strange strange piece of paradise

This is one book I do NOT want to live in.

Camping in Oregon, I had just started reading a book about an attempted ax murder of two girls camping in Oregon 30 years earlier. Suddenly I saw the book lying on the picnic table next to the ax we were using to chop wood. That was strange. That was the beginning of the book.

Two weeks later, I was reading the final chapters. I sat in the hospital waiting room as my husband was having surgery on his shoulder. That's where I was, reading about the interviews with the nurses in the Bend, Oregon hospital where Terri Jentz and her friend were treated after the attack. That's where I sat, reading the details of the author's injuries and reconstructive surgery. (I felt like I was living in the book.)

The man next to me was telling me about his 20-year-old daughter. He had recently bought her a brand new car. She had been in an argument with her boyfriend. In a rage, the boyfriend had yanked back the door of the car and dented it. The man told me, "'I was so mad I wanted to take an ax to the roof of his car,' but she told me not to do that, because she said he would blame her." An ax! (I felt like I was living in the book.)

A local surgeon with one of the best reputations in town is named Dr. Hacker. While that would seem to be strange enough in its own right, on this particular occasion one of his patients got his name wrong, and mistakenly referred to him as "Dr. Hatchet." (I felt like I was living in the book.)

Terri Jentz writes about events converging in ways that seem to be metaphysical. On her first trip to Salem the sight of the golden lumberman (AKA axeman) standing astride the state capitol building provoked her to muse at the juxtaposition of this physical manifestation of the contents of her psyche: " . . . I was always one to watch for these coincidences. I considered them a breakthrough of awareness, assigned meaning to them, as if to reassure myself of the existence of an invisible plane, one that supported this one, a manifestation of divine care. At other times I was sure it was only make-believe to think that isolated events were bound by hidden symmetries. . . A car swerved in front of us . . . We could read the letters AX clearly on the back plate . . . And then it kept happening. In the space of a few minutes, two more license plates containing some variation of letters that spelled AX or AXE pulled in front of our car. It was some kind of cosmic prank. Even the skeptic's eyes were widening."

This type of experience has happened to me from time to time throughout my life. It's not only a sequence of events, but also a certain feeling that accompangies them. It really does feel like some force from the spiritual world is making itself visible through physicality, to put itself in my line of vision and to bring my attention to something important. Other times it's nothing important at all, but just seems to be there to entertain me.

When I was younger I paid little attention. Then there were times when, through negligence or power of will, I rejected the insights trying to make their way into my consciousness because I didn't like what they were telling me. Perhaps it didn't seem to match what I thought I wanted, or simply was not convenient. I went forcefully in the other direction. The result was always something I regretted -- sometimes even devastating, with consequences that could not be undone.

It's interesting that Terri Jentz relates that she had a premonition against stopping at Cline Falls.

Does everyone have these sorts of metaphysical sensations? Is it the inexperience of youth that causes us to ignore them? Or is it the fault of our hyper-paced, competitive, aggressive, violent and self-serving culture, that rejects "intuition" as nonsense, even going so far as to call it "magical thinking" -- a symptom of mental illness -- causing us to question our deepest insights?

As I get older I give it more of my attention, and it does indeed entertain me, amuses me and makes me smile (driving through the historic neighborhood on my way to work, a circus-like melody playing on the CD, suddenly a unicyclist appears out of the foggy mist, pedaling across the road, crossing my path. Surreal.)