It’s all just information no matter how you regard or interpret it.
Dreaming last night of being with my wife in Mexico at a park with a beach beyond it.
Seeing a park attendant with a hoodie working about 20 yards beyond us across the grass.Somehow I could see enough of his face to recognize an uncanny similarity between his face and my first, closest childhood friend. “That guy sure looks like Hugh,” I said to my wife.
I got up and walked over to the attendant and he stepped forward to meet me, guessing I wanted to talk to him. He peeled back his hood and revealed his face in full. Though he was darker-featured, he was still a dead ringer for Hugh. I told the man why I had wanted to see and talk to him. He acted surprised, but seemed somewhat interested in knowing about my friend so I went on to describe Hugh’s particulars and lifestyle. The man seemed pleased by the differences.
My wife, by now, had come up to confirm the resemblance. I asked him if I could take a his picture, but he refused, though acting still friendly. I asked if he could send me a picture of himself and that seemed to meet with his approval. I hastily wrote out my mailing address and gave him some money for mailing.
The three of us then sat down on a bench facing the beach beyond the trees around us, to continue talking about coincidence and doubles. He was in no hurry to go back to work. Finally, he said “It’s ok, take our picture,” meaning him and me. I got his mailing address and promised to send him a copy. He seemed delighted at the prospect of one day receiving a memento of our odd episode during his otherwise typical working day. And, myself, I made a note to send Hugh a copy of the photo, strangely linking me, him, and this Mexican from three geographically separate places.
Doubles, I thought. How often in a crowd of faces I have seen people who resembled others, sometimes even famous or well-known people. When I was working part-time my first year in university, there was a girl about the same age who has having nose surgery, who told me I had an exact double on her side of town.
When I was teaching, I remember meeting a hippie-like father who resembled Don Franks, the Canadian actor who had appeared in the Finian’s Rainbow movie, sung in a Toronto jazz trio with the legendary Winnipeg guitarist Lenny Breau, and who had ‘gone native’, dropping out of public performance machine, and had gone to live on a reserve. The parent was fascinated by all this info and did recall Franks, agreeing there might be something to it. He seemed very ok, even pleased with this info out-of-the-blue at his son’s function.
Well, again, information–visually, factually, comparing notes, recalling images and other information from past experience. Is there necessarily any meaning to these sightings and sharings about other doubles people blissfully didn’t know existed?
If I go online I will find hundreds of other Richard Davies from other places, many of them far away. Some of them may even have taught or write poetry. Some may even look the same or there may be other people out there with different names, possibly hundreds more who have some resemblance to me and vice-versa. Again, is there any meaning to this information that is there, potentially there, which can be verified when the stars line up? Any significant symbolism? Analogically, is it possible that two different “snowflakes” can look or live the same?
I don’t know as I head off for breakfast. So much of life is just plain mystery–odd, puzzling, and yet delightful. But the information is there, both in the lands of waking and dreaming. There to be imagined, intuited, experienced, shared, and always wondered at.