Happenstance

I don’t know what to make of happenstance.

As when he walks in and orders a coffee. And then, a minute or two later, she walks in. I’m not doing much of anything, except for sitting alone at the counter with my club sandwich and a currant iced tea. This time I got the potato salad.

She smiled at him. He smiled at her. Their paths have apparently and unexpectedly crossed at this point, among all other possible points, in space and time. They talk, catching up a little, standing near the register where I can hear nearly every other word.

She orders a coffee while he sets his on a table against the wall behind me. From the corner of my eye, I see her hang her coat over a chair by the table. He goes back to order a sandwich. She must have gone back to the back and when she returns she has swirled and pinned her dark brown hair into a loose tangle just off the top of her head. She looks at a menu after sitting down in a chair facing the front of the coffee shop. Her face looks warm in the dim light from the fixture on the wall just over the salt and pepper and the hot sauce.

He comes back to the table and sits down facing her. Their heads tilt towards each other.

I know that I am just sitting in a coffee shop where almost anything can happen, but I wonder if I should step outside into the universe and come back in again. I could possibly have whatever it is that they are having.

I place my empty basket and my glass with only a few ice cubes at the bottom into the bin and I put on my coat and my stocking hat and wool mittens. I step out into the cold night.

I pause for a heartbeat.

I turned toward my own ‘her.’ Oh, I could tell you a hundred ways the two of us might not have met without even blinking my eyes. There would be millions more untold. Happenstance.

But it will not be happenstance that she will have gotten home by the time I will finally step through the front door and I will smile at her as she steps through the kitchen door to greet me. She will smile at me. And, well, this story may not interest you now as much as it interests me.

But I am convinced by the randomness of the universe. And yet she and I are also a part of that very happenstance place. And still time steps along at its own pace.

So what should I think? Was it entirely happenstance that I turned toward her? Oh, sure, that turn at the coffee shop door was my choice to make. And some others. But randomness abounds. I remain baffled by the universe. Moreover, I remain baffled by her love for me.

But I am as sure as anything that she will hold me close. And anything good could happen.

The story of happenstance and choice will go on. And many, so very many of them, are love stories.