The Universe Plays Jokes: My White Elephant Déjà Vu

In a senior living community where serendipity often masquerades as coincidence, one resident found herself at the center of an uncanny holiday repeat. During the annual White Elephant Exchange—an event known for its chaos, comedy, and questionable gifting—Jean once again unwrapped the only religious icons in the entire pile. Two years, two angels, two crosses, and one agnostic wondering whether the universe was nudging, needling, or simply having a laugh. What followed is a blend of skepticism, curiosity, and the kind of communal mischief that proves older adults are far from done having fun.  AI....

 
It's spooky, sometimes, how the universe seems to speak to us—how it always seems to know that we need to hear to break through the silence or fears in our lives, or to touch bases with our innermost thoughts, dreams and memories. I have a theory, though: those messages are always out there, but we don’t tune into them until we’re ready to hear them—ready to see the serendipity, coincidences and recurring symbols at play.

I wrote the above paragraph over ten years ago when I was a newly minted widow and if my theory is true, what message do you think the universe was sending me last week? The continuum care facility where I live hosted a resident‑driven White Elephant Exchange on Christmas Day, and twenty of us attended—about the same as last year. If you’ve played the game, you know the randomness of the gift you finally get to open and take home. At least six gifts passed through my hands before I opened the one I was destined to keep. This year and last year, I got the same gift: a pair of religious icons to hang on a wall—an angel and a cross. They weren’t identical, but their purpose, color, and sizes were the same. Both years, these were the only religious icons in the entire exchange. What are the odds that an agnostic would get that gift—twice?

I was incredulous. “I cannot believe this!” I blurted out, embarrassing myself. “This is the same gift I got last year!” I’m ashamed to admit the disgust in my voice was probably apparent. 

The idea that the universe was shouting a message that I didn’t want to hear made me mad. What does it want me to do—exactly? If I suddenly start claiming to believe in Jesus Christ as my savior, you should assume I’m feeling especially old and I'm hedging my bets by faking an acceptance I’ve resisted doing my entire adult life. They have a group of volunteers, here, being trained to sit with people who are actively dying and have no families. Would that person be able to tell if I was lying on my death bed? 

Still, I believe in messages from the universe; I just never questioned if those messages were vetted before they are sent out. Does the universe have a sense of humor? I wonder. Or is it trying to drag me out of my secular world to blindly accept what is in the Bible, with its text that was written exclusively by men, then rewritten, edited and translated dozens and dozen of times over the centuries, not to mention entire books that have been cut out and hidden away by the Catholic Church. 

I’ve always trusted in the balances of forces that keep the world spinning in the right direction. The positive and negative, the yin and the yang. The dark and the light. Even the Republicans and Democrats—you get where I’m going here. Maybe my reaction to getting the religious icons was the universe testing my resolve, and it said to itself, “Yup she’s still coming down on the side of Humanism. The disbelievers are still balancing out the believers.”

When I got back to my apartment, I hopped on line to refresh my memory about signs from the universe. First, I clicked on a site that promised to cover twelve signs that the universe is trying to dial us up. When the site opened up the first thing I saw in big, bold fonts was: “The Universe Doesn’t Play Games.” Farther down in the article it said the universe doesn’t send signs until we’re ready to hear them. Since that directly refutes my theory that the signs are always there, that we just don’t see them until we’re ready, I quit reading and went back to the basics.

And by the “basics,” I meant I read how Google’s AI defines signs and it says, “You know the universe is sending a sign through meaningful coincidences (synchronicities), recurring symbols (like angel numbers 11:11, songs, or animals), strong intuitive feelings, unexpected help/opportunities, or even repetitive roadblocks nudging you to change direction, all accompanied by a feeling of alignment, support, or a nudge to pay attention to something specific in your life. It's less about a single event and more about the meaning and feeling you attach to repeated, unusual patterns.”

That reminded me of how quickly many widows find comfort in the appearance of a bird or butterfly that they associate with their spouse who passed. Back in the early years of my widowhood I wrote several posts about going to a butterfly exhibit at a large conservatory and having a spiritual connection with a pair of Common Morphos—the four-five inch iridescent blue butterflies from Central and South America. To this day it gives me the warm-fuzzes to think about how those two butterflies landed within arm’s reach—me, a recent widow. Whether it was truly a sign from the universe that Don and I would always be together in spirit, or it was the invention of my own mind giving me a mental pacifier it doesn’t matter. Why? Because either way, it’s amazing what our brains can conjure up and run with. And it’s amazing that we can love someone so deeply that we can feel their presence just because a particular bird or butterfly crosses our paths.

The author Carolyn See once was asked the question of, “Why do you write?” And she answered, “Because we live in a beautiful, sentient universe that yearns for you to tell the truth about it.” 

Amateur writers like me are told that Truth is in describing the details, in the moments when we’re able to expose our flaws and fears to the world—those feelings that we have and wonder if others have them, too. And Truth is in our observations—those gray nose hairs, the flat-bladed cattails and a stranger’s Mona Lisa smile. At the White Elephant gift exchange, my Truth was also in the beauty of turning my imagination loose and pretend I knew which of my fellow residents were happy with the gift they got and which ones had mastered the art of polished politeness. 

Our self-appointed mayor didn’t pretend to be happy with the jar of  ‘Roadkill Jam’ and the handmade, artsy-fartsy dish he got. I told him, and others joined me, in convincing him to secretly leave the dish at the door of the Art Professor. She would love it and people here have turned her doorway into a receptacle for handmade ceramics. She’s been trying to figure out who is leaving her such “lovely gifts.” It’s been going on now, since before Thanksgiving when the family of someone who died was cleaning out an apartment and they left a vase at the Professor's door when she wasn't home. So far she’s gotten 5 or 6 things and those of us who eat with her at the Monday Farm Table are enjoying listening to her trying to figure out who her “secret admirer” is. Whoever said old people don’t know how to have fun. 

Until next Wednesday have a Happy New Year!!!  ©