If That's Not a Sign, Then I Don't Know What Is...

For all intents and purposes, I don't really consider myself a superstitious person. I don't really subscribe myself to any particular religion, nor do I consider myself very spiritual--unless of course, I have food poisoning and am praying to the Porcelain Gods. And depending on whether or not I've just watched a scary movie (Poltergeist traumatized me at the tender age of 4, The Ring at 16, and of course I have always believe Ghostbusters to be a scientifically legitimate documentary), I generally don't believe in ghosts. I think.

However, I've had a number of coincidental, serendipitous, whatever-you-want-to-call-it experiences in the last couple of weeks that I can't help but conclude is my mother sending me a message. Before I come across as someone who may need a few days in an institution, allow me to explain:

The first experience was nothing too surprising. At my last host in Naringal, they had a wheelbarrow full of beautiful freesias, which just so happened to be Mom's favorite flowers. I didn't think too much of that--they did grow flowers for a living, of course, and it's not like freesias are rarer than a full mouth of teeth at an upstate New York county fair. At the time it just made me super happy to see them.

At the new place that I'm staying in Woodend, I was painting some furniture and ran across *GASP* my first deadly creature in Australia: the red-backed spider. I always remember my mother telling me about a certain spider (although she never told me the name) in Sydney where she used to live, and you had to always be careful to not put your hands underneath benches or tables outdoors because of them. I am certain that this was the spider she was talking about, as its M.O. is hiding in crevices of wood and under wooden tables and benches. What makes this weirder is that they are very uncommon in Victoria (my hosts and their friends haven't seen any in years), and I saw 2 of them in a matter of 2 days. I'll try not to read too much into the fact that they were deadly and try to keep this upbeat...

Next, all contained in one small bookshelf at the Woodend house were the books 'Catherine the Great', 'Cathy: Her Own Story', and another book by an author with the first name Cathy. All spelled the same way my mother used to. This was particularly funny to me given the fact that Mom was always correcting people about the spelling of her name. I can still hear her saying to people taking down her information, "Now, that's Catherine with a 'C', not a 'K'!"

On Wednesday night, my hosts Penny and Hilary took my fellow WWOOFers and I to their film society where they screened the Australian film "Look Both Ways." One of the characters in the movie was named Cathy (and I'm sure it was spelled the same way, as the subtitles were on). Of course, I'm not crying 'CONSPIRACY!' every time I hear the name Cathy. There was, of course, another freaky coincidence--if one should call it that--about the movie which really stood out to me. The blurb that they provided about the movie said that the writer/director Sarah Watt had passed away in November 2011--and from breast cancer no less. Almost exactly one year after my mother. Cue Twilight Zone  theme music.

Now, for the coup de gras. Yesterday Hilary and Penny had a couple over for lunch. When I told them I was from New York State they told me that they got married in Rome, NY at the Woodstock concert. BUT WAIT! That's not the only Small World After All coincidence! The kicker is that my mother grew up in Rome, and my family and I were staying in Rome in 1999 when this couple was at the concert getting married and my mom went to her 30th high school reunion that night (odd that it would be 30 years since she graduated, as I distinctly remember her turning only 39 each year on her birthday when I was ages 8-14), and I could hear the concert from my grandma's house. And the calculated odds of this are...???

Creepy? Coincidence? Fate? Who knows. Dad completely agrees with me that it must be a sign from above. Maybe it's only her harping on me to separate the whites from the colors when I do laundry (Dad and I really slacked on that in the last couple of years...) or telling me to be more vigilant around dangerous Australian fauna. Whatever it is, it's been incredibly comforting and has put a big smile on my face for the last 2 days, and has made me more sure than ever that coming to Australia (and to this host in Woodend in particular) was definitely the right choice.