Fortune Teller

The kids were talking today and Harrison reminded me of something that happened several years ago.  I was still married to Doug, and we had taken the kids to Edmonds beach for the day. It was probably during the last year or two of our marriage, and, truth be told, things were already on their way downhill. As the kids played in the sand and collected rocks along the shore, I noticed a lady in her 60's painting at an easel she had set up on the sidewalk. I walked over to admire her painting and asked her about it - it was a painting of a man, woman and little girl. I asked if she was painting anyone specific and she pointed out that the woman was ME. She had painted me from the back, standing and watching the man and little girl playing on the beach. The man was not my husband, but another random man she had observed at the beach and the little girl was a blonde girl of about six or seven. Neither of her other subjects were still around, but I was both impressed and a little weirded out that she had been painting ME without my knowledge. I felt pulled to ask her if I could buy the painting but then I thought, well, the other people in the picture aren't MY family so I just left it. How ironic that just a year or two later, I met Jeff and Arlie. The man and the little blonde girl in the painting. Was it fate? Was she clairvoyant? Was it a coincidence? I don't know, but thinking back it's ironic. Arlie pointed out that it was possible she and her dad were actually AT the beach that day. Wouldn't THAT be ironic? Who knows. But I still think it's pretty cool that a random woman painted my future at the beach. Wish I'd bought the painting!