Too good to be true?

I'm becoming more interested in the idea of serendipity.  I always thought of "serendipity" as one of those hippy culture words; you know, the ones you have to be high to understand?  But lately, things have been happening that are just too much for coincidence. 

For example, a couple of months ago, we were headed to a festival at a nearby lake.  I was interested in the garage sales, and the guys were just along for the ride.  I took a wrong turn and wound up in the middle of nowhere.  Just after I realized my mistake, we saw a sign for a "Barn Sale."  I turned in, and we met a woman who had recently closed her antique business and was liquidating her inventory. 

In the very back of the barn, nearly covered by boxes, old lamps, an old TV, and countless papers, sat an old piano.  I wandered back as if hypnotized.  We had just been trying to figure out how to fix my old piano, which though beautiful, is near the hopeless stage.  It needed new felts, new hammers, and more. 

So I walked back to the piano.  It was beautiful, and looked a lot like my old one.  Hand-carved mahogany case, a brass sounding board, real ivory keys . . . 

"Is it for sale?" I asked.  It was. $150 for the piano, the matching stool and a pile of music.  We drove to the nearest ATM and came back with the cash.  But how to get it home?  We arranged to come back in a couple of days. 

We rented a delivery van, but arrived to find a 28-foot truck instead.  It was way too big, so we left the truck at the rental place and headed back toward the barn sale.  How were we going to pick up the piano?  Because I had no way to contact the people, we decided to just drive over there.

Along the way, I spied a truck by the side of the road.  It was a short, white delivery van with a lift-gate.  I stopped and pointed it out to my husband.

"You can't just stop and ask a stranger to borrow their van," he protested. 

"Just ask them where they rented it," I said.  "Tell them we're looking for one like it." 

I know he thought I was crazy, but he got out and approached the men.  They were burning brush across a field.  He was gone a long time, but after a while, they all came walking back toward us.  They were laughing and talking like old friends.  I kept looking at the time, worried we would be late.  Then my husband began helping them to unload things from the back of the truck.

When it was empty, he walked toward me with a big smile on his face and the keys in his hand. 

"He said we can borrow it if we fill it up with gas and air up the tires."  No way.  This was a complete stranger!  He smiled and waved at us as we pulled away, then nonchalantly went back to work. 

We drove to the barn sale, picked up the piano, then drove it home.  The lift gate was too large to go directly up to the porch, so we stood around trying to figure out how to construct a ramp that was strong enough to withstand the weight.  Just then, our neighbor stopped by.  "Need a hand?"

With his help, we unloaded the piano safely.  Because the man who owned the truck had trusted us so much, we got the truck right back that night.  I grabbed a plate of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies while I was at home as a gift to thank him.  He seemed overly grateful.  Why?  Another instance of serendipity.  Every morning he eats two oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast.  They are his favorite. 

And then we had another nice serendipitous surprise.  When we got home and opened the bag with the music, it was full of Louis Armstrong, ragtime, and old swing standards.  "You probably won't like any of these," the woman who sold us the piano had said.  But the music is exactly the kind my son has been tracking down on the internet. 

Serendipity?  Just how and why do strings of coincidences like this happen?  I've been re-reading the book, "The Artist's Way," by Julia Cameron.  (GET IT and READ IT!)  She relates a saying that she has posted near her desk:

"Leap, and the net will appear."  It reminds me of the scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" when Indy steps into what looks like an infinity of space, taking "a leap from the lion's head of faith," and then lands on an invisible bridge.    Yes, that's exactly what it's like.

The trick is to conquer the fear.  Because I'm learning over and over that small steps toward our goals, sometimes even the articulation of a dream, can trigger an outpouring of generosity.  It's almost embarrassing.  I feel like I'm getting away with something, or than I'm just really, really lucky, like the lady that's won four lotteries in her lifetime.

But maybe the real problem isn't that life is hard, as I've been told all my life, and have sometimes found true through personal experience.  Maybe our job isn't just to endure what comes our way, but to embrace what comes our way; to participate and follow up on opportunity.   

Like the time I was looking for columbine at a farmer's market, and a vendor gave me her address and told me I could dig all I wanted at her farm. 

Or the time I had 15 minutes to shop for a favorite aunt, and I found the perfect gift, wrapping and card, and still made it to our rendezvous on time. 

Or the time I researched a family heirloom because I suspected a connection to a famous furniture maker, and found instead a possible connection to the town founders?

It feels a little scary when things go this well.  Does my fear mean that there's something wrong with me?  This week, I read in my son's storybook, "The world is your friend,"  and it made me cry.  It seems like everything makes me cry lately.  Crying for joy, though.  Sometimes the unexpected may be better than our greatest expectation.