A few days ago, I could feel my luck running thin: Life is what you make of it, and I felt like I wasn’t making much with mine, and that even if I wanted to, I had no idea where to start. I felt like I just couldn’t win! It was my first summer of funemployment in years, and the weather had been wet, windy, and especially cold for August. Also, I’d thoroughly embarrassed myself in the locker rooms after my spin class. I’m usually absent-minded in a nutty professor way, but after going to shopping that morning, I’d forgotten to put some of my groceries away. When I reached into my bag to fish out my moisturizer later, I realized I’d punctured not one but two different eggs at the bottom of my bag. The round canister of creme was bathed in a pool of egg whites, swimming alongside a handful of spare change and about twelve different pens.
I’ll fix it when I got home, I decided. I walked across Alexanderplatz, a spiritually barren but spatially crowded square that’s particularly popular amongst Primark shoppers and school groups from Bavaria. On the way, I dropped by Go Asia because I wanted to pick up a new curry paste and some coconut milk to cheer myself up. By the time I left, I had a paper sack full of two types of tofu, a rack of bok choy (I’m obsessed with grilling them in quarters — try it ASAP), and fresh coriander and limes. As I lingered in the line, I came across a shelf of moon cakes, a dessert from my childhood usually reserved for special occasions. Given my lousy luck, it felt auspicious to find such a treat: I’ve seen moon cakes just two or three times in the decade that I’ve lived in Germany, so I popped one in my basket and made my way home.
As I left the train station and walked to my flat, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around to see my friend Ivanna, who asked if I knew how to cook plantains before placing two in my hands and wishing me well on my way (Miracle #1).
When I got home, I began scooping the egg out of my bag, and rearranging the fridge to make room for the spoils of my big day at the shops. As I turned to grab something off the table, I noticed the my windowsill tableau looked a little different. I counted my plants: The variegated rubber plant, the dieffenbachia, the twilight ficus and — nope, the massive rubber plant that had been growing so well was nowhere to be seen.
I dashed to the windowsill and steadied myself on the frame as I peered over the ledge to see that, yes, it had indeed been blown off the windowsill entirely. I raced downstairs to find it gently resting on a knotted shrub for which my downstairs neighbor cares (Miracle #2). It had not, as I feared, knocked any of neighbors out cold on its way out my window (Miracle #3), nor had the pot shattered into a million pieces, breaking the woody stalks and shredding the leaves into confetti (Miracle #4). In fact, as I tried to lift the plant out of the bush, I realized that the pot had fallen directly on a rusty iron stake around which the shrub was growing (Miracle #5), which must have stopped the pot in its tracks as it hurtled towards the earth below (Miracle #5.5).
Anyway, there’s no moral to this story. I learned very little, and can’t pretend to know more now than I did last week. What I can say is that I’ve very much enjoyed taking stock of the many miracles of the week, counting all the tiny blessings that followed me and my moon cake home (it was delicious, by the way). Below you’ll find a few more.