Over the years I’ve experienced many unbelievable things. People have said things to me that were so shocking, I didn’t know how to respond. Then I did. I’ve given up all hope. Surprise! Things fall into place.

Shocking: I was with friends driving through Wyoming when the driver tossed his still lit cigarette butt out the window. I expressed shock since it was summer and the shoulders and nearby field were dry. “What do you care?” he said. “You don’t live here.”

Another: At the school where my husband and I were then both teaching, an administrator said about students’ unfortunate experience: “Better them than me.”

Compassion and empathy seem to me to be at the root or at the very least at the center of ordinary decency. It isn’t asking too much to expect someone to consider the impact of their actions, that someone would stub out their cigarette instead of tossing it out into tinder-dry land just because they expect any fire will not affect them personally. Who thinks that way? And what adult whose profession requires them the care for children wishes them harm before themselves?

What has this to do with magical thinking?

I believe you don’t always get what you want or or even what you need, not even sometimes. I believe in randomness, that many things happen for no reason at all, but that the choices we make and the priorities we set for ourselves and others do matter.

And so far it’s been a disappointing year, mostly due to my own actions, errors, and poor choices. That wouldn’t be expected to make me feel better would it?

Where is the magical thinking? Last year was a Dragon year and I am, in Chinese (and Japanese and Korean, etc.) astrology, a water dragon. Not that I believe in astrology. My mother’s good friend Joyce did the more usual western but complete astrological reading when I was still in my teens. My October birthday makes me a Libra, but I also have Libra moon and rising. Other aspects, she insisted, balanced my chart. She made several predictions based on my chart that never came true, but one prediction I recall because it did. She said I would inherit money and my mother laughed, “There is no money to inherit!” A few years later I inherited the family beach house from my grandfather’s third wife who was a weaver. I loved Genevieve, and her second husband loved Gary, which is why the house came to me instead of to Genevieve’s cousin in Denver. The property was worth $70k at the time and it is likely worth twenty times that now. I inherited a fortune.

Magical thinking to select the one truth out of a double handfuls of inaccuracies, and believe in “luck” as a factor. Gary believes we were meant for one another. I contend we were fortunate that we met at a moment in our lives when we recognized a good thing when we saw it, that we have chosen each other over and over again. Good fortune? Good luck? Do things balance out? When has that fantasy of getting what we deserved or “the best man wins” worked out with anything like consistency? [Think: who is president of the US just now? Who won that election?]

So last year was a fortunate one for me personally. I published an essay, a short story, found a publisher for my novel, ran hundreds of miles, served as emcee at the 20th anniversary of my MFA program, and celebrated 50 years of marriage.

This year, mostly due to a series of well-intended blunders, the publishing contract is gone, I can barely walk, several people at our condo are not forgiving me for the door, I’ve had 97 rejections of work submitted, and I’ve gained nine pounds. I blame stress eating and boredom. I would also count our son being badly bitten when he intervened between his daughter and a loose dog “with a history of biting.” There’s plenty more, but the real truth is that I am writing a new story I’m pleased with and last year our favorite hotel was wrecked. There is no truth to the dragon-year conceit, and my feet are improving.

On the other hand, as Groucho Marx said, he has warts.

Well, no warts on me.

Magical thinking. The moment I recall in Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking is that she donates most of her dead husband’s clothing, and abruptly finds she can’t give away his shoes because they are Magical thinking. The moment I recall in Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking is that she donates most of her dead husband’s clothing, and abruptly finds she can’t give away his shoes because they are Magical thinking. The moment I recall in Joan Didion’s memoir The Year of Magical Thinking is that she donates most of her dead husband’s clothing, and abruptly finds she can’t give away his shoes because they are custom-made and “he’ll need them.” Well, he won’t ever need them again, and she knows this, but then she doesn’t. And then she knows.

Because here’s the reality. That new story is getting close to being done. The house is tidy, and we’ve finished furnishing the condo with a table someone asked us to burn. (It’s walnut and we didn’t burn it, obviously, and thought it would be too big for the space, but here it is. Perfect.) The garden blooms throughout the year. Just now there are roses and hydrangea, the naturalized montbrecia and wild salal, and many precious little weedy flowers. Gary has done a wonderful job on the garden this year, though the rhubarb was trampled and we may not harvest again before 2027. We have several snakes in the garden, and invasive tiny ants in the bathroom. Our eaves are home to several bats. Every year, every moment offers up chance. Opportunities.

I lost my wedding ring the other day. I wear five rings on my ring finger, one for each decade of marriage and each by a different jeweler I admire and using a different technique. I’d moved my actual wedding ring to the second joint of my middle finger. It had fallen off several times, and I’d learned to hold it in place with my thumb when I washed my hands. I’d picked it up where it fell on the floor or slipped off while I was baking. This time I hadn’t noticed. And then, in the middle of the night, I did. And that’s why when Gary got up to go to the bathroom, I said, “I’ve lost my wedding ring.”

What followed was hours of searching, mostly by Gary who has a knack for finding lost things. We looked on and under furniture, between cushions, in the various places I put rings when I’m showering or going out for a run. Gary went through the trash. We decided it must be at the condo.

Searching on repeat in Portland. Under, over, around, and thorough. Gary searched for an hour and a half and then he sat on the sofa, looked over at the cats-paw carpet and thought: It could be there on the floor in plain sight. He called to me in the other room. “I’ve found your ring,” he said from his place on the sofa. He didn’t get up, but pointed. “It’s right there.” And so it was.

It’s on another finger, and now it’s all the way down to the joint with my palm.

Choose wisely. Choose your colors. Don’t give up.

Life is funny, odd, random and beautiful and cruelly inevitable sometimes, and because human beings search for meaning, we are bound to find it.