Don't Panic! It's That Fake Synchronicity Again

I cannot explain everything that happens around me, but I can vouch for an uptick in strange occurences and odd synchronicities going back several years now. As a Jungian, I shouldn't be bothered by this, since synchronicity is the stock-in-trade of Jung's philosophy -- except that I don't believe most of it is genuine.

I wrote recently about the car accident I was in back in April. The next week, my cousin sent an email saying that my brother, who lives in another state, had been hit by an SUV driven by someone who was upset with him (my brother isn't saying anything, and neither is anyone else in the family). We haven't been able to verify what happened, which in itself is odd. Did it happen, or didn't it? You wouldn't think establishing the simple truth would be so difficult, but it is.

I've long been accustomed to noticing people hanging about who seem out of place. The first time it happened, I was in an upscale sandwich shop having lunch and reading the life of Buddha for a class. I was so engrossed in the book that I didn't look up for a long time, and when I did, there was a rather thuggish young man sitting directly across from  me, engaged in . . . not much of anything, except sitting there looking thuggish. The thought instantly came into my head that there was something unwholesome in his manner and that he just looked wrong. I left a few minutes later, and he didn't bother me, but the incident stuck in my mind. Many odd things were happening at my workplace then, and this item seemed bracketed with them somehow.

He was only the first of many others . . . the man who stared so persistently as I had lunch at yet another sandwich shop and then followed me outside, talking animatedly on his cell phone and staring; the weird guy with the ferret face who tried to engage me in a conversation about pie as I was leaving Gumbo Ya Ya; the slickly handsome but vaguely demonic stranger who arrived at the elevator in the parking garage of my hotel at the same time I did; the oddly abrasive chick who crashed the Jane Austen Book Club and then skulked around the entrance as I was leaving the store; the low-rent Michael Fassbender look-alike who showed up at Starbucks the day after I watched Jane Eyre on video.

That's just life in the city, you say -- you're bound to meet with all kinds of characters. Well, maybe. If it happened once in a while, I'd agree with you, but all the time?

Speaking of look-alikes, I've also noticed, more than once, people who looked remarkably like other people I know. One of the most striking incidents occurred a couple of years ago as I was waiting for a train with two friends in San Francisco. I had been to a performance by Dave Alvin at Slim's a night or two before. When the next train pulled up, a man who looked incredibly similar to Dave, down to his height and facial hair and cowboy hat, got off right in front of us. It was not Dave, but it's hard to believe anyone could look (and dress) that much like him without doing it on purpose (unless it was Dave Alvin night in San Francisco and no one told me). Why would someone do such a thing, you inquire? Don't ask me. It was freaking weird, though.

And then there's the classmate of mine (or her twin), who has popped up in the oddest of places. I might think I was imagining that, since the hair was always different, except for that time in New Mexico at the all-night gas station when the fellow with her looked like the boyfriend she'd introduced me to one time. Well, if it was her, why didn't she acknowledge you, you ask? Why did she speak to you like you were a stranger? I don't know. You might as well ask why her hair was that strange shade of pink.

Then there's my "haunted" apartment. I know it's not really haunted, but there are enough unexplained cracking and pinging noises, sometimes emanating from innocent objects, to make you wonder about poltergeists. The lights blink mysteriously, although they never used to. And strangest of all are the popping and trilling noises in my ears. I've had ringing in my ears for a long time, and I always put it down to congestion or something mechanical like that, but the chirps and trills I hear nowadays are different, like electronic pulses. It's like something out of James Bond, only less fun.

I've lost count of the number of times perfect strangers spoke to me almost as if they knew me. I used to wonder if some of them were trying to tell me something, but I no longer bother. If someone has something to tell me, they'd better just straight up say it.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the tradition of the bardo, a liminal state reached by a person who is in between two earthly lives. In this state, the person encounters all kinds of gods and demons, some of them benign in appearance and some of them hideous, but they are in fact all deceptive. Before death (and while dying), the person is given instructions on how to handle them and is reminded above all of their illusory nature. Some of the people I've encountered remind me of these bardo beings. I'm thinking also of Dante's Inferno, where things get progressively freakier the further Dante and Virgil descend. Before they know it, they've even reversed directions, so that instead of climbing down they're climbing up, emerging into the cave in Purgatory head first. It's all very matrixy, as life in general seems to be these days.

If anything like this has happened to you and you want my advice, the only thing I can say, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, is "Don't Panic!" It's just the bardo, and we assume it will pass. Rest assured there is a logical explanation, and accept no substitutes. I have no idea what's up with all the derring-do, just as I have no idea why the young women in the downtown grocer's seemed to think it was uproarious when the Hall and Oates song "Private Eyes" was playing (at an earsplitting volume) while I was in the store this morning. But store clerks are not the boss of me, just so you know.

I don't remember signing up for a spy caper, although that's what I feel like I'm in. A family member told me the other day that she's scared and doesn't feel safe either at home or in public. I say this so you know I'm not treating this as a joke, even though it sometimes feels like one. Bardo-spy caper-matrix-inferno-whatever -- all things must pass. I may not know the answers, but I know when someone's acting the fool.

Beyond the Green Light

Last week I went to see Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby. Some of the criticisms I've heard of the movie are about things that didn't bother me. I didn't think the hip-hop music in the soundtrack was out of place considering the theme and emotional tone of the movie. Likewise, the over-the-top spectacles of Gatsby's parties: wasn't that what he did, throw lavish, out-sized affairs in an attempt to draw Daisy to him? (And wasn't the Jazz Age about excess, to begin with?)

What I noticed was the way I felt at the end of the movie -- kind of stirred up and let-down and empty. Some reviewers might say this was the fault of the movie, a result of its emphasis on style over substance, but I don't think so. I think that's what the movie is about, being let down.

It must be hard to play characters like Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. They are beloved characters, star-crossed lovers, and literary icons, but there is such a haze of romance around them that the tragedy at the bottom of their story is almost lost in a glow of champagne and pearls. I don't know if the story is as much about the failure of the American Dream as it is about a failure of vision on the part of Jay Gatsby.

To be inspired by love to great accomplishments is wonderful, but that is not what drives Gatsby. He has built a staggering fortune based on bootlegging and shady dealings in an attempt to become the important man he always wanted to be. This does not make him inferior to those who happen to have had money longer than he has, even if they (and he, secretly) think so. His motivations, though, seem hollow. It's himself and his humble origins that he's unhappy with, and no mansion of any size can change that.

Oh, but wasn't it Daisy who inspired him? Yes, but that's just the problem. Reviewers unhappy with Carey Mulligan's luminous but vacuous Daisy (and Mia Farrow's, before her) seem to think there is something finer about Daisy than the actresses are able to convey. There must be, or Gatsby wouldn't have fallen for her, right? I think Gatsby's idealism is wasted on Daisy: he has hitched his wagon to the wrong star. He perceives, correctly, that Daisy could never be happy with anyone outside her own social class. She didn't wait for him and married someone else. Maybe that should have been a sign? Yet he won't let go of his vision of her and in the end loses everything because of it.

Mr. Luhrmann's extravagant party scenes and glittering sets convey the emptiness of not only Gatsby's but also the Buchanans' wealth. One of the saddest scenes in the movie is the aftermath of the party in which Gatsby confides to Nick that he'll never be happy until Daisy leaves Tom for him. With servants picking up debris left by heedless guests in a house that seems not just empty but deserted, Nick tries to tell Gatsby that he can't relive the past, but Gatsby doesn't agree. If Gatsby were wise enough to give up his own illusions, he would be a better man. But then, of course, it would be a different story.

Mythically, the story is about Titans -- in this case, Titans of wealth who maneuver and brawl to establish precedence. It shows the dangers of hubris, although Gatsby is unfortunately the main one who seems to pay the price. You have to infer what might happen to the others. (I like to imagine Tom Buchanan losing his smugness in the stock market crash a few years later.)

I think this film captured the evanescent beauty of Gatsby's dreams quite well; there was something magical about Luhrmann's depiction of the bay and the green light on the other side. If Gatsby's imagination and yearnings had been directed toward a more worthy goal, who knows what he would have accomplished. But that would have to be a different movie.

Magic Flash Mobs in the Month of May

Last autumn I wrote a blog about the end of summer and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. I was thinking about the two of them today when I was out and about, on a day of just about perfect weather. Yesterday was beautiful but a little cool; today was just right. There was a bright blue sky, angelic white clouds, a warm (but not hot) sun, trees in full leaf, irises in bloom. To repeat an observation I made a few weeks ago, it was like stepping into an illustration in a children's picture book, one showing a perfect neighborhood with a smiling sun, children waving, and everyone from the mailman to the baker going cheerfully about their business.

So -- Persephone comes back in the spring. The melodramatic part of the myth concerns her leaving and Demeter mourning her loss in autumn. The story goes on to say, though, that a compromise is reached whereby Persephone is returned from the Underworld in the spring, to the general rejoicing of Demeter and everybody else. Persephone is spring personified, with violets entwined in her hair and daisies springing up where she walks. I think of the delicate beauty of April as characteristic of her youth. A day like today, when the promise of early spring has blossomed into something closer to summer, makes me think of her mother, Demeter, whose care greens the earth.

The nurturing and feminine aspects of May are reflected in several traditions. The name of the month probably comes from either Maia, a Greek nymph beloved of Zeus, or the Roman goddess Maiesta, who was associated with veneration and honor. In the Roman Catholic tradition, May is the month of Mary, the mother of God. Of course, May is also the month when we celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Here in Kentucky, we run the horses on the first Saturday in May. I'm not sure what they think about it, but for the people, it's an occasion marked by showy hats, spring finery, mint juleps, and elaborately planned parties.

The birthstone for May is the emerald, whose stunning green seems like the perfect color for such a lush and opulent month. The flower for May is the Lily of the Valley. That seems quite right too, because if I were to assign a fragrance to the month, it would be the old-fashioned but unforgettable (to me, anyway) Muguet des Bois, which contains an essence of this delicate but lingering floral. If you took everything bright and beautiful about the month -- from the luxuriant grass to the shy flowers in the woods -- and distilled it into a bottle, it would smell like this perfume.

I live in an area with a lot of large trees that create an avenue of green this time of year. I have a fantasy about a "Dancing in the Moonlight" sort of reverie that I would like to make into a film someday. This vision came to me out of nowhere not long after I moved here and involves an empty street in the middle of the night. To the tune of either "Dancing in the Moonlight," "Looking Out My Backdoor," or "Moonlight Sonata," a group of people in formal attire appear casually from under the trees, assembling in the middle of the street. They all waltz together. As the music picks up, they start to dance faster, and then you begin to notice the presence of fauns, nymphs, naiads, and other minor gods and goddesses in the crowd (it's an ecumenical group). After a few minutes of kicking up their heels in fine mythic fashion, they all disappear into the trees again, leaving a silent street.

I don't know what it is about the neighborhood that gave rise to this fantasy, but I think now that if I were to film it, it would have to be in May. I've pictured it in autumn to the tune of "Moondance," and I think that would work. But May is really the time for this type of extravaganza. If I ever do commit this to film, look carefully at the faces in the crowd. Demeter and Persephone will certainly be there, as well as Maia and Maiesta and Hermes and Artemis and whoever else is up for a frolic. There might be a few jockeys in the crowd, some emeralds, silk, and boas, fancy buttoned shoes, and some really fine hats.

When the sun comes up the next morning on another beautiful day, it will be as if nothing ever happened -- but that's the way it is with these midnight flash mobs in the merry month of May.

Lessons on Walking in Rain

A rainy spell has set in after several days of beautiful weather. I stayed in on Saturday, but yesterday I decided that even if it was raining, I wanted to get out of the apartment, so I put on my rain gear and walked to Starbucks, a distance of about two miles. I was wearing my stylish Red Riding Hood raincoat and had my polka dot umbrella, but this was one of those cold, steady rains with occasional gusts that eventually gets every inch of you wet. I had to stop and arrange my purse underneath my coat and try to keep my book tote underneath the umbrella.

I was only halfway there when I realized how soaked my sneakers were and realized I'd have to put up with wet feet once I arrived. Wet shoes or not, I thought, it was worth it to spend a couple of hours away from the apartment on this rainy weekend, so I pushed on. I wouldn't have given much thought to a trip to Starbucks if I'd had my car, but on the other hand, I wouldn't have been getting all this lovely walking in, right? I'm all for walking in all kinds of weather but admit I would have been happier with dry feet. Nonetheless, I did take time to notice a pretty dogwood tree in someone's yard and how green the grass was over by the campus library.

Once I got to Starbucks, I discovered that everyone else had had the same idea. There were no tables open, although there were a few extra chairs, so I took one of those and waited for someone to leave. After a while, someone did, so I spread out my things to dry off a little and settled down to read.

On the way home, the sky was beginning to clear a little, and I caught some gleams of light from the sun sinking in the west. I was glad to be out then, because the light was really beautiful, reflecting off all those wet surfaces with a sort of subdued dazzle, and everything seemed very clean and fresh with that just-washed feeling. And I knew it would feel great to get home, pull off my wet shoes, and get dinner ready.

Today started out partly cloudy, and by the time I realized I needed to go to the post office this afternoon, there were actual patches of blue sky on display, with big, puffy, summery-looking clouds playing hide and seek with the sun. In a burst of optimism, I set out without an umbrella, looking forward to a walk unencumbered by purse, coat, or any other paraphernalia. 

After I'd been walking for a few minutes, I noticed that the dark clouds I thought were heading in the other direction were actually starting to mass overhead. I have had pretty good luck with judging whether I'm going to get rained on or not in the past; I thought today I might get some sprinkles but just wanted to get my letter in the box before it got wet. I figured the rest didn't matter so much. I made it to the mailbox and had started back home when I felt the first drop on my hand. At first I thought it might have been a stray one, but a block later, walking out from under the trees, I could see a light rain descending in straight lines.

It felt strange to be walking in the rain without an umbrella. On the other hand, my sweater didn't seem to be getting that wet. My hair was still damp from my shower when I started out, so it couldn't be much worse off now. The rain slackened a little, but as I crossed the stadium parking lot and headed for home, it started coming down harder. My sunglasses, donned in that spirit of optimism at the beginning of the trip, were covered with rain, and my backup sneakers, called into duty because my other shoes were still drying out, were now starting to get soaked, too. I thought about making a run for it, wondered if it's really true that you get wetter when you run, and considered how feasible it would be to sprint while trying to see through rivulets of rain on my glasses.

Once on my street, I was basically at the drowned rat stage. I knew I would be out of my wet things in a couple of minutes and cozy enough once I put on my slippers and a dry sweater. There wasn't much to be gained by making a dash for it at that point -- but you know what? I decided to, anyway. I'd had the impulse to run a few minutes earlier, partly for the sheer exhilaration of running in the rain, and I'd quashed it. I sprinted the last half block just for the fun of it and to feel like a kid again, unencumbered by a purse or a shopping bag or any other detritus of adult life. And actually, it was kind of wonderful.

So here, take that, you rainy day. Maybe I left my umbrella behind for a reason, after all.