750. Secret ingredient.

Walking home from an English lesson I taught at a finance company the other night, I ran into my Italian buddy Angela. She was on her way to pick up her daughter from a music class.

"It's a sign!" she said. She went on to explain that earlier in the day she tried to compose a text message to me, but gave up in frustration--she was trying to write it in English. "That's funny. I was just thinking of you, too." I told her. I thought about her earlier in the day, and decided that I would call her in the coming days. I wondered how she was doing and what she's been up to; it'd been several weeks since we last saw each other.

Her comment got me thinking because I didn't necessarily see it as a sign that we'd run into each other. To me, it was a coincidence.

Last Saturday, I went out with some people I know who teach for a school in Manerbio, a village 20 km south of Brescia. Invited along was an Italian who owns a black-on-black Boxster with white seats. After dinner in Manerbio, we came back up to Brescia for drinks and I got a lift in the Boxster. (Yummy.) It's always nice talking to other Boxster enthusiasts, and it was nothing short of marvelous to again be in an automotive masterpiece. (He's a handsome man, too, but that's besides the point.)

There was another layer to my experience. I had a wonderfully weird feeling, a sensation, that it was a sign somehow, a good sign: the Boxster and me riding in it up to Brescia.

Prior to running into Angela, I didn't question my interpretation of my feeling. My reaction to the feeling was almost casual; in fact I simply thought, "Hm. Interesting."

But why did I (and why should I) interpret it as a sign? Or even a good sign? It could just as easily have been a grave portent. Crows always give me that feeling, but that's Steven King's fault.

Perhaps I simply miss my car--I owned a '99 Boxster up until I sold it back in March--and driving around in the tin can they call a "Fiat Seicento" certainly doesn't lessen my miss.

Then again, the feeling I had wasn't at all negative, sad, or regretful. Neither was it one of longing nor jealousy. It was a good feeling, one of satisfaction mixed with joy, but there was a hint of something extra I interpreted as foretelling.

Perhaps, and most likely, it's simply a coincidence like running into Angela. The indescribable extra hint of feeling I named called "foretelling" was just bonus for me to enjoy and not know or understand, like a secret ingredient that a chef won't reveal.