No, not the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate place, although that is worth a mention.
(This was my first one! Ignore the salt and pepper shakers...)
Serendipity: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
On an otherwise ordinary day, I was walking along the Piers at work when in front of the organic food cart was none other than Joanna Goddard of Cup of Jo. If you've never read her blog, you absolutely should. She posts so much great content! Cool links, giveaways, Motherhood Mondays (interesting even to those who aren't mothers) , and soon, what i'm super excited for- Relationship Thursdays. I was kind of flabbergasted and rambled a bit but she was so sweet (with adorable little Toby in tow!) and chatted with me for a bit. I'm such a big fan of her blog and even though I know she lives in New York, never thought i'd actually meet her. Meeting her though reminded me of why I love blogs, blogging, and the whole blogosphere in general. So many women, with wonderful ideas ideas to share, do! And they do it together! And then, they connect with each other and make something of those ideas. This suddenly feels like my roundabout way of saying "girl power!" I think i'm totally fine with that.
As if that weren't enough to make my day, later that night I went to The Moth event at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. If you've never heard of The Moth, it's a NYC nonprofit organization that hosts live storytelling events. If that weren't cool enough, the venue happened to be a bookstore run by volunteers that donates all of it's profits and works to fight against homelessness and HIV/AIDS. The event itself was so much more than people getting on a stage and telling a story, it was being a part of their story. You could tell how much it took for some of them to get up there and share their heartbreak but it was also great to be able to laugh along with the ones who just had to share their humor.
While waiting in line (in the rain...), I met some new friends! A spunky as all hell NYU advisor, a Statistics professor on sabbatical from the UK (charming accent and all), a Psychology grad student (I have a soft spot for those since I almost could've been one), and a Swedish Statistics professor who shared the same love affair with New York as I do. It was a strange coming together of people from such different backgrounds who all enjoyed the same things. We even judged the storytelling and picked the winner! I'd share what his story was about but it was beyond NC-17 and I just couldn't do it justice. After such a great night, we all agreed to go to the next event together too.
So that was my run in with serendipity, twice in one day. Meeting a fellow and favorite blogger i've long adored, and making new friends while standing in the rain for a sold out event for which none of us had tickets. That's the lovely thing about serendipity, it happens when you least expect it and in the most unexacting ways. I wish it was something I could command, imagine how exciting your life would always be! But I suppose that's the catch, there's always a catch.
