hiding in plain sight
“Do you eat eggs?”
This is when something changed.
I had driven an hour outside of the city to pick up a table I’d found on Facebook Marketplace. Up until then, our interaction had been as expected. I arrived, he showed me the table, I nodded & handed him cash. Everything on track. Everything normal.
Then, just as I was ready to head out, a question:
“Do you eat eggs?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, shifting.
[Truthfully, I had been waiting for this moment, or rather any moment out of the ordinary. Inexplicable shit had been happening lately and I wondered if this was another instance.]
“Do you want some fresh ones?”
“Sure,” I responded, trying to hide my excitement.
He said he would grab them from the chicken coop.
“You can come in, if you want.”
I followed.
Inside, the chickens mulled about on a dirt floor as he gathered eggs into a plastic bag and gave me instructions on how to clean them.
“They’re the best eggs you’re gonna eat, even better than the organic ones,” he insisted.
secured the bag
As we made our way back towards my car, I asked him about the farm. A large animal pen stood adjacent to the chicken coop. I had heard bleating from the moment I arrived.
“Not quite a farm,” he mused. Just some chickens and goats for the family.
He went on to tell me that he was born in Pakistan and moved to the States at a young age; that during Covid he was flooded with memories of his father’s farm back home and felt called to be in nature. This path eventually led here.
We stood on a walkway between his home and my car, still talking.
“What do you do?” He asked. I told him I worked in supply chain & logistics, but had just given notice at work and had no idea what I was going to do next.
With this utterance, his face broke into a massive grin.
[later I would recall that smile as if the universe itself could not contain its excitement, shamelessly pouring through one of its vessels]
“That’s basically what I did,” he said and told me his last job was with BMW, quit when his father went on hospice. The company couldn’t understand why.
“You know, we’re just numbers, right?” he asked rhetorically.
I smiled in agreement. No matter how high on the ladder you climb, you still don’t own the rungs.
I never got the chance to ask how he earned money now, but it was clear he had left the well-worn path for a third thing. He and his wife were building a wedding venue on their property, a massive barn sat in the distance.
I could’ve stood there all day talking life with a stranger, but my ears were stinging in the January cold & social etiquette started to creep in.
His last words were “good luck” and we parted ways.
—
A few days into the new year and nowhere on my bingo card was this conversation. It felt so surreal, and yet from the outside looking in, wildly mundane. Two humans exchanging experiences on a planet hurling through space. So many have quit their jobs before..big woop.
But I couldn’t not see what had just happened.
What was it exactly. I had almost prepared for it.
synchronicities abound
I started last year with a level of certainty. I was making strides on a new project and had written myself a plan. I began waking up early - 5am, jumping out of bed with excitement. But within a few short weeks, I was consumed by work. Things had escalated quickly there.
My 5am mornings disappeared into fits of anxiety. I often couldn’t sleep because work thoughts were swirling. I awoke to the same barrage, as if no time had passed. Intellectually I knew better, but the intellect is no match for a nervous system wired on hyper-vigilance and performance. Plans for my project started to dwindle.
That is when a familiar darkness took hold. I can only describe it as doom & gloom. An internal blackhole, like a group of dementors sucking me from the inside. A soul ache. I couldn’t understand it because I had felt so good in the early months. What changed. I decided something needed to.
On May 14, 2025 I opened a new note on my phone and titled it “synchronicities abound”. Here I would write down any synchronicity I noticed. I wanted to change my attention. I wanted to stop looking where the dementors were lurking. This was my goal. Write down the cool shit I noticed.
Here are some of them:
In the midst of this, work never got better. I ran myself ragged all year, but at least I was looking in a new direction. At least I was finally trying to see something.
By the end of the year I had collected 75 synchronicities.
Through this practice, I came to anticipate delight or at least the potential to marvel. Most of the things I noticed were unconscionably mundane. But maybe that was the point.
I pulled out of his driveway, buzzing.
“This is it. This is the fucking shit!” I yelled to an empty car, my new table lying on its side. I might’ve even squealed in delight.
What the hell had even just happened. An hour prior I was home surfing Facebook Marketplace. While messaging with his wife, I had been clocking the meagerest of signs - ease, timing, vibe. Nothing at all to go on. I left on faith, hoping I wouldn’t waste my time, or worse, get got.
The minute he asked about the eggs, I knew something was up.
This is the life I wanted, I thought. Not some predetermined path with turnoffs overlooking more stress.
I wanted inklings and uncanny interactions and impossibility unfolding before my eyes.
The proof was sitting in a plastic bag next to me.