For some time now I have had, ridiculously good parking luck. This past Christmas shopping season, even on the busiest days, served to prove that if there was an empty space not too far from the entrance of the store (or mall), I would find it before anyone else did. It was amusing at first and has come to be a little eerie, though no less welcome.
It wasn’t always this way. Parking happened to me in the same random fashion that it did to everyone else. However, a few years ago, we started joking about the parking lot gods. If I found a good space, well, they liked me. If I didn’t then either I had annoyed them somehow or they had the day off. This became a routine entertainment and got trotted out whenever we had to go someplace likely to be crowded. It was facile and amusing.
And then things began to change. More and more often, I was finding auspicious parking spots - not 100% of the time, but maybe 85%? We’d pull into the mall, into the covered lot and I could usually drive right up to the entrance and find someone else just pulling out. This even seems to work during shark-parking conditions - you know, the times when there are a dozen other cars circling the lot in hopes of finding a space that won’t necessitate a three mile hike and a box lunch. There might have been a car in front of me a ways up and three cars behind me as I drove down the lane but the space would open up as I got there.
Yeah, weird, I know.
Last week, we went to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant and while we were eating, the subject of the parking lot gods came up. We had always treated it as a joke, but undeniably something had changed over the last 6 or 7 years and had ramped up quite a bit over the last 2 years or so. I was beginning to feel a bit strange about it but I know it wasn’t just me, just my imagination. Myria had been an observer of all this as well. I wasn’t imagining things - I was getting good parking spaces on a regular basis - almost as though someone were watching out or arranging things for me.
Over egg foo yung and lo mein (Oh! And the most excellent crab rangoon), I asked Myria what she thought about it.
She suggested that my luck may be because the parking lot gods like me, and that they like me because they have so few believers that they take care of the ones they have. Hmmm…
So, do they exist independent of whether anyone believes in them or did our joking about them constitute a sort of belief or faith that brought them into being? I can’t answer the question because I don’t know. What I do know is that I can park anywhere, almost any time. Once or twice would have been a coincidence, but the many many times over the last several years that good parking spaces have been available to me is way more than coincidence could explain.
I realize that this brings nothing new to the discussion of the nature of faith and that being able to consistently find primo parking spots is a very minor thing in any consideration of how the universe wags. But I can’t help wondering. If this is all it takes, not even really the faith that something exists, but the suspicion that it might, what couldn’t we accomplish? Perhaps even more to the point - what are we accomplishing now?
We finished with lunch and the waiter brought the check on a plate with the requisite fortune cookies. We each took one. I opened mine and read the fortune (giving the cookie to Myria who apparently likes that taste of sweetened cardboard). Under other circumstances, I would have chalked this up as standard fortune-cookie fare but given the discussion we’d been having over lunch, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up…
You are the master of your destiny
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Robbyn: My husband and I have been joking about that for years. I tell him that he has “parking luck”. He always takes the car downtown and finds a spot right in front of where we’re going, immediately. I have to hunt around for 30 minutes to find something. It’s the only thing he knows. He doesn’t understand my reluctance to take the car because he assumes that everyone always gets a spot, right away - every time. It’s very frustrating. The best word to describe it when you witness this, is miraculous. I’m happy to hear that the parking Gods are smiling on you. I’m encouraged to hear that luck can change as well! :-)
Cheryl - Well, it’s an odd kind of luck to have, but I’ll take it :) Perhaps your luck will change too!
well, i’m glad someone has ‘good parking karma’- i must have had the whammy put on me by those parking deities, as i am the one trudging along with that box lunch in hand whenever i have to go anywhere- since leo can’t walk for any distance, i always just drop him off and resign myself to parking in the next county!
i just really like that running wolf closing-
grey warmth from yesterday has given way to dismal coolth, and, you are right, both are without merit-
stay happy-
I think they existed all along and were waiting for some recognition. Good for you to be one of those!
Barb - Doesn’t your dearly beloved qualify for handicapped parking? Or are them fightin’ words? :)
I love that wolf too - so fluid and beautiful..
Laura - Well, that’s the other side :) Half of me thinks this is the silliest thing that ever went through my brain but the other half wonders…
I totally have good parking luck - Jeff comments on it all the time. I can get into the mall during holidays for a quick run to Godiva no problemo. ;)
It is because I beLIEVE.
I even let my handicapped parking tag expire because I never need it! I’m telling you, there’s nothing you can’t get jump-started in your life with a little positive thinking or a grain of faith.
Loved the fortune cookie “coincidence”... that’s another word for “The Divine is speaking to you now.” Hugs!
Love the new look of your blog. I enjoyed your post today….brought a smile to my face.
Stasia - Your comment neatly sums up all the things I’ve been wondering about :) It’s very cool that this is something you experience too!
Maureen - Glad it tickled you! Fun is where you find it and I have a lot of fun playing with the PL gods :)
