An eerie Neil Gaiman moment

Today I read one of the most bizarre disturbing things I've ever read.
I read Neil Gaiman's blog often. He is one of the writers who inspires me to write over and over. And in his fiction there are often disturbing moments. But this is not fiction.  This is not fantasy or horror.  This is disturbing because Neil was disturbed. As an author, I could feel viscerally what he felt.  If you are an author you will too. I will never forget this.
  I quote the experience here because I'm afraid you might not take the time to read it if you have to click a link.  Every writer should read this. Every reader should read this - in fact every human being should read this. 
From Neil in Australia:

"I wandered past sushi shops and backpacker places and Thai takeways and tobacconists in the hot Sydney summer evening sun. Last night Amanda (who is vastly amused by my complete lack of hooker recognition skills) had pointed out the hookers to me, and I saw a couple of the ladies she had pointed out to me coming on duty, looking wary in the daylight.

There were a couple - a man and a woman, both in their twenties at a guess, both shorter than I am and dark-haired, looking into a shop window, with their backs to me. The woman had a tattoo on her shoulderblade - writing - and because I cannot pass writing without reading it, I glanced at it. Part of the writing was covered by a strap.

But I could still read it. And I knew what the words covered by the strap were.

The tattoo was a lot like this (which is to say, the same content, and similar typeface, but probably not the same person. I'm already trying to remember if it was the left or the right shoulderblade):



(I took that photo from here. http://fuckyeahtattoos.tumblr.com/post/1248171159/from-neil-gaimans-sandman-vol-6-fables-and) (Thank you Google Image Search)

I read the tattoo, read words I had written to try and exorcise my own small demons eighteen years ago, and I felt like a ghost. As if, for a moment, under the hot Sydney sun, I was only an idea of a person and not a real person at all.

I didn't introduce myself to her or say anything (it didn't even occur to me to say hello, in all honesty). I just walked home, through a world that felt flimsier and infinitely stranger than it had that morning.

I don't know why it affected me like that. But it did."  -- Neil Gaiman, January 25,2011 2:12 am

Is this something you would like to encounter as a writer?  Or is would such an experience totally unhinge you, as it seemed to do to Neil, and alter your perspective on your place in or out of reality?

Signs and Synchronicity

As an avid student of Carl Jung, I'm frequently aware of synchronicity. Jung coined the term and explained what he meant in his book, Synchronicity, An Acausal Principle. He saw synchronicity as a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, important because of the timing. Beneath the veil of everyday life, Jung believed, as the quantum physicists now do, that everything is connected.

Like déjà vu, many writers have experienced synchronicity - a prime example is when someone recommends a book, not a common title of the day, but a more obscure book that you'd really like to read. Within a few days you spot it on a sale table or at a yard sale - staring you in the face, as if you were meant to read it - right now.
I experience synchronistic events in waves. There'll be dead times when it doesn't happen and others when it happens repeatedly day after day. Sometimes it’s pretty dramatic.
It's been a while since the signs were there, but they came back in force this week. Sunday, when it was a balmy 66 degrees, highly unusual for SC in February, after a successful writing session of 2,000 words on my WIP, Fireworks: Interference Equation, I went to the garden for balance. I raked leaves but had previously filled a pit that opened up a couple of years ago. So I considered hauling the leaves further away to another sinkhole area at the side of my house. But I was tired and dusk was coming so I didn't haul the wagonload to the sinkhole, just piled the load on top of the pile on the pit, hoping the coming rains would flatten it.
This morning I was doing research on indigenous natives of Australia for Fireworks. I found a great deal of info regarding the controversies over the aboriginal housing settlements near Alice Springs (Alice - the first sign, is one of the main characters in this book). The settlement endured a horrible situation when their sewage system collapsed and raw sewage backed up into most of their houses which the tribe rents from the government. The pipes are not well-maintained. I was shocked because the article called the area a fifth world situation, not third world and before this I had no idea of the plight of the resettled indigenous tribes.
This afternoon I had to call a plumber when my washing machine wastewater backed up into my shower. After four hours of snake lines, cameras in the pipes and digging, the diagnosis was a busted sewer line. Tree roots broke into either the iron pipe beneath the house or the clay pipe just outside of it. The prognosis was to the tune of $1500.00. Needless to say, as a writer who’s only been able to find part time real world work, I will be without running water, bathroom facilities, etc, etc. for a while.
The tree roots had broken the sewer line the sink hole. Two days ago, somewhere in my subconscious I made the connection with the month's worth of gurgling plumbing sounds, followed by the sudden back up of water in my shower with the depression in the earth on the side of my house. Before Sunday, I'd never considered using the sink hole as a compost area.
The connection with reading about Alice Springs was totally out of left field except for the timing - a meaningful coincidence.
I will now more fully be able to write about this topic from a firsthand perspective. Normally I wouldn't go this far in my research, but obviously the universe (or Jung's universal mind) thought otherwise.
Not quite the signs I was looking for. And even though I had a sleepless night last night, I'm trying to be philosophical,  - synchronicity works in mysterious ways.