The Gypsy in Me

“I don’t believe in coincidences.” I’ve heard this from many people, friends and strangers alike. For me, I just don’t know what to believe.  According http://www.merriam-webster.com Coincidence is “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.” Is it then coincidence that on April 14^th, 2013 I lay awake half the night with a sense of foreboding; so much so that I called my best friend and told her “something big is bugging on me, and I don’t know what”? United States History will forever remember April 15^th, 2013 not as “tax day,” but as the day a terrorist bombed the Boston Marathon. I’m not going to join the multitudes and speculate the “who, or why” of this horrific event. But I do wonder why I was awake half the night before.

Yesterday, April 17^th, 2013 at about 4:00pm PDT, I sent an email to my best friend. Again describing a sort of anxiety I was feeling. I told her, “It’s not like a panic attack, but more like a heavy feeling as if something big is going to happen.” A couple hours later, at about 8:00pm CDT a fertilizer factory in Texas caught fire and blew up with force enough to destroy a radius of several city blocks. More died in this explosion than in Boston two days before. The injured and missing are still being sought. Coincidence? Maybe – or maybe I am channeling my Gypsy heritage.

My family heritage comes from the German Bohemians. While the family is of German descent, they lived in Bohemia – what is now known as Czechoslovakia. One of my Great-Great relatives married into a Gypsy family. I grew up with romantic notions of the Gypsies; their nomadic lifestyle, and their connections with the mystical world. I grew up “knowing” things. Not big stuff – I was not able to predict the future, or tell fortunes. But I was able to know when the phone rang that the call was for me, and that it was my cousin. Is it coincidence she lives in Texas?

My best friend is psychic. She knows things and feels things. We call on her frequently when we can’t find the car keys or something. She describes where they are (not typical or usual places) and then we find them.  The last time they were lost she described “dark green shag” like a carpet. The keys were found in the front yard in tall grass.  She also “knows” or feels people.

It’s an energy thing. She can tell when someone is “off” or when there is “more” to the story. Skeptics say that it is just an ability to read body language. I don’t know. She was instrumental in helping us determine how our house fire started. She insisted that Isaac knew more than he was telling. Despite the quality of his lie (until then we could always tell) she pressed on until he finally admitted playing with the matches. She was the one who kept on Isaac, telling him he wasn’t giving us the truth. She is the one who asked the probing questions that led me to see the moment of give in his eyes. I had stopped asking him and started telling her to drop it. But she knew.

We both feel spirits. She sees them and hears them. In a sense, she lives with them. I mostly feel them – at times. I know when I feel my mother, or my grandmother. They come in loud and clear. I feel others too. I don’t  always know who they are, but they are there. We have a guardian angel that used to watch the boys when they were toddlers. She sat with them through the night. She is an older woman with merry eyes and full of love. My best friend says her name is Mabel and I know her. I don’t recall anyone named Mabel, although we did have a Mildred. I don’t think she is Mildred. We also have an impish spirit. This one I see out of the corner of my eye. It passes into the kitchen and out again. I used to think it was one of the boys, barely tall enough to be seen over the counter. But I still see this spirit on occasion and all three boys are taller than the counter now.

The Gypsy in me knows things. I can read people and know their spirit. I know what is broken in them. It is an energy thing. I feel their “vibe” and instinctively know how to soothe them. Is it coincidence then that I also know how to hurt them? This is an unfortunate consequence of “knowing.” Naturally, I never intend to harm anyone, but on occasion when I don’t reign in my gift, I do. Perhaps this is why so many Gypsies also have the reputation of being self-serving con artists. That is another story for another time. I embrace the Gypsy in me. This is a gift, whether blood born or not, that must be cherished and nurtured. This is a gift we see in Nathan. It is up to us to teach him how to use it for good things and not allow the “knows” to consume him.

This is the coincidence of life. We are all here on this earth, co-existing as manifested energy. We are all each other and what one emits another feels or knows.