Aligned with the coincidence of meeting Elin through our deer connection, I find I am in the middle of reading a novel (Tales of Protection by the Norwegian author, Erik Fosnes Hansen) that focuses directly on coincidences, auspicious coincidences, the ones that effect your life, turn it in a new direction. The story talks about the power of human connections, about luck, chance and why.
Hansen tells us, in the voice of the old man Bolt: “Coincidences and destiny……..both are, in fact, simply words for something we don’t understand. Whether one calls it coincidence or fate is completely irrelevant, because the strange thing is that anything even occurs.……That anything (is or) happens when it could just as well not happen.”
But just don’t ask why. We might be able to understand how and what if we look hard enough. But the big question, “Why,” is ever elusive. So it is a strange coincidence that you are reading this now. That you might or might not find me on the winding road I have set up as a path to my existence.
It is interesting to me how we make choices that are aligned with who we are even if we think we are doing something, and even, possibly, something “differently.” Choices that sometimes underline things that we want to change. Choices that make these things harder to change.
I am not a hermit. I need time alone to work, but I enjoy the company of people when I am not working. Yet I have chosen to live in a secluded place, hidden in the woods, found only after traveling on winding roads through rural landscape. True, it is not far from Halifax, but still, it is hard to find. Without written directions, it would be impossible to know I was here. With all my desire to engage with the world, with my art, with my friends, have my artwork move into a bigger world, I still have chosen to live here. And believe me, I love it here. But again, I am not a hermit. The best answer to this dilemma is to have a small, environmentally friendly vehicle and travel outside my immediate home. Yet I need the cargo space for hauling paintings and supplies and the four-wheel- drive for safety on these (often) icy roads.
So—I am thankful for the modern conveniences that we take for granted—the phone and the internet that brings you into my quiet world. And I am going to put a sign with my name on the road so if, by chance, you are driving by, you know it is me tucked away here in the woods.
Posted by leya at July 1, 2005 02:26 PM