Not Much Stranger Than This...

Things are generally strange around here, by New Zealand standards. I spend the vast majority of my life here wondering what they think they are doing, I’ll freely admit it.

Once in a blue moon along comes an experience that is at one time incredible, and yet, completely out of the script of some crazy movie. I walk away wondering to myself, what it was I just experienced.

The other day was – indeed - one of those days.

Our Internet connection was dead, by way of the sad demise of the desk-top machine. It was, I assure you, very sad indeed to hear it gurgle and die. Our efforts of resuscitation were futile, it needed to be taken to the computer E.R.

Made all the worse, in that I was “just about to make an appointment” with the GeekSquad. The past few weeks had been kind of hectic, and they seemed about ready to settle down into some semblance of normalcy. So, I was ready to shell out the cash and have an expert come trouble-shoot us. The sad cliche of it all disgusts me.

So – I went to try and connect with the laptop at the local Coffee Bean. To no avail. Instead, I was that annoying guy on his cell-phone who has a long-distance phone call with some friend-or-another. I wasn’t too rude, it is a loud place, after all.

I bought a coffee and a fat-free whole-grain muffin, called a friend, and had a yack. It was great, she is doing well.

After we were done the place had really started to fill up. I’m not one for crowded places, and certainly not the local Coffee Bean. There was a guy crouched ready to pounce on the table I was at as soon as I left, so I did just that.

I then set off on my short walk home.

I had noticed, when I was back in the Coffee Bean, a man, wearing a birds-egg blue turban, with a beautiful, flowing black and grey beard. A yogi? A Sikh? I’m not sure. And for the story, it doesn’t actually matter.

As I strode out of the Coffee Bean towards the pedestrian crossing, as the west-bound lane of Santa Monica Blvd streams beside me - like a river – “You’ll be Lucky” I heard. I turned and it was the man in the turban, the man I had seen on the street outside the window. He continued, in accented English, the likes of which I hadn’t heard for a very long time. I would be lucky, he could see it in my face, and he could see it with his third eye. I would be lucky.

He proceeded to explain, writing notes on a small piece of yellow paper, the three levels of my luck; in money, in travel, and in happiness. While I felt myself jumping almost, to be skeptical I chose instead to be open, to welcome the words that he was saying, receive the blessing he was going to give me.

"You need to pray more - G-d can't see you if you don't see G-d". Hmmm...

It lasted probably 7 or 8 minutes, and at the end of it I had chosen to make the requested $7 donation to the yogi, to the teacher. But I had received the blessing of this holy man.

He actually got a lot of it right, he knew his shit. I do need to pray more.

I was going to have five weeks of luck, five weeks of money, and happiness. He saw that I had just had five weeks of bad luck. But that there was relief at hand. But I had to pray more, every day. G-d will not see me if I do not see G-d. He saw that I am good and kind, to everyone I meet, and to all I find on my journey. For he could see that I had traveled, had I been to London?

Rapid fire connection and infiltration points “into me”.

It was actually quite amazing to me to allow myself to have my fortune told by someone that I took the decision to trust, instead of mis-trust when they came up to me on the street.

He asked me to think of a number between 1 and 100. I chose 67, the year of my birth. He asked me for money, when the fortune was done, and that was the figure. No, he didn’t expect me to give him $67, that was a lot of money. Seven dollars would be better, he knew I had that much.

I tried to offer $1, but then realized that I had been contracting him in something unique. I looked and there it was exactly, a five and two singles. I thanked him, handed over the $7, and in return he gave me a small, red, walnut-like, bead. It is from his temple in India, it is sacred. I took it, smiling deeply, and feeling strangely elated.

I felt a lightness in my step the rest of the walk on the blustery streets of West Hollywood. Past the frenzy of the car wash, as the clouds billowed by overhead, home to the apartment, rolling the small, red ball in my fingers.

I figured that there must be something that I need to do to make room for the luck soon to be mine. I cleaned out my closet of all the clothes I’ll never wear again. I’ve gained some waistline of late, and have been hanging on to a few pairs of pants, that I really will never wear again. Out they go. And some shirts I once thought were cute, but realize now are more about who I was when I bought them, and where I was when I bought them.

I had fretted this week about stacks of things bearing down on me, so I purged and tidied the closet space, and thought more about seeing G-d.