Serendipitous Moments, Crazy “Challenges”

It’s a Small World

About a week ago, a girl’s name popped into my head along with the impression that we’d been friends when we were little. Our moms must have been friends and I vaguely remembered something about eating lunch with her, possibly Spaghetti-Os. At least that was the visual snapshot – I can almost picture the table.

I had no idea how to spell her name. Fortunately, it’s not “Smith.” But who knows – women our age often changed our last names when we married, so the odds weren’t really in my favor. I did a Google search, anyway.

I found someone on Facebook who’d posted about a childhood memory of Kent State University that was uncannily similar to mine. I sent her a message and asked if she’d gone to the same Kindergarten I had gone to and did she remember the teacher.

She had! And she did. And after comparing what were, for both of us, vague and hazy snippets of memory, we were certain we were in the same class. We may even have taken ballet lessons elsewhere from the same instructor. Neither of us was any good at it and we both hated it.

But here’s the even funnier part: I told my daughter about this and mentioned where the woman worked. She replied with laughter and “you’re kidding?!” Turns out my friend is the Executive Director of a legal services non-profit that my daughter did a project for while she was working on her Masters degree. She is now more than halfway through law school, herself. But she and my friend had never met. Now they’re connected on LinkedIn.

I love odd, serendipitous moments like this.

Not in Kansas Anymore

But I was! After talking my husband into taking me to Santa Fe, Taos, and Los Alamos, New Mexico (one of two states, along with Kansas, that he had been to but I had not), I called up a friend in Lawrence, Kansas, and asked if she might have time to hang out with me for a day or two this month. Honestly – and no offense to what I’m sure is a beautiful state – visiting her was absolutely the only reason I could think of to go to Kansas. Now, Polli isn’t just any friend. I’ve known her for close to thirty years. Except that we’d never met face-to-face before. As for how we became friends in the first place, I think the post Gratitude and a List explains it best. I had a marvelous time exploring Lawrence, Kansas, seeing where my friend works, enjoying good food and good company. It was a short visit, but well worth the trip!

A(nother) Challenge, or Am I Just a Glutton for Punishment?

April is, of course, National Poetry Month. And April 1st is the beginning of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, which I completed with a poem a day – in the spirit of NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo – in 2023. The Writers Digest Poem-a-Day (PAD) Challenge. And of course I’m in my second year of doing The Stafford Challenge, which is to write a poem a day for a  whole year. Today is Day 65. This year? I’m doing them all. Plus entering 30 poetry contests, judging two, enjoying fun time with family, traveling to the last two of fifty states I haven’t yet visited, and attending Poetry at Roundtop. Yay!

Upcoming

I have a poem published in Amazon.com: I Am From: Anthology of Essays, Poetry and Prose eBook : Brearley, Susan, Arvizu, Nanci, Barrett, Rebecca, Lemay, Melissa, Tomey-Zonneveld, Lisa, Nickerson, Shannon: Kindle Store

Necia Campbell – fellow mischief-maker – and I have a collaborative poem, “When the Last Cricket Sings,” that will be published by Collaborature on April 2, 2025. I have a URL, but WordPress will just gripe about it being a broken link until the poem is published, so I’ll wait and update this post later. If I remember.

Your Turn…

Leave me a comment: Tell me about your serendipitous moments, crazy projects and challenges, and good news!