Coincidence; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 7

Coincidence

I've forgotten more than I remember. I've forgotten events, people, places. And when I'm reminded of them I'm positively shocked. Once my ex-husband said, "Oh, you remember so-and-so. The whole five years we were in Tuscaloosa, the two of you would get together every other week to play four-hand piano." Did I really do that? How could I have done it and yet have no memory of it at all?

A friend of mine from university days (I'll call her Joan) has become a new email friend. We were out of touch for fifty years but we took up that old friendship as if no time had passed. Of course, our current lives remain very much a mystery. Such friendships have a very modern feel: friendship, fifty years of no contact, and then, through the magic of email, a recreation of the friendship, somewhat hampered by a fifty-year gap during which we lived the bulk of our lives. Very odd. Very modern.

Anyway, Joan and her husband visited family in Florida for a few weeks, and while there they attended a community spaghetti supper. Such events offer random seating on benches set up at trestle tables, and you never know who will be sitting across from you. As one does at these community events, Joan immediately began making conversation with the couple across from her. Finally came the inevitable "Are you folks local?" "No," said the woman, "we're from Indiana."

"Oh," said Joan, "so are we. Where in Indiana do you live?"

"Near Kokomo and Frankfort."

"Did you grow up there?" asked Joan.

"No," said the woman, "we went to school in a little town called Delphi."

Well, Joan jumped into that with both feet. "Do you know the Johnsons? Dinty and Ann?"

"Well, of course we do. Jim here was in their brother Mike's class. And Ann might remember that I played baritone sax in the band. And I think their brother Dinty was drum major for the marching band. And there were some other Johnsons, too."

Yes, indeed there were. A whole heap of other Johnsons. Joan was beside herself with excitement, imagining my response to this bit of Florida serendipity.

Now, was this not an amazing coincidence? Leaving aside the fact that Dinty played the baritone horn and was never the drum major (although our sister Sari was, a couple of years later), there was my old friend Joan in the presence of a couple who remembered me from my high school days, however imperfectly.

And now I have to say that "however imperfectly" they remember me and mine, they're way ahead of me. I have no memory of this baritone sax player. Her husband's name rings no bells, despite the fact that he was in my brother Mike's class, two years behind me.

I told Joan how little I remember (i.e., nothing) of her new friends but asked her not to tell them that. The baritone sax player had a memory of being once in our kitchen where my mother, Eileen, was deep-frying rosettes with her rosette irons for a crowd of kids (probably all the band members). I still have Eileen's rosette irons (though it has been 25 years since I used them).

A chastening experience, this. We're back to the memory thing. I do, however, have the excuse that high school was so unpleasant for me that I have made a conscious effort to delete the whole period from my mind. No "Control-Save" for THAT era.

Still speaking of memory, I told my husband recently—after my umpteenth trudge from basement to main floor to second floor to basement to second floor to main floor—that my faulty memory is the must frequent occasion of exercise in my life. My weak memory is making my heart strong.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Coincidence; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 7

Coincidence

I've forgotten more than I remember. I've forgotten events, people, places. And when I'm reminded of them I'm positively shocked. Once my ex-husband said, "Oh, you remember so-and-so. The whole five years we were in Tuscaloosa, the two of you would get together every other week to play four-hand piano." Did I really do that? How could I have done it and yet have no memory of it at all?

A friend of mine from university days (I'll call her Joan) has become a new email friend. We were out of touch for fifty years but we took up that old friendship as if no time had passed. Of course, our current lives remain very much a mystery. Such friendships have a very modern feel: friendship, fifty years of no contact, and then, through the magic of email, a recreation of the friendship, somewhat hampered by a fifty-year gap during which we lived the bulk of our lives. Very odd. Very modern.

Anyway, Joan and her husband visited family in Florida for a few weeks, and while there they attended a community spaghetti supper. Such events offer random seating on benches set up at trestle tables, and you never know who will be sitting across from you. As one does at these community events, Joan immediately began making conversation with the couple across from her. Finally came the inevitable "Are you folks local?" "No," said the woman, "we're from Indiana."

"Oh," said Joan, "so are we. Where in Indiana do you live?"

"Near Kokomo and Frankfort."

"Did you grow up there?" asked Joan.

"No," said the woman, "we went to school in a little town called Delphi."

Well, Joan jumped into that with both feet. "Do you know the Johnsons? Dinty and Ann?"

"Well, of course we do. Jim here was in their brother Mike's class. And Ann might remember that I played baritone sax in the band. And I think their brother Dinty was drum major for the marching band. And there were some other Johnsons, too."

Yes, indeed there were. A whole heap of other Johnsons. Joan was beside herself with excitement, imagining my response to this bit of Florida serendipity.

Now, was this not an amazing coincidence? Leaving aside the fact that Dinty played the baritone horn and was never the drum major (although our sister Sari was, a couple of years later), there was my old friend Joan in the presence of a couple who remembered me from my high school days, however imperfectly.

And now I have to say that "however imperfectly" they remember me and mine, they're way ahead of me. I have no memory of this baritone sax player. Her husband's name rings no bells, despite the fact that he was in my brother Mike's class, two years behind me.

I told Joan how little I remember (i.e., nothing) of her new friends but asked her not to tell them that. The baritone sax player had a memory of being once in our kitchen where my mother, Eileen, was deep-frying rosettes with her rosette irons for a crowd of kids (probably all the band members). I still have Eileen's rosette irons (though it has been 25 years since I used them).

A chastening experience, this. We're back to the memory thing. I do, however, have the excuse that high school was so unpleasant for me that I have made a conscious effort to delete the whole period from my mind. No "Control-Save" for THAT era.

Still speaking of memory, I told my husband recently—after my umpteenth trudge from basement to main floor to second floor to basement to second floor to main floor—that my faulty memory is the must frequent occasion of exercise in my life. My weak memory is making my heart strong.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

The Koi Mystery; Scenes from the Journey vol. 23, no. 6

The Koi Mystery

In a parking lot recently I saw a truck labelled "Calvin's Kois", apparently a service for ponds, either creating them or maintaining them, with or without decorative koi. And that took my mind to a mystery novel I read just a while ago, set in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood. It involved the mysterious death of a man who collected very rare koi and kept them in several ponds on his ravine-backed land. Do you think I can remember either the author or the title? No. I remember the cost of the koi. The book was a good read, however, so if someone knows what I'm talking about and will give me the relevant information, I'll pass it along. Or maybe I'll bite the bullet and Google it.

But saying "Rosedale" reminded me of another book I read recently—a memoir by a woman whose property had been broken off from a magnate's estate in Rosedale and left to go wild until she discovered it and spent years and lots of money turning it back into the rich garden it had once been. Do you think I can remember either author or title? No. I remember her effort, and the thousands of dollars she spent. So ditto for passing the title along.

And then I, still walking through that parking lot, remembered a chance meeting with someone who knew the author of that book, the gardener, and knew that her land had once been part of the old Eaton estate in Rosedale and this friend/acquaintance of mine knew exactly where that property was. Do you think I can remember who it was who clarified the book for me? I have racked my brain. (I have put my brain on the rack, stretching it and stretching it to extract the truth—the memory—but to no avail.)

Earlier, as I left the subway, before I ran into the Calvin's Koi truck in the parking lot, I had to exit through the Presto gates, where you approach, give a tiny half-step (I call it the Presto Hitch) while you wait for the gates to respond, and then sail through. Immediately after the Presto gates were the exit doors to the street, and I found myself approaching them as if they were the Presto gate, expecting them to open automatically for me once I had done the half-step dance.

Luckily I came to my senses just in time and opened those doors all by myself. But the floor leading to them had an unexpected upward slope that was unaccountably slippery and, combined with my being lost in the dream of Presto doors, led to my feeling not at all present. It was in this frame of mind that I entered the parking lot and saw the koi-servicing truck.

Too much happening. No wonder I can't remember authors and titles and the names of people who tell me important things. I do remember what counts. Or at least some of it. Sometimes.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

The Koi Mystery; Scenes from the Journey vol. 23, no. 6

The Koi Mystery

In a parking lot recently I saw a truck labelled "Calvin's Kois", apparently a service for ponds, either creating them or maintaining them, with or without decorative koi. And that took my mind to a mystery novel I read just a while ago, set in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood. It involved the mysterious death of a man who collected very rare koi and kept them in several ponds on his ravine-backed land. Do you think I can remember either the author or the title? No. I remember the cost of the koi. The book was a good read, however, so if someone knows what I'm talking about and will give me the relevant information, I'll pass it along. Or maybe I'll bite the bullet and Google it.

But saying "Rosedale" reminded me of another book I read recently—a memoir by a woman whose property had been broken off from a magnate's estate in Rosedale and left to go wild until she discovered it and spent years and lots of money turning it back into the rich garden it had once been. Do you think I can remember either author or title? No. I remember her effort, and the thousands of dollars she spent. So ditto for passing the title along.

And then I, still walking through that parking lot, remembered a chance meeting with someone who knew the author of that book, the gardener, and knew that her land had once been part of the old Eaton estate in Rosedale and this friend/acquaintance of mine knew exactly where that property was. Do you think I can remember who it was who clarified the book for me? I have racked my brain. (I have put my brain on the rack, stretching it and stretching it to extract the truth—the memory—but to no avail.)

Earlier, as I left the subway, before I ran into the Calvin's Koi truck in the parking lot, I had to exit through the Presto gates, where you approach, give a tiny half-step (I call it the Presto Hitch) while you wait for the gates to respond, and then sail through. Immediately after the Presto gates were the exit doors to the street, and I found myself approaching them as if they were the Presto gate, expecting them to open automatically for me once I had done the half-step dance.

Luckily I came to my senses just in time and opened those doors all by myself. But the floor leading to them had an unexpected upward slope that was unaccountably slippery and, combined with my being lost in the dream of Presto doors, led to my feeling not at all present. It was in this frame of mind that I entered the parking lot and saw the koi-servicing truck.

Too much happening. No wonder I can't remember authors and titles and the names of people who tell me important things. I do remember what counts. Or at least some of it. Sometimes.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Fred, Ted, Dread, and Dead in Bed; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 5

Fred, Ted, Dread, and Dead in Bed

To dread is human.

If that's what you believe, please keep your dread to a dull roar so the rest of us can hear Life's carnival cacophony.

I've been contemplating the dread of death in a new way lately. No longer insouciant in willful blindness, I've been staring it in the eye, making myself look at the uncertainty. Well, actually, the certainty.

We humans love the sure thing, love knowing what will be. So you'd think the certainty that none of us will get out of this alive would be right up our alley. The problem is that we can't help focusing on what comes after that certain thing. When we come up against the ultimate unknowable, it's easy to see why we create imagined certitudes: heaven, hell, a tunnel filled with demons that tempt and lights that deceive, loved ones open-armed on the other side of the void, and so forth.

We create our feeble fantasies to ward off the dread. So here's everything I know for sure about this topic (I dread telling you): nothing.

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Fred, Ted, Dread, and Dead in Bed; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 5

Fred, Ted, Dread, and Dead in Bed

To dread is human.

If that's what you believe, please keep your dread to a dull roar so the rest of us can hear Life's carnival cacophony.

I've been contemplating the dread of death in a new way lately. No longer insouciant in willful blindness, I've been staring it in the eye, making myself look at the uncertainty. Well, actually, the certainty.

We humans love the sure thing, love knowing what will be. So you'd think the certainty that none of us will get out of this alive would be right up our alley. The problem is that we can't help focusing on what comes after that certain thing. When we come up against the ultimate unknowable, it's easy to see why we create imagined certitudes: heaven, hell, a tunnel filled with demons that tempt and lights that deceive, loved ones open-armed on the other side of the void, and so forth.

We create our feeble fantasies to ward off the dread. So here's everything I know for sure about this topic (I dread telling you): nothing.

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Choosing; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 4

Choosing

It's a choice, she says.

It's a deliberate opting for this

and not that.

Let me be specific and name the choices:

On one side: joy, life, curiosity.

On the other side is the easier,

more familiar, option:

the complaining dullard repulsed

by anything new.

Choices, choices.

Which will serve best?

Someone wrote:

Life is an adventure, not a catastrophe

(actually, I think they said "predicament", not catastrophe).

Can you try to remember that, please?

Tattoo it on your forehead, perhaps?

And remember also that change is the only constant.

Who you once were is not who you are.

You were formed by past experiences

(oh woe is me, alas, alack)

but

you are not still that person.

Choose well.

Greet the day with the explosion of happiness

that it deserves.

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Choosing; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 4

Choosing

It's a choice, she says.

It's a deliberate opting for this

and not that.

Let me be specific and name the choices:

On one side: joy, life, curiosity.

On the other side is the easier,

more familiar, option:

the complaining dullard repulsed

by anything new.

Choices, choices.

Which will serve best?

Someone wrote:

Life is an adventure, not a catastrophe

(actually, I think they said "predicament", not catastrophe).

Can you try to remember that, please?

Tattoo it on your forehead, perhaps?

And remember also that change is the only constant.

Who you once were is not who you are.

You were formed by past experiences

(oh woe is me, alas, alack)

but

you are not still that person.

Choose well.

Greet the day with the explosion of happiness

that it deserves.

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Bewilderment; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 3

Bewilderment

Bewilderment.

An affliction more painful than simply being

bewitched or bothered.

In any crowd you can pick out the faces

beset by bewilderment.

What am I doing here?

Are there any answers?

Is there a way to escape?

How do I learn what I should be doing?

Or is there even a "should" at all?

Perhaps I should (!) just go along

with whatever comes?

Go along to get along?

Is there a right way?

Is there only one right way?

Someone told me it's simply a question

of dealing, more or less skillfully,

with the situations I find myself in.

Could that be true?

By simply releasing my life's companion

(i.e., bewilderment)

will I find myself free to act?

These are the questions I see

on the bewildered faces in any crowd.

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Bewilderment; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 3

Bewilderment

Bewilderment.

An affliction more painful than simply being

bewitched or bothered.

In any crowd you can pick out the faces

beset by bewilderment.

What am I doing here?

Are there any answers?

Is there a way to escape?

How do I learn what I should be doing?

Or is there even a "should" at all?

Perhaps I should (!) just go along

with whatever comes?

Go along to get along?

Is there a right way?

Is there only one right way?

Someone told me it's simply a question

of dealing, more or less skillfully,

with the situations I find myself in.

Could that be true?

By simply releasing my life's companion

(i.e., bewilderment)

will I find myself free to act?

These are the questions I see

on the bewildered faces in any crowd.

Virus-free.www.avg.com

A Trip Before My Time; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 2

A Trip Before My Time

It's not easy to write this memory of an event I didn't experience, a trip I didn't take. It was September 1934. The car was a very early Ford. The driver was Robert Fulton Johnson, my paternal grandfather. In the car were his wife, Jessie Ross Johnson; his bachelor son John T; his other son's wife, Eileen Rahilly Johnson; and his two-month-old grandson, Robert Vincent Johnson, familiarly known as Dinty or, to his father, "The Squidge".

This oddly assorted group was setting off on a long and difficult pilgrimage, driving from central Indiana (Carroll County) to Tularosa, New Mexico. There were (or so I surmise) two reasons for the trip. First, Jessie. She had survived breast cancer a few years before, but it had now metastacized to the bone. Earlier her left leg had been taken off above the knee in a (vain) attempt to cure, heal, or slow the progress of that metastatic bone cancer.

Someone—and don't ask me who because it would be another two years before I would even be born—but someone had decided that a spell of relaxation in the Southwestern sun would be a healing experience for Jessie. The parents of the daughter-in-law lived in Tularosa, NM, so arrangements were made for Jessie to spend a month there, staying with those relative strangers. To make the stay more friendly and less strange, Eileen would make the trip as well—with, of course, the new baby, which was surely the second reason for the trip: to introduce the first grandchild to his maternal grandparents. I'm trying to imagine the awkward dynamics of that temporary household. Awkward would be the operative word here, but I say that only from my own limited knowledge of the people involved. No one ever spoke a word to me of this trip.

But before we get mired in the possible weirdness of Eileen back in her parents' house, given her own less than ideal relationship with her mother—before anything else let's imagine the trip.

How big was the car? Did Jessie—pretty much dependent on others for mobility—sit in the front seat beside her husband? I'm assuming John T and his father alternated driving. Eileen rode in the back seat with the baby. Was he a good baby?

Today, with super-highways and a traveling speed of 65 to 70 mph, it's still a long trip, and one I would not like to undertake with a wounded mother-in-law and a two-month-old baby. But just imagine the country roads. Potholes. Frequent flat tires. Top speeds of 40 to 45 mph. A long, long, uncomfortable trip.

No matter how therapeutic the month in New Mexico might be for Jessie, would it be worth the four or five days of bouncing along in a crowded car? And then at the end of the month, they'd have to make the journey all over again.

I can just about justify Eileen's presence with the baby, because this would have been the earliest opportunity to introduce her parents to their first grandchild—a momentous occasion. But again—worth the trip? Worth driving with a two-month-old for four or five days and then doing it all over again in a few weeks? And was Dinty a good baby? Maybe this was a defining moment in his little life, a traumatic period when he forcibly learned that peace and comfort weren't necessarily going to be his for the asking.

I see the little group load up the luggage (diapers for all those travel days?). I imagine the logistics of finding roadside cafes or inns where they could sleep. But no matter how hard I work my imagination, I can get no further than the meager facts derived from a little clutch of letters written by the lonesome husband and new father left on his own for a month.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

A Trip Before My Time; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 2

A Trip Before My Time

It's not easy to write this memory of an event I didn't experience, a trip I didn't take. It was September 1934. The car was a very early Ford. The driver was Robert Fulton Johnson, my paternal grandfather. In the car were his wife, Jessie Ross Johnson; his bachelor son John T; his other son's wife, Eileen Rahilly Johnson; and his two-month-old grandson, Robert Vincent Johnson, familiarly known as Dinty or, to his father, "The Squidge".

This oddly assorted group was setting off on a long and difficult pilgrimage, driving from central Indiana (Carroll County) to Tularosa, New Mexico. There were (or so I surmise) two reasons for the trip. First, Jessie. She had survived breast cancer a few years before, but it had now metastacized to the bone. Earlier her left leg had been taken off above the knee in a (vain) attempt to cure, heal, or slow the progress of that metastatic bone cancer.

Someone—and don't ask me who because it would be another two years before I would even be born—but someone had decided that a spell of relaxation in the Southwestern sun would be a healing experience for Jessie. The parents of the daughter-in-law lived in Tularosa, NM, so arrangements were made for Jessie to spend a month there, staying with those relative strangers. To make the stay more friendly and less strange, Eileen would make the trip as well—with, of course, the new baby, which was surely the second reason for the trip: to introduce the first grandchild to his maternal grandparents. I'm trying to imagine the awkward dynamics of that temporary household. Awkward would be the operative word here, but I say that only from my own limited knowledge of the people involved. No one ever spoke a word to me of this trip.

But before we get mired in the possible weirdness of Eileen back in her parents' house, given her own less than ideal relationship with her mother—before anything else let's imagine the trip.

How big was the car? Did Jessie—pretty much dependent on others for mobility—sit in the front seat beside her husband? I'm assuming John T and his father alternated driving. Eileen rode in the back seat with the baby. Was he a good baby?

Today, with super-highways and a traveling speed of 65 to 70 mph, it's still a long trip, and one I would not like to undertake with a wounded mother-in-law and a two-month-old baby. But just imagine the country roads. Potholes. Frequent flat tires. Top speeds of 40 to 45 mph. A long, long, uncomfortable trip.

No matter how therapeutic the month in New Mexico might be for Jessie, would it be worth the four or five days of bouncing along in a crowded car? And then at the end of the month, they'd have to make the journey all over again.

I can just about justify Eileen's presence with the baby, because this would have been the earliest opportunity to introduce her parents to their first grandchild—a momentous occasion. But again—worth the trip? Worth driving with a two-month-old for four or five days and then doing it all over again in a few weeks? And was Dinty a good baby? Maybe this was a defining moment in his little life, a traumatic period when he forcibly learned that peace and comfort weren't necessarily going to be his for the asking.

I see the little group load up the luggage (diapers for all those travel days?). I imagine the logistics of finding roadside cafes or inns where they could sleep. But no matter how hard I work my imagination, I can get no further than the meager facts derived from a little clutch of letters written by the lonesome husband and new father left on his own for a month.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

A Crossroad of the Senses; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 1

A Crossroad of the Senses

Being a literal sort of person,

I take "crossroad of the senses"

to mean the intersection

where the avenue of Ohm

meets the golden glare of the rising Sun

and, uniting, they form a mind-expanding balloon

that lifts souls of all sorts

to the heavens.

Or perhaps it is the intersection

where the road of aroma

meets the tender path of touch

and that corner becomes the home

we have all desired.

Senses are meant to mingle

and the synergy thus created

elevates and enlightens.

Add candles to your space when you tone,

essential oils to your touch,

and your prayers will skim and soar like larks.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

A Crossroad of the Senses; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 1

A Crossroad of the Senses

Being a literal sort of person,

I take "crossroad of the senses"

to mean the intersection

where the avenue of Ohm

meets the golden glare of the rising Sun

and, uniting, they form a mind-expanding balloon

that lifts souls of all sorts

to the heavens.

Or perhaps it is the intersection

where the road of aroma

meets the tender path of touch

and that corner becomes the home

we have all desired.

Senses are meant to mingle

and the synergy thus created

elevates and enlightens.

Add candles to your space when you tone,

essential oils to your touch,

and your prayers will skim and soar like larks.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com