Captain Serendipity

serendipity: n : accidental sagacity; the faculty of making fortunate discoveries of things you were not looking for

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living…. If you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

– Joseph Campbell

Well, color me a believer. The last nine months of my life have been an incredible demonstration of both of the above. To wit:

1. I find myself in a rut. I am tired of my career and need to find a way to change my life to something I can be proud of. My employer lays me off with a juicy severance package. I pay off my debt and go travelling.

2. While travelling, I realize that what I really want to do is work on some creative projects: writing both old and new, music, theatre. I start trying to work out how to do this without starving to death. Then I meet this guy in a bar in Queenstown, NZ. He lives in London, is a writer and an editor. We hit it off, decide to do some travelling around the South Island together. Two weeks later we agree to collaborate on a script for British television.

3. I go to London to work on said script. The work goes incredibly well. I start looking around at real estate and trying to work out how I can move over there. I pop over to Bristol to visit an old friend and tell her this. She offers me her spare room on an indefinite basis. We also decide to collaborate on a sculpture project. I confirm with the passport office that I can legally live and work in the UK.

4. I come home from England, with 10 weeks to sort out my life and get it ready to move before my lease runs out, and a face from the past resurfaces in a most unexpected manner. Entirely aside from the joy of reconnecting with a long-lost friend, he starts telling me about this incredible project he’s got going. And asks me to collaborate on it. If it works, it will easily fund my life in the UK for some time, allowing me to write and create. And did I happen to mention that he lives in Europe? Yeah. Added value bonus.

I am beginning to feel like the universe is actually conspiring *with* me for a change. I mean, what are the odds? What are the odds of just one of these things happening, let alone all of them, all perfectly timed? I occasionally feel an urge to mope and whine about things – I’ve got too much to do before I go, I’m leaving so much behind, blah blah blah. So this list is as much for me as for you, dear readers. I’m the luckiest bitch I know right now. The other night at dinner, I told another old friend about all of these serendipitous events. He kept thinking I was done after every one. I started to feel like I was in a Ginsu commercial: “NOW how much would you pay? But wait, there’s MORE!” When I was finished, he looked at me and nodded sagely. “We’re going to put a cheese plate on the menu next week,” he said.

Maybe Joe was right. Once you know what you really need to do, what your passion really is, and you dedicate yourself to it, the pieces will fall into place. How fucking cool is that? How about we celebrate with some music? In the Waiting Line:: Zero 7 [4.16MB MP3] and, since you need your disco and your disco needs you (thanks, Nikola), Little L:: Jamiroquai [5.64MB MP3].

So. Who wants to buy some really nice furniture?