This afternoon I went to the post office to mail my sister a birthday card (her birthday is Wednesday), and just as I was about to pull out of the parking lot ran into my friend Bonnie. I mean, I didn’t literally run into her, I just saw her then stopped to talk to her. Anyway, it was a fun coincidence, if you want to call it that. Personally, I don’t believe in accidents. I prefer to think that, as my travel writing friend Tom said about our meeting each other this last week in Tennessee, it was meant to be. Because think about it–what are the odds?

Recently I wrote about my first-ever experience with being called a derogatory term by a total stranger. You can read about it here, but basically I was standing alone outside a theater warehouse in Tennessee reading posters for the group’s upcoming musicals, and some guy in a Jeep drove by and shouted, “Queer!” And whereas I can’t swear that was the word he used (maybe he said, “We’re glad you’re HERE!”) or that he was even shouting at me, I reacted as if that were the case. And it’s not that I was offended, like–How dare he!–because, well, ACCURATE. Rather, I felt fear, since–let’s face it–this world is full of not only beauty but also brutality, and people have been beat up, hung up, and left to die on fence posts for much less. For simply being themselves.

It’s graphic to think about, I know.

For the last several days, this incident has lingered in my mind, the memory flickering off and on like a faulty lightbulb. Hum. I guess I have a lot of thoughts about it. And although this post could easily become a political or human rights essay, I don’t intend for it to be. Rather, I’d like to review several at-first-glance seemingly unrelated incidents that happened that day, and in so doing discuss–The Mystery. That being said, since I assume not everyone has my background or thinks like I do, I’d first like to back up and provide context that will hopefully explain how my brain work and why I’m choosing to look at this particular incident as “also not an accident.”

So here we go.

The foundation I’d like to lay first is that The Universe Communicates. This is an idea that I’ve blogged about here, that synchronicity, coincidence, and “accidents” are reminders that you and I are part of “something” larger, that we’re all connected “somehow,” that there is some sort order behind the chaos. Not that I believe this every minute of every day, but I do believe it. Deep down, it’s something I know. As cliché as the idea has become, it’s one I buy into–we are one.

To remind myself of this concept, a couple months ago I changed my laptop background image to a circumpunct. A circumpunct is basically a circle with a dot in the middle of it and is one of the oldest symbols known to man. Like many ancient symbols, the circumpunct has several meanings. For some, it’s the symbol of God, the one within the all, the all within the one. For astronomers, it’s the symbol of the sun. For alchemists, it’s the symbol of gold. For Target, it’s simply their logo, the symbol of hip, trendy home-goods and everyday low prices. For me, it’s the symbol of The Mystery.

The next major idea I’d like to lay down has to do with dreams (the kind you have when you’re sleeping), something I blog about often. Last week I wrote about a book I recently finished, The Three Only Things by Robert Moss. In that book, the author says that we should take our dreams more literally and our waking life more symbolically. I’ll say more about this in a moment. The author also says we can request certain information from our dreams, so I’ve recently started asking my subconscious to give me information in my dreams about how I can heal with regard to my headaches and upset stomach. Well, last night I dreamed that a man named WILL (who had a large NOSE) slowly stretched the muscles on the right side of my neck. Later I dreamed that a woman named GRACE told her granddaughter to drink more water as I was setting the kickstand down on my bicycle.

To the idea that dreams should be taken more literally, and if I’m to assume that my subconscious was actually answering the question I asked it, the advice seems clear. Use your WILL. (Set your intent to heal.) There’s part of you that KNOWS (nose) what to do. Stretch. Go slow. Drink more water. Rest. (Rest was the first think I thought of when recalling the kickstand image.)

Isn’t that a trip?

Okay, just two more things as background. (I know this is waxing long, but it’s a complex topic. Also, this is my blog, and I’ll write as much as I want to.) In one of the posts where I mentioned dreams and the book I just referenced, I said that the author says that dreams about shoes often refer to our SOULS, since shoes have SOLES. In that post, I discussed all the shoe dreams I’ve had since starting a dream journal. (For reference, my blog about soles and souls was FOUR DAYS before the “I spy with my little eye something that starts with a Q” incident.) In a number of other posts, and most recently in this one, I discussed how part of one’s spiritual path (or at least mine) is to keep one’s soul intact by forgiving or “not carrying the dead,” that is, by not leaving one’s soul in the past or–better said–by being fully in present time. (As Jesus instructed, “Give no thought for tomorrow.”)

With all this in mind, I’d now (and finally) like to proceed to the incidents leading up to (and following) The Great Queer Spotting of 2018. As you read, please keep in mind the suggestions that the universe communicates and that we should view our waking lives less realistically and more symbolically.

Also, feel free to take a bathroom break or grab a cup of coffee if you need to.

1. Tom’s story

That morning, Friday, my friend Tom and I were in a mini-van with at least one other journalist and one of our trip organizers, and Tom, upon prodding from someone who’d heard it before, told a story about being threatened at gunpoint in Morocco. Tom was in a busy marketplace with a camera. For reasons that I don’t recall and would be too long to explain here anyway, Tom had a bodyguard, but the bodyguard wasn’t nearby. Then a stranger came up to Tom, stuck a gun in his gut, and said, “You have camera. I have gun. I shoot you.” Later, the bodyguard caught the guy, held a gun to his head, and threatened to kill him in return. And whereas Tom said, “Fuck ’em,” the bodyguard let the guy go. “HE’S NOT A TRUE THREAT,” the bodyguard said.

2. My story

During the same car ride, our group–mostly our friend Steve–told a number of jokes. After one joke about an ugly woman, we laughed and laughed. Steve said it’s a joke that separates the men from the women; men laugh at the joke, women go, “Awe, that’s terrible!” (Later when a women in our group laughed at the joke, Steve said, “You may be a man and not know it.”) Anyway, I ended up talking about one of my major regrets in life–a night in high school when a friend of mine and I performed a roast and–apparently–took things too far. I mean, people were crying. I said, “It’s taken me a long time to forgive myself and move on from the event, the better part of two decades.” Tom said, “Isn’t it funny how a little thing like that can TRIP YOU UP?”

3. My earring

That afternoon, while touring Fall Creek Falls State Park, I noticed that I’d lost the back (but not the front) to one of my tiny dinosaur earrings. I’ve blogged about dinosaurs here, but for me they represent THE PAST, or THAT WHICH IS DEAD.

4. The park ranger’s story

While several members of our group and I hiked back up from the bottom of Fall Creek Falls (a waterfall), one of the park rangers told me that they often have to rescue or carry out hikers who have sprained their ankles, broken their legs, or died while in the canyon. The process, he described, involves a large stretcher and requires 12 to 18 rangers or volunteers to lift the person’s body and get them back to the top of the mountain. The image/lesson that stuck in my mind: IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO CARRY THE DEAD.

5. My shoe

Later that day, at another state park, I TRIPPED on a rock and ripped the SOLE off the front of my left boot.

6. The thing

That night, some guy in a Jeep called me A QUEER.

7. The other park ranger’s advice

The next morning, before going on a hike at another state park, I asked the park ranger if he happened to have any duct tape that I could use to hold my boot together so the loose sole wouldn’t get caught on anything else. As “luck” would have it, he had some camouflage duct tape in his truck, and reaching into his cab, he handed it to me. “Ask and you shall receive,” I said. Then the ranger suggested I put my foot up on his running board to apply the tape, so I did. As I began to wrap the tape around my boot, he said, “You wouldn’t want to lose your sole out here.” What I heard was, “You wouldn’t want to lose your SOUL out here.”

I didn’t take a picture of my boot at the time, but here’s a picture of my boot from this morning. It shows my damaged footwear slathered in super glue, held together with duct tape and clamps while the glue dries. (This is my attempt to repair MY SOLE. This blog is my attempt to repair my MY SOUL.)

Having had a few days to consider all this, the whole affair seems like something that was meant to happen. That is, how can I say that it wasn’t an accident that I met Tom and that it wasn’t an accident that I ran into Bonnie at the post office and at the same time say that my being called a queer by some guy in a Jeep was simply a random injustice, a fluke? Indeed, I can’t because–what are the odds? I know this is an extreme example, but did Jesus whine when he was delivered up to Pilate or say, “This shouldn’t have happened”? Did he even attempt to defend himself? Did he insist on accepting only the pleasant from his father and refuse to accept the strenuous and the challenging? No. No he did not.

He trusted; he surrendered.

This is something I’m trying to do. Reviewing my experience as A WHOLE, it seems clear that the universe was communicating several important messages to me before, during, and after the event. First, I’m not the only one who’s ever been called a name, scared, or threatened. My friend Tom was at gunpoint. Second, my words have unintentionally hurt others in the past, so the gracious position for me to take now is that the guy in the Jeep also had no intention of causing me harm. Regardless, HE’S NOT A TRUE THREAT. And even if he were, it’s my intention to not let the matter TRIP ME UP. It’s IN THE PAST. I’ve CARRIED THE DEAD before, and IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT. As today presents its own challenges, I can’t be afraid, I can’t give any thought for tomorrow, and I can’t LOSE MY SOUL “OUT THERE.”

Because I need it IN HERE.

In conclusion, I’ve been wanting to write about this since the other park ranger gave me the duct tape and made that comment about my sole/soul because it hit me like a ton of bricks. A coincidence, you say? “Coincidence is the language of the stars,” Paulo Coelho says in The Alchemist. Still, I’ve been putting off writing this because–I know–it’s a lot. But since starting this blog I’ve always known when I needed to write about something, and all day today I kept thinking, Today’s the day. Then tonight when I got home I stepped into my driveway, looked at the almost-full moon, and saw that it had a giant halo around it, the result of certain atmospheric conditions that cause the moon’s light to both refract (scatter) and reflect off tiny crystals of ice. The result? A giant circumpunct, the ancient symbol of God, the sun, and pure gold, and a personal reminder of–The Mystery. Or, as one website I stumbled across tonight says, the symbol of the universe, the place where we can “redeem our souls.”

Isn’t that a trip?