Down in Louisiana Where the Black Trees Grow

I don’t really believe in coincidences. Nope. I believe in all kinds of weird stuff. I blame this on my Louisiana grandmother, the one with the ouija board. She showed us kids how to communicate with people, which would have been fine, except these people had long ago passed from this world. We didn’t really know what to think of this. We did know that our mom didn’t like all of that nonsense, so we kept it to ourselves, until a few years ago. I’m sure Chase, my son, keeps stuff to himself, too, that one day he will spring on me. But, I digress. Speaking of Chase, I was in Nashville a few weeks ago preparing him for the end of the world., stocking enough food for at least a decade. He tolerates this sort of interfering behavior with just a few eye rolls and I appreciate this because, well, once a mom always a mom. While I was there, I lost one of my grandmother’s earrings. I rarely take them off because she left them to me and I love them with all my heart. But, I took them off there and placed them carefully in a little case. When I was packing to go home, I started to put them back in, but one was missing. After searching for hours, I finally had to give up and leave without the missing one. For weeks now, I have been wearing one earring and sulking about it. Today, I finally unpacked my suitcase, complaining to the cat about the earring, complaining to the universe, asking for some kind of divine intervention and when I’d taken out all the clothes, there was the earring. Yep. How cool is that? It’s way cool. Yep. So, you can say it’s a coincidence but, me and my grandmother, well, we know better. Yes, we do.