Irish proverb: The most beautiful music of all is the music of what happens.
Serendipity: Word Play
My dictionary defines serendipity thus: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. I knew, or thought I knew, that the word came from a story called "The Three Princes of Serendip" by one Horace Walpole, an 18th century English nobleman and writer, principally of personal correspondence.
It turns out that Walpole did coin the word, but the story was the work of a Venetian printer who supposedly translated it from the Persian in 1557. The kicker lies in the story itself. The three princes of Serendip—the current island of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon—had a conscientious father, King Giaffer, who sought out the best minds in the realm to educate his beloved sons. Under this regimen the sons became acutely perceptive and discerning, capable of resolving complicated circumstances with such ease and speed that observers often attributed their success to pure luck, divine intervention or perhaps skullduggery.
So it seems that serendipitous discoveries come about not by happy accident, but through a trained acuity. Not luck, but better antennas. (I wanted to write antennae, but my dictionary insists on reserving that spelling for sensory appendages of insects.)
Good antennas are the working tools of a writer of fiction. I may not notice everyday things, like the weather or the time or the name of the street I've just crossed on one of my rambling neighborhood walks. Here are things I do notice as I roam: A house with no windows on the street side. A walkway, sidewalk to front door, that is ramp rather than steps. A dog that runs up to the gate, barking and wagging. A dog wailing from behind a closed garage door. Piano music being made by human hands right now. Toys in a quiet front yard. The cat who flees at the sight of me and my dog, the cat who stays and stares. The gardener working with a rake instead of a blower; I notice also that he comes to his job in an ancient VW van instead of a pickup truck.
And people. Novelists must populate their books, after all, and not all of us write mainly about our near, and far, relatives. Interesting faces from the newspaper are useful, as are the features and movements and dress and general demeanor of those we encounter on the street or in the grocery store or library or restaurant. If a story is well under way, I'm out for exercise and am more likely to notice passing dogs than the people on the other end of the leash. When the work is still in early planning stages, I pay more attention.
Which brings me to another odd and interesting word, solipsism. Philosophically, this is the theory that only the self exists or can be proved to exist. For general use, the word means egoistic self-absorption. Serendipitously, as I amble about, I've found that Berkeley—at least residential, relatively well-to-do Berkeley—contains what I hope is an unusual number of solipsists.
Most of these seem to be women between the ages of, say, thirty-five and fifty. I come across the mildest version of this mind-set when two such women, wearing loose walking clothes and good walking shoes, stride past me and my dog on a sidewalk and don't break their loud conversation or make eye contact or yield space or in any way acknowledge the existence of Dulcie and me. I suspect this hurts Dulcie's feelings, but she's young yet, with much to learn.
A more interesting example of the solipsist lives up the hill a ways on a quiet street with no sidewalks but many trees and gardens. A section of this street is private, with a worn sign on a power pole announcing that fact and claiming the right, for residents, of restricting the right of others to pass. I have walked that street regularly for something like thirty years without causing any consternation. Then one day recently as my husband and I and our two Labradors strolled up that way, another large dog charged out from a yard barking and growling and giving every intention of intending mayhem. As our older dog roared in return, wrapping his leash around my husband's legs and nearly pulling him down, I yelled at the threatening dog to get away, go home.
At which point his owner charged out in in her turn and yelled at me. This was a private street, hadn't I noticed? Almost dancing with fury, she pointed at the sign: See that! See that!
Well, yes, I saw it. But my dog was securely on lead and no threat to anyone, whereas hers...
But it was private! And if she wanted to work in her yard and have her dog loose with her, she had the right!
Probably she didn't have that right, not if the dog was vicious; I didn't pursue the subject with the city, although I thought about it. But mostly I thought about the single-mindedness of such an attitude.
My current award for Top Solipsist, however, goes to the woman who lives in a pleasant, upscale neighborhood on an ordinary, sidewalk-lined residential street that curves down from a busier, wider street. Her house has a double garage facing a broad, concrete forecourt and a wide driveway. She usually parks her big SUV, however, on the street in front of the house, half of its width on the sidewalk there. This leaves maybe six inches clearance between the vehicle and a high, outward-leaning hedge, forcing any walker out into the street for the length of the vehicle.
One day, lucky me, I reached this point in my walk as she came out her front door and headed in my direction. Excuse me, I said politely, but do you know that your car is blocking the sidewalk? I'll have to walk out in the street to get past.
Yes, she knew. "But the bus comes around the corner there and down this street, very fast. If I didn't park the Jeep on the sidewalk, I'm afraid the bus would damage it."
Not to mention what a bus might do to me and my dog. As I stared at her, she smiled gently. "You should cross the street and walk on the other side."
I don't recall that I made any response; what would be the point? But I did contemplate various acts of revenge as I walked on. Probably there's a short story in this. There is, already, a bit of doggerel.
Prayer of a gray-haired walker-with-dog upon being forced out into traffic by a much younger woman who feels free to park her SUV on the sidewalk since "everybody does it." With apologies to J.M. Synge.
Lord confound this solipsister,
Blight her brow with blotch and blister,
Wrack her frame with ache and spasm
To repay her solipsasm.
Cause her Jeep to break its belt,
Throw its rods, or simply melt.
With these miseries please unraveler'er,
And I'm your servant, Sidewalk Traveler.
—Janet LaPierre
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© Janet LaPierre.