Coincidences

Lately I've been thinking about the idea of coincidences and fate. I happened to catch Serendipity, one of my all-time favorite movies, this past weekend. It's a film about a man and a woman and how through series of fateful events, find true love. Is the universe at work or is it all merely coincidence? Here are some personal examples of things I found coincidental:

• When I was sixteen, I studied abroad over the summer in Japan. While I was sitting down trying to fix my hair, I accidentally set a hot curling iron down on my leg (thigh). The burn caused a scar. When I was seventeen, I returned to Japan. Once again, I accidentally set my curling down on my leg (other thigh) and caused another scar. What are the odds?!
  


• My two children were both born on a Friday, exactly six days past their due dates. A couple hours after giving birth to my son, I found myself watching a rerun of one of my favorite shows, Mad About You. Ironically, it was the one where Jamie gives birth to their child. After the birth of my daughter, I caught a rerun of one of my other favorite shows, Friends. Strangely enough, it was the one where Rachel gives birth.
  


• My cousin Terry and I share the same birthday, December 14th. We are several years apart in age as are our children. However, his firstborn son and my firstborn son also share the same birthday, September 29th. He also has a younger daughter, as do I.
  


• Just last week, we were getting ready to attend K's Kindergarten graduation. While were were waiting to leave, K sat on my lap as we watched a rerun of Beverly Hills 90210's high school graduation episode. I was already feeling mixed emotions about my baby girl growing up too fast and to add the nostalgia of a show I loved during my high school days (I was class of '92) was an interesting walk down memory lane and a little ironic.
  


• Also this past Saturday, I was hanging out at the park with a neighbor friend, while our daughters had a playdate. As it turns out, her 5 year old daughter shares a birthday with K. Both will turn six on June 6th!

It seems as though many of the coincidences that I come across are related to songs or shows that somehow parallel my reality somehow. It's kind of like when you are My best friend and I often joke about how we also live parallel lives in that we often experience similar things at the same time. As I go to thinking more about coincidences, I came across some online during my cyberspace travels. Here a just a few even more fascinating ones:

• On the 26th November, 1911, three men were hanged at Greenberry Hill in London after being convicted of the murder of Sir Edmund Berry. Their names were Green, Berry and Hill.
  


• Mark Twain was born on the day of the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, and died on the day of its next appearance in 1910. He himself predicted this in 1909, when he said: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it."
  


• The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn't one to be had. Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. That in itself would have been coincidence enough but in fact it was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one - containing his own annotations - to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. 'Is this the one?' he asked, 'with the notes scribbled in the margins?' It was the same book.