Here’s a bookmark that’s both functional and sentimental!
The folks at the Calligrapher’s Guild of Southern California recently made a bookmark for me at their booth at the 2016 California International Antiquarian Book Fair in Pasadena.
The sentimental part came in as a result of a story that my calligrapher friend, Joan, told me—the moral of which, she said, was synchronicity. It seems that Joan usually produced complementary bookmarks bearing people’s hand-lettered names. But, instead, I had asked her to pen in the title of my book—The Stuff Cure. When she heard this, she looked up and asked: You’re the author of The Stuff Cure?”
Yes.
“Weren’t you recently on the radio on an NPR affiliate station serving New York a few weeks ago?”
Yes.
“I believe in synchronicity,” Joan added, “but I can’t believe that I am meeting you in person. I really can’t believe it. I was in New York several weeks ago to clean out my parents’ home after their death. To lighten things, I turned on the radio and heard you talking about getting rid of stuff. And I thought, wow, synchronicity—because I was making a special trip to New York for the exact purpose of cleaning out mom and dad’s home.”
Putting down her pen for a moment, Joan got teary eyed as she described just how hard it had been for her, not only coping with the fact of her parents’ deaths, but now, struggling to empty their houseful of possessions.
“Listening to you helped give me permission to get rid of most of what my parents had packed into their home. Synchronicity helped lift my burden.”
What an inspirational story! Probably everyone needs some synchronicity to motivate downsizing. Stuff comes into our lives when it connects to a need or want. So it stands to reason that we need to find the same kind of dynamic linkage in order to move it along!
The stuff cure: synchronicity helps!
