We’ve all experienced the phenomenon when you get a new car and suddenly every car on the road is the same make, model and color, right? It’s wild. And definitely not true. It’s just a coincidence. Or maybe you’re just more attuned to it.
Today I’m here to muse on coincidences for a few hundred words.
For several years now, since my dad passed in 2020, I’ve been having dinner with my mom 6 nights a week, almost every week. We do the crossword puzzle together. Somehow we get way behind (we’re currently wrapping up April), so the puzzles aren’t even topical to recent happenings. And so often we’ll read a clue and either the clue or the answer is something that was just said on the news or a commercial. It’s crazy! And kinda freaky…
The word “purchase” (as with many words in the English language) has multiple meanings. I did not know this. I thought it just meant to buy something. But within a couple days of each other I came across it at least 2x (on a podcast and in a book) used in a different way that confused me and I had to look up. Essentially it means to grab hold of, which I suppose makes sense. Now you know too (if you didn’t already).
Character names in books I’m reading at the same time or during a season. Last year it was Alice. I read at least three books (Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune and I can’t remember the third but I’m fairly certain there was one) that the main character’s name was Alice. It was insane! And that’s not a popular name now, is it? And I had just watched the first two seasons of Shrinking and the daughter’s name was Alice! Merely a coincidence, but so wild!
This year it’s Maggie! And one of these books wasn’t a new one, it was from Lucy Score’s backlist.
And Epi-pens! I just read two books simultaneously (The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez and The Summer of Second Chances by KL Walther) where one of the main characters needed an Epi-pen! What are the odds???
And last but not least, the most current coincidence: “crafternoon.” I had never heard of this clever portmanteau. But within days I heard it on an old junk journal video by @megjournals (it’s her podcast name) and it was in Laura Vanderkam’s new book Big Time. I couldn’t believe it. But I like the term and am gonna adopt it into my life!
Maybe it’s like the new car phenomenon, you see/hear something once and then you’re aware of it and pickup on it in other places. But the book characters, that’s just freaky isn’t it? Or are all of my favorite authors plotting together to see if we catch on? lol… I did!
What coincidences have you come across?
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