The day of magical thinking

I found a penny on the sidewalk.

This is a rare thing indeed, as in Canada, they stopped making pennies ten years ago.

It was in the middle of a challenging day, which, in turn, was in the middle of a trying week, and I juggled everything I had to struggle to pick the penny up, because it seemed a sign that everything was going to be all right.

Yeah, yeah... I've heard about magical thinking. Well, dammit, sometimes, a belief in magic is all that keeps me going.

There are times that I think I've stumbled into a novel by Kafka. 

 Or Vonnegut. 

 Maybe Camus.

I was literally minding my own business, signing in as I do every two to three times a year, and have done for the last decade, to order dietary enzymes for younger daughter, because they have been a successful boost in managing her autism for the past two decades.

I was therefore, surprised to find my credit card declined.  An automatic message suggested I supply another credit card.  I haven't had another credit card for years, having got rid of it, when the bank involved had, without permission, made my independent account a joint one with the Resident Fan Boy, when we purchased our house, and refused to rectify this when we asked.  

The RFB wasn't home, so I shrugged, and logged off, deciding to try again later. 

It was a matter of minutes before the bank involved with this particular card sent me an email, informing me that there had been "suspicious activity" on my account.  Since this was an email, I decided to take this with a grain of salt, but noted that, along with the phone numbers provided, I could phone the number on the back of my card.  I figured that this last option was the safest one.

After jumping through the hoops to get into the phone queue, a recording estimated my wait as being between one hour, and an hour and a half.  I needed to be at Demeter's for the evening set-up, so I hung up.

Almost immediately, my landline rang with an automated message with almost the exact same wording as the email, so I resolved to try again after visiting Demeter, taking a therapeutic 25-minute walk beforehand, as the sun disappeared, leaving trails of powdery-pink clouds.

The RFB was going out for the evening, so I jumped through the automated phone hoops again, and was informed by the cheerful recorded voice that my estimated wait-time was now 90 minutes to 2 hours.  I put my phone on speaker, and puttered around doing chores, while trying to ignore the Kenny G type saxophone phone queue music, interspersed with loud bank service promotions, and alarmingly long periods of dead air.

After about an hour and a half of this, I realised someone was actually talking to me, and I had to jump through some more hoops, answering inscrutable questions about my account.  My baffled responses evidently confirmed that I was who I said I was, and the nice lady proceeded to tap away at whatever device she was using, and removed the "restrictions".

When I asked her why I had been restricted in the first place, as the order I'd placed had been with a company I'd used many times before, she airily told me that "we don't know why", but there had probably  been a pattern that activated the "red flag".

Here's what I don't understand.  There appear to be regular news items about poor souls' having their bank accounts emptied by fraudulent malfeasants, without the said bank's being at all suspicious.  Sudden expensive purchases and the transferrals of savings into other accounts apparently don't count as a pattern.

I'll stick with magic, thank you.  Surely the rarity of pennies render the magic more potent?

(Don't answer that.)

Catch a falling star leaf

Are all superstitions delusions or proof of impossibly magical thinking? I think superstitions can be useful metaphors. Take lucky pennies (and I do, at every opportunity). I found five last weekend, and I saw them because I was not rushing, I happened to look down, and I was willing to stoop to scoop them up. The Resident Fan Boy is fond of saying that luck is preparation plus opportunity. A lucky penny illustrates that nicely. If I'm with someone, I hand it to them, saying: Find a penny, give it away; have good luck for the rest of the day. That's not magical thinking; that's a reminder.

So every autumn, I try to catch falling leaves. It's actually devilishly difficult. If the wind is high, they whoosh above my head. If the wind is low, there are few leaves that appear to drift lazily down, but dip and slip off in a random directions even as I reach. Others fall in scores just where I'm not standing. See, I read in a book in the school library that every leaf caught while falling is good for a wish. I aim for six leaves each year, three leaves per the two most desperate desires from my own personal Mirror of Erised. (Check Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets if you don't catch that reference. That J.K. Rowling knows some dark truths about the human psyche.)

Thus, every tree becomes a tree of dreams: fiery ones, crimson and scarlet ones


and golden ones.

And what prevents me from catching leaves? Sometimes someone is approaching me and I feel too self-conscious, sometimes I simply don't have the speed or agility, sometimes I don't want to trespass or get run over, sometimes my arms are full, and sometimes a child is holding my hand. See? It is a metaphor...

This morning, I made the time to catch leaves, but I always seemed to be standing in the wrong place. As I made my way down the hill, a gust blew a shower of them across the street, and I swept my arms towards my chest, looked down and two golden maple leafs were clutched to my left collarbone. I kissed each and made my wishes, tucking them in my breast pocket. A few minutes later, an ash leaf sailed by and I simply reached out and snatched it from the air. This brings my total to four because last week when I was taking most of these pictures (in fact, it was while I was taking this very picture), a leaf swooped down and landed on my left shoulder. I tell you, my friends, in all my years of leaf-catching and wish-snatching, that has never happened before. Nor is likely to happen again.

Oh, and as for my Mirror of Erised wishes? They may be on their way, but no signs yet. And if I tell you what they are, everyone knows they'll never come true. (No, nothing to do with David Tennant...)