confluincidence

Would you believe that before today, i'd never been inside a V.A. hospital?
You would? Fair enough - i'm not surprised myself, considering that i'm not a veteran and haven't been hospitalized since i was a child.
But today...
Are you one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason, and that coincidences are just the universe talking to us?
You aren't? Good, me neither.
But today...
I'm pretty sure that never in my life have i been at the center of so many simultaneous coincidences, all aligning to create one singular effect. Were you inclined to NOT believe in coincidence, you'd have had a field day!
Why was i, a healthy non-vet, in a V.A. hospital? When i dressed and left the house today, i had no idea that's where i was heading. I have a client named woody, for whom i'd been doing handy work. When he called this morning asking me to work, he said he could pick me up, and wondered whether i'd mind making an extra stop, so he could keep a rehab appointment. I told him that was fine, and tossed a book in my pack. When we got there, i quickly realized it was a veteran's hospital. Approaching the entrance, i suddenly became self-conscious of my appearance. I wore heavy boots. Military issue shorts. An army green T-shirt, with military-style lettering. And just two weeks before, i'd buzzed all my hair off.
In other words, had you asked me ten years ago to "look like a soldier" when i left my house on this particular date, i could hardly have fulfilled that request any more toe-to-toply than what i happened to look like today.
Nor was the timing of my shearing the only coincidence. Given my pacifist leanings, on my own i'd never have been wearing camo shorts. But the leader of the NYC moving company i'd worked for had a military fetish. He instilled that into our company's language and appearance. I'm not one to throw away good clothing just because the reason i got it no longer pertains, so...
Before washing, i often get two wearings out of a work shirt. I had originally put on a grey automobile shirt this morning, but then i looked at my little pile of work shirts, and realized that it made more sense to wear a green one, as i have two of them, and if i didn't wear one today, i chanced later on looking like i'd been wearing the same shirt four days in a row.
And yet another shirt coincidence. When i was dressing, i completely forgot about the work shirt i'd already worn once, hanging on a hook - a white john lennon shirt.
So there i was, in army green.
But this shirt had lettering, remember? My self-consciousness suddenly jumped to another level of discomfort, as i remembered what my shirt said - "GO ROGUE: TRY PEACE".
My first wave of self-consciousness was over the fact that people were about to assume i'd been a soldier, and treat me accordingly. If addressed, i wasn't one to lie about such things, so i realized i might soon be facing the suspicious looks of people who wondered why i would impersonate a vet. My second wave of self-consciousness was over the message on my shirt. It was no longer a question of just being a dishonest weirdo - my hippiesque shirt might be insulting to some who had suffered in the service of this country.
Might this even get ugly?
It didn't occur to me to turn my shirt inside out. In a world where integrity gets kicked in the ass every day of our lives, i try to live by the words "be who you are". I try. So here are my chips, i thought. Let 'em fall. I didn't intend this, but won't run from it.
Would i feel comfortable, alone among military faces? Had my life's politics imbued in me an inescapably adversarial attitude toward anything military? I hoped not. Just don't ask me whether i "support the troops". I'm sure there was a good intent coming from whomever first coined that phrase, but like so many things, it quickly devolved into some bullshit litmus magnet for small minds, which carefully avoids the deeper issues. Do i love every sister, brother, grandparent, and child on this planet, regardless of where they've been and what they've done? Yes. Please don't ask whether i support the troops.
As my friend disappeared into the offices, i took a seat in the enormous lobby. I got my book out, but over the next forty minutes kept looking up into passing people's eyes. I was so curious, i almost put the book away entirely.
At first, i saw a lot of what i'd expected - harsh, severe faces reminiscent of my father's, a veteran with whom i'd had a contentious relationship since infancy. As i relaxed into the situation though, i found a few eyes less cold. Was it because my appearance marked me as one of them? How many had eyesight sharp enough to process the message on my shirt at a glance, given that some were ten feet away?
One of my conceits is that i fancy i could walk into any group of humans, and be completely at ease. It's easy to not draw attention to yourself, once you know the secret of looking like you're exactly where you're supposed to be (or even just actually feeling that). There's a big whiff of bullshit in that conceit, though. If i walked into a radical feminist office, a mosque, or an all-black bar, my centeredness might crumble nine times out of ten.
And then i finally got a look that i knew would stay with me, long after all others had been forgotten. A large, lean man walked past, looking like a bad-ass cliche. Big boots, military pants, a marine cap covering short hair...but this was no martinet or automaton. His bushy mustache made him look like he lived on a chopper. He'd probably had a distinguished service career, but if he'd been offered promotion to officer, he'd turned it down.
He and i would have gotten along great for a time, until my pacifist babble or his treatment of women (or whatever) drove us apart.
All of that may be utter crapola, of course. This person may have been none of those things. But whoever he was, he looked me in the eyes with a disarming directness not one stranger in a hundred can muster.
He nodded, and looked at me like he knew me.
Later, talking with my friend, i learned that my anti-war shirt might actually have endeared me to many of the vets. That was something i'd probably been aware of in the abstract...but when thrown into a situation like that, particularly when you're representing yourself in a way you didn't intend, your mind becomes a mix of assumptions you're trying to get rid of, and ones you know you can't.
If my friend had told me where we were going...
If i hadn't worked for that moving company...
If i hadn't had my once-a-year haircut...
If i hadn't replaced the first shirt i put on...
If i hadn't missed that once-worn shirt...
I'm not saying you should be impressed by these coincidences. I'm certainly not.
So was the friendliness of that unforgettable stranger a factor of seeing my shirt's message...or of not seeing it? Or neither?
I don't know.
Wouldn't it be nice if all writers ended their work with those three words?