I met a young friend yesterday I haven’t seen since before the many lockdown disruptions began in 2020. He told me he had read my blog, which surprised me. Not that he read it, which I knew, but that he mentioned it to me. As though it was something I should know. We chatted for a bit and I commented that I’d better get writing again, not having done so for a while.

This was chance happening number two.

My next and final stop before heading for home found me at a friend’s apartment. She made a point of offering me a book of writing prompts. I accepted. This was chance happening number three.

And number one?

I took out an audiobook from the library a few weeks ago. I listened to the first disc. The second disc wouldn’t play. I didn’t mind much. The story hadn’t grabbed me. When I returned the audiobook to the library I let the bright young lady at the desk know that it wouldn’t play properly. She apologetically and enthusiastically offered to order me another copy. Not wanting to disappoint her, I agreed.

The thing is, I needed this book – The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick. I just didn’t know I needed it until I really got into it. The central character, Martha, is a writer who has stopped writing. Writing was something she used to do – incessantly – as a child and adolescent. But life has wrung so much out of her that she’s given up. She’s even stopped reading, and she can’t even get a properly paid position at the local library where she’s volunteered for years. She’s wildly codependent and well and truly stuck in her silent desperation.

Then a special book comes mysteriously into her life and slowly, inexorably, sometimes painfully, her life changes – because she changes. And with the right influences Martha finds the ability, and the will, to write again.

I haven’t finished the book yet. I stopped listening yesterday at a particularly fraught moment, so I can’t tell you how her life ultimately works out. But I can tell you that this book, or more accurately, this story, was meant for me. Listening to it, so wonderfully brought to life by the talented and versatile Imogen Church, I gleaned lessons for my life.

Buddhism teaches there are no accidental or haphazard happenings in life. Everything is cause-and-effect. There are coincidences, certainly, but these are not to be dismissed as random happenings. Coincidences are a manifestation of synchronicity. And as such, we do well to pay attention to them.

Three different people – one of them a writer in Britain I’ve never met – have encouraged me within a short amount of time to pick up my resolve and start writing again. The confluence of their actions is that I’m sitting here at my dinner table, tapping away at my laptop.

So if my two friends – and you know who you are – read this post: Thank you. Very much. ❤

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash