I wanted to write since I was yay high, but didn’t get round to it until I was 60. Having completed the second chapter of my first book Chasing Aphrodite, I hit a mental block.
The chapter completed was about a Filipina caretaker sitting beside me on a 150 km bus journey from Larnaka to Lefkosia—the Greek section of Nicosia on the island of Cyprus. The stubby woman, in her forties, bore the look of a demure, devout Roman Catholic. She wore the obligatory gold chain with a cross around her neck. Unlike the rest of the females on board, who wore bright colours and cut-off jeans or tight shorts, she wore a beige blouse and black dress pants. She spoke not a word.
It was the blouse that exploded her stereotype. On it was a giant red strawberry, circled by the words “From Baguio With Love”. Why the strawberry? Because this northern Philippine island boasted the highest elevation to naturally grow strawberries in Asia.
Having completed the second chapter, my brain went into deep freeze. I could think of nothing else to write. One week ran into another. I continued to delay my weekly meetings with my editor. Almost gave up the idea of writing.
One day, entering the mail room of our condo building, I noticed a beige woollen toque pinned to our notice board. Across its turn-up, words in black lettering read “From Baguio With Love”. I looked around surreptitiously to see if anyone was watching. I was alone. I took down the toque, then placed it back for its owner to find—probably a nanny working in the building.
Each time I visited the mailroom, it still stood hanging. After a week, I took it.
What were the chances of coming across the very words I had written in my story? I could understand a headband from Manila, but a toque, of all things, from a tropical island that few but its natives have heard of? That timely message from the Gods spurred me to write for seven years without stopping, churning out and publishing 3 complete books and 3 more on the way, never mind my weekly blogs. I never ran dry again.
My life has been filled with such serendipity, not of my making.
The greatest was being fostered, out of the blue, by an impoverished English, working-class family. My single mother had no capacity to take care of me. I was 5. They were to look after me for 2 weeks to help my mother out. That fortnight turned into a dozen years. My values and the sense of doing the right thing, marrying for love and rearing two pain-in-the neck boys came from that chance occurrence. Living in a rough-and-tumble, illiterate low council estate, I shudder to think what my lot would have been if either of the neighbours of my foster parents would have taken me in instead. My new family loved me more than I could ever have hoped for.
Qualifying as an accountant, I applied for a team leader’s job in Canada. Having previously failed my high school, not entering university at all, but still obtaining my designation, I had no supervisory experience. I was given the job by, of all people, a young academic with no common interest, to take one of three positions offered, competing with 137 applicants. To cap it all, my interviewer was the youngest partner in the firm and successful in everything he attempted. I had failed each level of exams at least twice.
Nowadays, as my so-called fame spreads as an accomplished writer, instead of being given 5 minutes an interview to regurgitate 5 points that will change your life forever, or how to deal with toxic relations, I am given the luxury of hour-long conversations on my skills as an author.
Sometimes, the hour gives me an opportunity to ask pertinent questions of the interviewer, reversing my role.
At one of these interviews, I asked the presenter “Don, how did you get here, to run your own show?”
His reply stunned me. “I left home at 13. Drifted like a leaf in Fall from one job to another. One day, as I was knocking, there was a job available, not for a gopher, but a senior Sales Manager. I barged into the president’s office and persuaded him I was the one he was looking for. Within years I rose to second in command. The company was sold. I received more money than I ever needed and decided to give back to society by interviewing inspiring speakers.”
“Wow! Was it all luck or destiny? The Gods looking out for you?”
“No. From where I started, you move from one job to another. If you’re lucky, you land on your feet. I don’t believe in guidance from above.”
Listening to him, I couldn’t help conjuring up an image of a dogeared, beige toque, pinned to a notice board, regurgitating my words, propelling me out of despondency into possible stardom. Such a sliver of chance, that I could never believe it was not godsent.
