On Life's Little Coincidences, Duly Noted

In what is now 2015, one day in Spring, I sat at my computer, fingers hovering over a mouse connected by way of USB to a PC whose fan whirred demurely at me and stirred molecules into a haphazard staleness. Two bands, two of my favourites, were to perform in Detroit on a Friday and then a Saturday night, and I was to make an event out of it, staying in Detroit's sole hostel and exploring a city I love for a few days while seeing music I adore during the night.

Of course, I hesitated. And I hesitated, not for a matter of seconds or minutes, but days and weeks, until, finally, having convinced myself to pull the trigger, I was promptly informed that one of the venues was sold out.

The rest is personal history. I sort of blindly jumped into attending Pitchfork in Chicago instead, later in the summer, and had a highlight of my life that is right up there with the best, one that I have referred to in this blog in about as fond a manner as one as jaded as myself can.

I often reflect on this, how a few pixels saying "sold out," how making the original purchase just one day earlier, how fear, hesitation, all conspired to deliver me, ironically, a moment of my life I look upon as fondly as any other. And then the question becomes; what if it hadn't happened? What if the original plans never fell through? If I could examine both timelines impartially, it's hard to imagine the first as being anything other than an opportunity cost of the highest degree.

And now, today, early into 2016, my PC fan still whirrs in slightly louder vesture than previous years, time meanders on, and little coincidences continue to conspire and form and coalesce and many, most really, disappear, forever lost to time and with too little a footprint to matter. Perhaps, though, I can be so lucky to find another, one in 2016, that will stick.