I was returning the unused/unworn wardrobe from the music video tonight until about 8:30. I was in Green Hills, exhausted and not feeling like making dinner once I finally drove across town to my house. I had gotten a gift certificate for a restaurant (Firefly) in the Green Hills area about a year ago. I had been saving it for a special occasion, and had made plans with friends several times to try to use it over the past few months or so, but the plans always fell through. Tonight I spontaneously decided to take myself out on a date and use the certificate. Why the heck not, right?
I had never been to Firefly. It is a fairly small restaurant tucked back on a side street. I walked in and sat at the bar. Besides a waitress who was eating after her shift, I was the only one in the bar area. They were closing in 30 minutes, so I ordered quickly and planned on taking home what I couldn't finish in time. I was drinking a glass of wine and half-watching this ridiculous dancing show on TV when a couple came walking through the door. They first noticed the waitress, who had lived in the same building as the man and knew the woman independently from another job. They were amazed at the coincidence that they all knew each other, then I realized quickly that I knew the man from Vanderbilt's poetry program (and the poet I ran into in yoga class and mentioned in a blog post recently)! They were also looking to grab a quick bite. It was their first time in Firefly as well.
We were chatting and realized we are all independently friends with a local woman who makes candles. The couple asked me about The Green Wagon (they along with the waitress had all been in the store recently). The bartender was making some chocolate/orange after dinner drinks for a table and overheard "The Green Wagon," and asked if I knew Johnny and Tara, who now own and run the East Nashville Green Wagon. I did (obviously) & he knew them because they used to work at Firefly. (Johnny and Tara were the ones who gave me the gift certificate.) Is your brain hurting yet?
We were talking about how all of these connections were really interesting, considering how random it was that we were all there on the same night. As we were discussing this, the people who had been drinking the chocolate/orange drinks headed out the front door, and the woman (from the couple) realized she knew the woman walking out the door. The chocolate/orange drinkers came over to say hi to her and sat down. The chocolate/orange drink woman looked very familiar to me. I mentioned this to her & she agreed I looked familiar too. This happens to me a lot....I'll be out in public and recognize a face and not be able to place it. Mostly, it is because I've met so many people through being in the store for years, and usually that is where I've seen them before, so I assumed she had shopped at the store at some point and that was why she looked familar. She leaned over and said, "This may sound weird, but weren't we on a boat together recently?" I almost fell off my bar stool. Everyone was already overwhelmed with the way this web was forming & this final connection just too much to be thrown up towards coincidence. Chocolate/orange drink woman and I had spent an afternoon on a friend's houseboat on Percy Priest Lake about two months ago. I've posted a picture on this blog from that day, actually. We all gasped and laughed. I caught myself really enjoying a dinner I thought would be spent alone and rushed. I am continuously amazed at how interconnected we all are, but this was to an extreme.
I had been saving that gift certificate for a "special occasion" for almost a year and thought I was walking in on an average Wednesday night to use it for the sake of just using it. It is obvious to me now that I was supposed to be sitting there tonight, and that tonight was that special occasion I had been waiting for without realizing it. It was one of those moments when the universe confirms that you are exactly in the place you were meant to be at that exact moment, and that somehow, even though you're whole life has felt off track, you are getting some kind of unmistakable sign that you've found yourself back to the track and are going to be okay. Life is amazing.
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