Pigeons and My Happy Life

While unicycling along the sidewalk today, I got brushed by a low-flying pigeon that made me think about how lucky my life has been.

Of course, that wasn't my first thought. As the bird's wings flapped wildly but gently against my chest, the first thing that went thru my mind was, "Whoa, a pigeon is flapping its wings wildly but gently on my chest." My next impulse was to check if it had left a present on my sweater (it hadn't). And then came the onslaught of unpredictable mental activity, as follows:

grazed by pigeon ...while unicycling
I was grazed by a bus once
...while unicycling
NY Yankee Dave Winfield once killed a pigeon accidentally
Shirra loves Dave Winfield
We met him on our 1990 'baseball trip' to Chicago
That trip solidified our feelings towards each other
We got married 3 years later
If that bus hadn't swerved in time, I'd have been killed
...and Maeve would not have been born
...Boy am I a lucky guy...

I enjoy trains of thought of this sort. They're like mental vacations, except that you're not sure where they're going.

I also like looking at something in the past that had to happen in order for your life to turn out the way it did. In my life, that's easy: If I hadn't gone into a particular clothing store back in 1989, my life would have turned out completely differently.

Train of events:
Enter clothing store, called Montmartre. They had nice sweaters in the window.
Chat in French with saleswoman...
who talks me into staying in Cannes rather than Nice on my upcoming six-week trip to France...
where I met a German woman named Tina...
who asked me six months later to show her friends around New York...
after which I went into a comic book store on 92nd and Broadway...
outside of which I ran into Shirra, an old college flame...
who later encouraged my love of teaching (rather than my struggles with pre-med classes)...
and with whom I have a great life that includes three wonderful kids.

I don't know how my life would have turned out otherwise, but I think the odds are that it wouldn't have been as happy. Shirra was a helluva catch, and it took me a couple years to get my act together as a contributing parent after Emmett was born. I think that if I hadn't seen those nice sweaters, I'd be a divorced ad exec going to every Vassar reunion in hopes of running into that cute girl from Raymond dorm.

Don't hesitate to enter that store with nice sweaters in the window. You never know where it might take you.