently taken a trip to Portland, Oregon and with Ron being a very avid reader, time was spent at Powell Book Store.  It is arguably one of the biggest book stores in the U.S.  As Ron was searching out his type of reading, Tena perused the knitting section, which is quite large (I have personally spent time, a lot of time there myself). There she picked up two books for me.  One by Tracy Chapman, Toys to Knit, which will be used to make that new granddaughter some cute toys.  (There is a pattern for an elephant, snake, rabbit, bear and monkey.)

But the other book, At Knit's End:  Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much, is written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.  That name should be familiar because I just wrote about her in glowing terms in my last post.  I talked about how much I enjoy her knitting and writing and how I look forward to seeing her speak at the Croatian Cultural Center in the not-so-distant future.

Tena, bless her soul, is a rather dedicated reader of my blog.  So on Wednesday evening after I posted my I Did It she dutifully read the whole thing and recognized the name.  She was so excited by the time I got to her place for our Thursday knit night she hardly contained her excitement when she gave me the books she picked up for me in Portland.

Of course upon receiving the books, I start looking with great detail at the Chapman book and was distracted looking at all the cute toys.  Gently, ever so gently, Tena asked me to take a look at the second book.  So I did and then we both got giddily excited.  The post on Wednesday about Stephanie and my getting a book written by Stephanie on Thursday was not a causal accident.  Tena was not at all familiar with Stephanie but the event of Tena selecting that book for me and then the timing of its arrival is just too unusual to not be seen as coincidental.  Oh, the knitting gods were with us.



I have now poured over the book and added sticky notes to all the comments that resonant with me.  The book now looks as if a sticky sort of confetti parade marched all over it.  You'll be seeing more about both books as I use them to help develop post topics.

Synchronicity, it was in action during knit night.  BTW actual knitting has taken place, but the finished products are gifts so only bits and pieces of each can be shared.
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