Esoteric Bowl

There are those individuals who pass through our lives sharing a brief yet memorable experience. They leave an indelible mark and then they disappear from our lives forever. I think about these individuals sometimes, wondering if they realize that they have left me with a memory.

Not all of the experiences with these individuals have been positive. Not all of the encounters were life altering. Other than the uniqueness of some of the experiences, I don’t know why I would remember some of these individuals at all. Still, the mind remembers some with great detail. The following is a short list of some of the individuals that come to mind and the brief encounters shared:

* There was an elderly man named Adolf who rescued me from a snowstorm.

* There was a woman down on her luck who tried to sell her prosthetic leg to me.

* There was a man who rescued me from drowning, then he vanished before I could thank him.

* There was a woman who insisted that I was the reincarnation of a specific someone.

* There was a guy who bought me lunch for no other reason than I was hungry.

* There was a woman who offered to pay me if I allowed her to suck blood from my neck.

* There was an elderly man who invited me to his home for a meal, then later suggested that we take a nap together.

* There was an elderly woman who had more than fifty cats inside her house and couldn’t locate the dead one.

* There was a guy at a party who jumped out of a third story window for no apparent reason.

* There was a woman who threw her life away because she was bored.

The greatest smiles are those which cause others to smile.

I was walking around town taking the occasional photo when a thought came to mind of how much easier things would be if I drove around town taking photos. The thought was still in my head when I walked upon the above scene. Suddenly after clicking the photo something clicked within me, and the answer to my thought was answered.

But there was something more than just an answer to my immediate thought. I had an epiphany of sorts. I can’t say for sure that I experienced a divine manifestation, but for a brief and subtle moment the grand scheme of things were revealed to me. The pieces of my own personal puzzle fit into place, and the answer to my greatest question of why was answered.

I did my best to grasp it all; to gather the deepest understanding from the moment as was possible. I wondered if in fact I had been led to this moment, not in a happenstance kind of way, but a genuine inevitable moment that I was bound to discover regardless of my path. I wondered, had my own destiny shown its face to me?

Soon other thoughts came to mind that would discount the moment altogether, offering doubts and explanations about this realization. I walked away feeling inspired and enlightened by the moment, but unsure of the validity of the experience. I suppose I’ll just have to see how it all plays out to know for sure.