Randomness and chaos

I wait at the photo section of the store for a few minutes. No one comes. I fidget, look around, find other things to purchase. I check my watch. Finally, the clerk comes along, takes my film and my information, and sends me on my way. Then, i peruse the greeting cards for a while, and finally, i am ready to check out. I count my change, and make my way out the door. I walk two blocks to the bus stop, and find out that a bus is due to come soon. I stand back to wait, and just at that moment, someone calls out "Hello!". I look up, surprised (i don't know hardly anyone in this town, so i am never expecting someone on the street to be talking to me) - it is Peter - one of the ten people i know here! After we have a conversation, my bus comes and he goes on his way.

After this encounter, i realise that it is utterly amazing and beautiful to me that i can run into people i know, at all. It seems so unlikely that things would work together in just such a way, with just such timing (what if i hadn't have taken as much time in the greeting card section? what if i had driven to the store that day?) that i could see someone i know in a city of 3 million people. In fact, the knowledge that anything works at all, simply amazes me. The buses run, pick me up at relatively the right time (and i somehow made it to that place to catch the bus, pay the fare, and ride to my destination). So running into someone, in this world of seeming extreme busy-ness and crowded schedules, chaos and randomness, seems to serve as a prescient reminder that there is always the possibility of synchronicity and happy coincidence.