The Case of the Remotely Sensed Problem 


Jim senses a problem in Oregon, turns out to be true. 

All through my adult life I am sometimes visited by premonitions of problems loved ones are having. I'm not particularly adept at it, because it can take me hours to actually zero in on what the premonition is about. I have finally settled on the idea that it is probably some ability like the ability of animals to sense coming earthquakes or thunderstorms, an ability that my many generations ago ancestors manifested much more adequately than I. And while I don't make much of it, when it happens, I welcome it as a sign that our universe is much more complex than even we here in the 21st Century can imagine.

Yesterday, it happened again. Stephen and I have been planning for months a long-awaited return visit from his older sister, Janice. The plane tickets had been bought, the house had been scrubbed top to bottom, and now on the morning of her late evening arrival, I was out "laying in provisions," as I jokingly refer to my extended shopping ventures. I needed to go to Whole Foods for good produce and bulk stuff, and hadn't been there in a while, so I was looking forward to shopping there before noon, coming back home for lunch, and then finishing up at the grocery nearer to us.

I got there about 11 o'clock, and started through the produce department, a large, glorious pear here, an organic banana there, a stock of juicy celery here, organic plum tomatoes there. Suddenly, my mood has shifted. I notice I have pulled into myself. I am resenting the carts in the narrow aisles, instead of giving an occasional smile to my fellow shoppers. I continue through the teas to the nut butters. I am feeling strange, crappy. This feeling always comes on the same way. I just don't get it right away, then I discover I am in the middle of it. Then I say something like I did yesterday, "Something is wrong somewhere, but it isn't me." Now I'm in the bulk foods section. Honey Gone Nuts Granola, my favorite. Scoop after scoop going into the plastic bag. Jeez, I'm not enjoying this at all! I buzz past the deli. Normally you can't get me past that deli without my buying a couple of hazelnut burgers or some fantabulous broccoli salad. But today I just push the cart to the checkout. I want out of there!

I call Stephen on the cell phone. "Look," I say into the iPhone when he answers, "something is wrong. Would you mind if I just went to Schnuck's and finished my shopping?" I explain that it's one of my strange moods, and add that "I hope nothing is wrong with Janice's trip." I do the other shopping, come home, have a quick sandwich, put the 17 bags of provisions away, and, as usual, the feeling passes. I do a bit of other work, we have supper. Stephen goes to his performance with the River City Pops. About 7:30 pm, I drive to the airport, park in the garage, and go in to the baggage claim area where it says first that Janice's plane is on time, and then that it "has arrived." Great. My cell rings. It is Janice. Her plane this morning was delayed by fog, then cancelled. She missed her flight in San Francisco. They put her on another one to Chicago, not Denver as planned. Of course. The Denver plane had arrived, but she was not on it, alas. Janice ended up staying in Chicago overnight and arriving this morning.

So I come back home from the airport. Now I am reflecting on that emotional morass that occurred this morning at Whole Foods. I surely was picking up something, I thought. But it wasn't until this morning at breakfast that I REALLY settled down to putting the facts together. Let's see, I recalled. I got to Whole Foods right around 11 am. I was there for ten, fifteen minutes before this stuff settled in on me. The time 11:11 popped into my mind. I remembered that Janice was in Oregon, two hours earlier at that time. 9:11. Janice called about 10 am and told us she would be coming in on the MetroLink. I sent Stephen to get her as I prepared our lunch. After she had settled in and we had had lunch, I asked her about all this. "Well," she said, "the plane was supposed to leave at 9:11. I became clearer and clearer that it wasn't going to leave, and then it was cancelled. But, I wasn't particularly upset at the time. It was only as the day wore on and on and then when I saw that the Chicago to St. Louis flight had been cancelled that I became really upset."

Well, folks, I don't understand how this all works. I hate to get too metaphysical here, but I do think that there is another order of things that is beyond space and time. Or maybe even better, I just think that we are all connected (I even wrote a song about that once), we are always all connected, but from time to time these ordinarily invisible connections make themselves known to even the slowest of us. Especially when it concerns loved ones who are in some kind of trial or trouble.

And a word about the category here, "Magic." We call it magic when we know something has happened but it seems to have happened without apparent causal connections, at least through time and space in the ordinary realm. I've a very scientific-minded fellow, and like to have my explanations, but I also live in a magical world, that shows itself to me from time to time, and I am glad for that. And that Janice finally and safely made it here. 

Posted: Sat - October 25, 2008 at 10:06 PM          

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