I’m drinking some type of foo-foo tea. It’s supposed to be good for your skin and your liver. Why not, eh? I’ll take a bump in my complexion if I can get one. The liver can always benefit from a little tenderness, too. You have to take care of those that take care of you. The box recommends two tea bags for optimal results. How industrious. Two it is. Meredith notices there are little messages on the bag tags.
Be heard.
Be curious.
Sounds like good advice. I once got a fortune cookie that said, “Someone will invite you to a karaoke party.” I laughed and then felt a little cheated. Aren’t these things supposed to deliver some deep truth that’s uncannily timed to the circumstances of our lives? A karaoke party? C’mon. Sounds like somebody mailed it in that day. I bet those “lucky numbers” on the back were just picked at random. There goes my shot of winning the lottery and then blowing it all on cars, speculative investments and an olympic swimming pool whose tiles form a mosaic of the entire cast of ER sans George Clooney. (He has enough things with his face on it.)
Why do we read in to that sort of stuff, though? It doesn’t have to be something silly like a fortune cookie and you don’t have to be superstitious to entertain the notion. Ever have a number that seemed to keep popping up? For me it was the number 3. I’d see it everywhere. I was starting to think it was a thing, a sign. And then one day it kind of just disappeared. I stopped seeing it. I don’t even remember when. I forgot it was ever almost a thing. Maybe its job was done. Maybe I didn’t need to notice it anymore even though it was popping up just as frequently I assume.
Whatever it is, it does seem like there’s something else going on around us sometimes, doesn’t it?
One theory is that we want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. I can see that. I think it might be hard-wired into us too. A pull to find meaning in the things around us, in each other. Just look at how much effort you and I spend creating. We are forever building meaning into things. From the littlest gesture to the grandest expression. So much of our life surrounds the pursuit of purpose. Even when things seem arbitrary there can be glimpses of significance if you look closely.
Some say we conjure those glimpses as a way to deal with things we don’t know how to hold. I think sometimes they’re right. We can read meaning into things that wasn’t ever there to begin with. I don’t think this is always a thing too terrible. I’ve had people suggest notions about my writings or other creative work that I flat out didn’t intend. Does that mean it wasn’t there? Maybe I put it there without even knowing it.
Maybe some things are always there, waiting to be discovered? Like a new species of sea life you didn’t know existed until you went looking for it.
I did end up getting invited to that karaoke party. It just took a few years. The fortune never stipulated a timeframe so I guess it was right. I shouldn’t have thrown out those lucky numbers. There goes my ER swimming pool.
So now, on the advice of some detox tea bags, I’m being curious and perhaps even being heard. That last one’s not entirely up to me, is it?
At least my skin and liver will find it meaningful.
