<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Synchronicity <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); min-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">We’re walking down the hill to the little pond </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">that always reminds me of Mc Elligot's Pool. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">It’s dinky with a sprinkling of pre-teen boys </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">dreaming on their fishing poles. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>Catch anything</i>, I ask? though I know </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">there’s not a single fish in their buckets. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">The turtles are out in force, lining a log </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">like commuters waiting for the 6:40 bus. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I start to tell you a story about the time </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">my six-year-old appeared onstage with Bill Irwin.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">How the great clown whispered to him</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">both of them in identical Harlequin suits </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">standing inside an antique trunk</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">as if it were just an ordinary day at the circus.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>You never stick to the storyline</i>, you say,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>you veer off on crazy tangents</i>.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>My professor calls those bird walks</i>, I say. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>They’re prized in the storytelling community</i>.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">It’s a teensy lie, not the bird walks per se</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">but the part about storytellers liking them.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Then I crawl out on a narrow limb </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">and tell you about the Nun’s Study </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">how the sisters who wrote about their lives</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">in prosaic style developed early Alzheimer’s. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>My story elements are lined up in my mind</i></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>like those turtles on the log, only the line is more of a spiral </i></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>like the roundabout on Western Avenue.</i></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I finish the Bill Irwin story and circle back</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">to the black and white glossies of Bill in his clown suit</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">hanging on my bedroom wall, how I came to own them. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>It’s all serendipity</i>, I say, <i>and synchronicity</i></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">forgetting (again) the difference between them.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Is there a difference? </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>If you’re patient, the story </i></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><i>will come back to pick you up and walk you home</i>, I say</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">like a good square dance caller, even</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">when the metaphorical bus is late.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26); white-space: pre;"> </span><font color="#1a1a1a"><span style="caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">- Sandra Anfang</span></font></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); min-height: 22px;"><br></div></div></body></html>