either things are related or chance is truly bizarre. i choose to believe the former.
last night, in conversation, a friend calls me (kindly) ‘eccentric’. it is not a word one hears often these days.
quite a discussion ensued, at the end of which, reluctantly, i agreed the adjective is applicable.
since then, scant hours, really, the word has arrived no less than 12 times. i didn’t intend to count them… but after the third, it seemed so odd that i felt perhaps i should.
this, the thirteenth, arriving from (of all places) the daily Google quote:
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd. – Edith Sitwell
i’ve never feared thirteen. and i’ve never feared being eccentric. this definition is a tender thing, in the moment of it’s arrival. innocent pride. can there be such a thing? perhaps. perhaps. kindness unexpected, really. a whisper of thanks to the universe.