An essay Mark Halprin wrote for the Home Section of the New York Times (Oct. 4, 2012) concerns some really quite amazing “good accidents” that occurred in the house where he grew up, accidents that he incorporated into his fiction. No point recounting them: the piece is worth reading just to see what they are.

Halprin’s thesis is that a combination of serendipity and design is required in fiction writing, but I am more interested in his claim that marvelous coincidences happen all the time. He goes on to say,

“… where it gets quite interesting is in your own house, because what leaps out at you is so often conjoined with your preferences and your history. Here, the conscious and the subconscious, intent and accident, will and grace, often intersect. In some respects, the writer’s house is like an artist’s model. She is chosen, she is posed, but like all elemental beauties, hers is beyond your design and therefore a continuing source of elevation and surprise.”

Halprin’s article is confusing and somewhat over-lyrical, but I think what he is getting at is that there are all sorts of hidden inter-connections in the material world that surrounds us: objects that once belonged to or were used by or were passed over by or were concealed by someone we know or have some link to. In our own homes we are more likely to uncover these coincidences because the house is an extension of our self, and we attended to it. Halprin doesn’t say so, but the place where we live is a kind of second skin: everything in it touches us in one way or another, everything has a hidden meaning, or meanings. And all these observations and significances are stored in the writer’s memory to be mined as needed.

It’s possible, even probable, that those who are not writers—and hence, not in constant search of material—are less likely to discover the many coincidences around them.

topics: culture