Two Ladies and a Coincidence.

For the purpose of having something to stick up on the blog tonight I thought I’d note an interesting coincidence.

During the early years of blogging I attracted a number of people who became regular correspondents. I came to feel a special bond with some of those people, and I’m prepared to speculate that I even grew to love them. Two of the outstanding examples of that rarefied ilk were Mistress Madeline of the USA (aka the Venerable Borg) and the Priestess from Australia (more latterly domiciled in Sweden and the UK.) Both received many mentions on the blog down the years.

They meant different things to me, as you might expect. I always thought of Mistress M as my kid sister who was cleverer than me. She came bearing bucketsful of erudition, could juggle complex psychological equations while poring over knitting patterns, and had a marvellously dry sense of humour which was splendidly uplifting at times.

The Priestess was more of an honoured travelling companion. She had an expansive breadth of vision coupled with a willingness to take risks, lacked any hint of vindictiveness or triumphalism, and led me firmly – but with never a hint of didacticism – into considering different ways of looking at life. That’s a rare feature in my experience.

So what’s the coincidence? Well, I did a bit of checking recently and discovered that today – 28^th September – is exactly a year since my last correspondence with the Priestess, and exactly two years since my last correspondence with the Venerable Borg. (And they were both Geminis, by the way.) Is there something special about 28^th September, I wonder?

And am I to believe, I ask myself, that there really is no such thing as a coincidence? I don’t know the answer to that one, but what I do know is this: If I’m to be permitted the honour of indulging in the practice of spectral manifestation after I’ve gone over the cataract, I will most certainly haunt these two special ladies. (Nicely, of course.) I have little doubt that Mistress M will dismiss my presence as nothing more than a digestive disturbance brought on by an underdone piece of potato (and will probably consult Dickens to ensure that it was potato to which he referred and not any other troublesome vegetable) and will then continue with her knitting, while the Priestess will smile and remark ‘Oh it’s you, is it? What kept you?’ And then life and death will suddenly feel like comfortable bedfellows.