August 1993: After a couple of hectic weeks in San Francisco, I decided to head down towards LA. It was late in the evening, pitch dark and raining like crazy and I was in a bad mood. Had missed the chance of a couple of interviews and appointments. But for some reason I suddenly regretted my decision to leave SF, so I turn around and head north again. I have no clue on where I am, but in need of a place to sleep, so I just take the first exit from the highway and drives to a quiet street and pull over. This is before the internet takes off, so I have a look in my physical Lonely Planet guidebook. Looks like I’m somewhere in Oakland and finds the name of some semi-seedy motel in the book. I remember thinking, “How am I going to find this place in the godforsaken weather at this late hour.?” and then looking out and up. Then I realize that I am parked just in front of a huge but dark road sign. The sign has the name of the motel, so I’m right next to the place. After that, I took a couple of extra days in San Francisco, met some good people there AND managed to get my interviews sorted as well.
January 2024: Just grabbing some goods at the supermarket. At the cashiers I remember I have a few curly receipts for recycled bottles and cans. There’s three in my purse and by chance I find a fourth one in the inner pocket of my jacket. The cashier assistant looks at me a bit funny and says “Well, that’s a bit strange – you don’t have to pay anything because the amounts adds up exactly!”. Of course this is probably bound to happen out of all the many times one has paid for stuff, but still felt strange in the moment.
January 2020: Out walking in my neighborhood. It’s cold and dark (January in Denmark can be grim), and I am listening to a podcast about the early years of Prince’s career. I pass by a house, and through a large window I can see a family sitting around the dinner table. The reason I am looking extra intently is that the room is lit up in a stark, nasty purple color, probably some kind of Philips Hue situation gone terribly wrong. At that very moment, the podcast voice in my ear says ‘.. he referred to them as his purple family’, while I’m looking straight in at this very purple family. I hope they’ve gotten the lighting situation under control.
March 2025: I sadly never got into the ‘Severance’ show, and in January, I wrote a quick post about that with a random GIF from the show included. A couple of months later, I tried watching it again (people hyping it again, still not a fan). As I wrote a follow-up post and pressed ‘publish’, I looked up, and realized I was at that exact moment in the show, with the GIF playing simultaneously on my phone. It felt really weird.
June 2019: Talking to a friend who is an experienced meditator. I mention that sometimes when I meditate, it feels like I am looking outside myself, even with my eyes closed. He reminds me that this look ‘out’ is also just a part of myself, which makes a lot of sense to me. After he leaves, I’m sitting outside on the porch thinking about this. I hear a blackbird singing and as I always do look over at the neighbor’s roof where the bird is often sitting at the ridge of the roof (I have a long tradition of taking Instagram photos showing this exactly). But there is no bird.. I’m puzzled, but then I realize that the bird is sitting on MY own ridge just above my head. This made me smile.
July 2025: Sending my youngest son a text regarding some soon-to-expire tickets to LEGO House. His response is a bit baffling as he noticed that the podcast he had just started came out almost three years ago, same date as the one on the tickets. But that’s not the weird(est) bit; the topic of the podcast is the (most excellent) 1955 movie ‘The Night of the Hunter’ which we watched together a while ago. The podcast opens by listing a some significant things as old as the movie; the seatbelt AND the LEGO system! (the brick itself is older, but the idea of the building system saw the light of day 1955. Strange!
August 2025; During a game of ‘Hint’ I was challenged to draw red things, and in one round illustrate “The Red Crescent” (aka Red Cross). So I drew a moon and split it in half (my game partner guessed it, easy). On my way home there was a beautiful red moon, and looking at the photo the next day I noticed the moon was spilt by a wire, just like on the drawing.
I am a volunteer at a wonderful local museum here, a job I enjoy a lot. Not too long ago, I lost my ID card. I had been on a shift at the museum and knew that I had the card on me when I went into the city to run some errands afterwards. When I came home, it was gone; I must have lost it somewhere in the city. So the next time I came to the museum, I thought, “Better borrow a card for this shift; I’ll just grab a random one with a male name on it for now.” All the ID cards for the volunteers are hanging from several bookcases in huge bundles, probably 150+ of them. So I reached out and grabbed a random badge. It had my name on it. I was rattled for a moment there.
Maybe just a few random occurrences from the ‘What are the odds’ department. Most of us get those, especially if we are a bit present and aware. But it’s fun and sometimes a bit spooky when it happens. And these are the small ones; later we can get into the bigger ones where help occurs just when needed. Perhaps you have a good synchronicity to share?
... 