Serendipity

Serendipity.

The word pulled from my box of Kickstart Creativity cards this morning. My veins have been in desperate need of an IV drip of kickstart these days. Who am I kidding? Months.

These dark, bleak, winter-in-the-Midwest months. This icy time of year when every day I consult my watch to see how much longer Daylight has kicked Twilight’s ass for just a few moments more. 4:23…4:47…made it to 5:00!…5:11…

Serendipity.

Ok, if I’m gonna get honest, my first thoughts upon pulling the Serendipity card centered around food. Classic Libs. Mmmm…dip. So it can be nothing short of serendipitous, then, that just last night, as that warm TGIF feeling was kicking in and I was rushing up and down the aisles of my neighborhood “Jewels” (if you know, you know) to get a few necessities, I was struck with a sudden craving for a bag of Ruffles and a cold, creamy tub of Dean’s French Onion & Bacon dip. This was a rare snack combo of my youth that my dad and I loved to share together (and a memory that we still talk about today), usually reserved for the sacred space between Sunday morning church and Sunday dinner. Dress off? Check. Play clothes on? Check. Fresh, salty bag of Ruffles open? Check. Lid removed from cold, creamy tub of Dean’s? Check. And there you have a quintessential small-town Sunday in the 1980’s, y’all.

Chips and dip have always represented a taboo combination that live within a deep gorge of my conditioned black-and-white thinking around food. Chips and dip = bad, bad, bad. But so freaking good, good, good. Am I right? So, in one of my moments of bad, bad, bad, I grabbed that red, white and blue bag of Ruffles and a tub of Dean’s and sent them on their way down the conveyor belt as if they were the crowning entry in a 4th of July parade.

Fast forward to this morning, when I decided to lock myself in my office, put on my “Dark Academia Classical” Spotify playlist, crack open my Kickstart Creativity card box and write. As many writers and creatives will attest to, it’s hard. Hard to want to pick up the pen and invite my mind to be present with my deepest vulnerabilities and feelings. Even harder, most times, to muster up the courage to share my words with the world.

But here I am. On a frigid yet sun-shiny Saturday morning. Forcing myself to be with myself. My mind now spiraling down the path it’s most at home traveling: musical theatre. Because now all I can think about is – what if there was a line of dips called SerenDIPity? And now I’m picturing a chorus line of actors with heads, arms and legs sticking out of dip tub costumes and wearing tap shoes.

“SerenDIPity! Scoop up the happy accident you never knew you were looking for!”

My wife bought me this deck of Kickstart Creativity cards for my birthday. The Serendipity card was nestled within the Perspective section of the deck and, needing to find some this morning, I blindly pulled it out. Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s words read:

Many of us know the definition of serendipity as “happy accident,” but the term has a much more instructive origin. Horace Walpole coined serendipity from a Persian tale titled “The Three Princes of Serendip,” in which a trio of very observant princes discovered things they weren’t necessarily looking for. Serendipity has led to new inventions and breakthrough discoveries, and we can train ourselves to be like those princes of Serendip – always on the lookout for precious gems waiting to be unearthed just off the beaten path.

And, at this precise moment, serendipity struck. I’ve been thinking lately about a fabulous tale my grandfather – who was a masterful storyteller – spun for my brother and me about a little boy and girl who, upon entering the door of the old grain bin (my grandfather was a farmer…) get pricked by a poisoned needle hanging down from the top of the door. They tumble into the bin and shoot down a dark tunnel into a mystical cavern whose walls are encrusted with millions of magical gems.

Serendipity.

“…always on the lookout for precious gems waiting to be unearthed just off the beaten path.”

*Ruffles and Dean’s dip just off the path of oat milk and paper towels.

*A sign from my grandfather just off the path and hidden within the Kickstart Creativity box I forced myself to open this morning.

This begins to flow from my pen that’s been gathering rust since the holidays:

I traded my crown of jewels in for a crown of words. Each word more sparkly and unique than the most precious jewels mined from the deepest cave. My words are mined from dark caverns that weave a tangled path through my brain. Heart. Bones. Skin. My words are hidden for me to mine for you. I wear my crown of words bravely and terrifyingly. Bravely because I have things to say. Terrifyingly because you might pause long enough to read them.

And just as I finished the last line, a random text popped up from dad:

“Ok, Lou. I have been checking. When are you going to grace us with your next literary effort?”

Serendipity.