A fortune in clay.

I love coincidences. A lot, they make my brain happy.
I think it's because when coincidences occur it's like getting a teeny tiny glimpse of the universe's master plan. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't really change anything, except your brain sits up and takes notice and a little zing of pleasure signals to all your cells as you happily point out "HEY! That thing is like that thing over there! Life has meaning and structure after all!!! Wooohoooo!"
And you feel just like a little kid again who happened to walk by the teacher's desk as they were writing up tomorrow's test and you just happen to see one of the questions and get to strut around for half a day feeling like you know just a little bit more than every one else....
The thing about coincidences though is usually they're not earth shatteringly exciting. Does any one but me and my husband find the fact we were both sleeping on top of green futons that were laid on top of our mattresses before we'd even met, simply amazing? I mean...what are the odds? That two people, destined to be together, to meet online by complete random chance, should both be snoozing away, unaware of the other, on top of green futon mattresses laid on regular mattresses? While maybe not exactly goosebumpily I think it deserves an eyebrow raise.
Little coincidences are great, they're the salt of life. Enhancing all the regular flavors of human existence. If they were too big, too often I think it might be a little too much like the universe being a great big peeping tom. Jamming it's big universal nose into all our business, arranging us like chess pieces that don't follow any rules but gravity's.
I like thinking the universe has a plan, that there's a reason behind all the madness and chaos that still exists on the planet. But a master plan is like ghosts, it's a really nice idea but if you reallllly think about it you'll give yourself the heebie jeebies, start second guessing everything and never shower again in fear of your entire ancestral family watching.
If I should examine the teetering mismatched pile of coincidences that have happened in my life the most recent, the one precariously perched at the top of the pile and can clearly be seen while most others get buried down deep in the recesses of memory, would be one of my favorites....that I can remember. Coincidences are like that by the way, you know you've had them but trying to recall them is dang impossible. They slip away like dreams, elusive little threads of memory. And short of an impossible to forget moment like running into your own doppelganger, they drift away, faint echoes of experiences you can almost but not quite sort of maybe remember.
In the not too distant past, like several months ago I created a character. I sculpted her, baked her, painted her. Then I named her and did what I always do and imagined her little world and what was happening and tippity typed up an accompanying little story for her. Then I put her in my Etsy store and she sold. And I was pleased and so was she, characters love finding their homes. :)
And, coincidentally, she was shipped off to a person with the same name as the character. And then I received the most lovely feedback in my Etsy store from the customer. And the pile of coincidences in my mind shivered with delight as yet another little one fell down to join their ranks, and I peeked over my shoulder to make sure the universe's nose wasn't actually pushing through the ether and spying on my goings on.
My character I created and titled "Una lives in a haunted house" went off to live with a real Una, who apparently from her lovely feedback might actually live in a haunted house.
Cue the goosebumps.
Here's a portion of Una's (the character's) story followed by my lovely Etsy feedback.

Una lives in a haunted house.
There were nights that Una just could not fall asleep. Head filled with so many thoughts that she imagined a passerby could hear the grinding of her mental gears.
When she should have been tucked, safely, warmly secure under the quilt on her bed, Una's pillow lay cold. Her head no where near it, rather, Una stretched out beneath the window of her room and stared up at the moon and stars. Cold silverly light washing over her face.
The comforting creaks of the house settling around her was the music of the night.
Una watched the stars brighten as midnight came and went. The sky blackening until the points of light stood out in sharp relief, each one a jagged crystal that seemed to pulse with mysterious life.
Una watched them, eyes tracking the occasional falling star that streaked across the sky as if suddenly thrown by an unseen hand.
She did not start when she heard the light thump behind her, the padding on the hardwood floors, the quick brush of fur against the back of her hand. She'd have petted her cat if she could, but experience had taught her long ago, not so very long after Petunia's passing, that the tenuous connection between the afterlife and this one, was easily broken. If she turned, there would be no cat to see, no whiskers to touch, no furry feline cheeks to rub. But here, now while she stared up at the night sky and the almost impossibly bright glow of the moon, the un-imaginable happened behind her. Her beloved pet was there, and yet it was not. Sometimes Una imagined she saw, just out of the corner her eye a shadow of her former pet. A small dark shape that moved fluidly, far more fluid than Petunia ever had in real life and Una smiled. Pleased, imagining it made for better mouse hunting, albeit ghostly mice she assumed.....
You can read the rest of Una's story here.

And here's my lovely customer feedback:

"I wish I could tell you what this little lady has done for me and my husband. My name is actually Una, and we just recently lost our much loved and painfully missed kitty, Basil (we called him Bubbies) I swear I can see his long white fur with his bushy tabby tail out of the corner of my eye, or I dream about him playing with his little pink catnip pillow that matched his little pink nose. Thank you...the universe is a very strange place indeed. Warmest regards, Una (from my own haunted house)"

Positive feedback is awesome, but positive feedback that gives me goosebumps is like awesome topped with fantastic and a side of oh wow.
I 'm left with two ways to consider this little blip in life. One, it's just the universe, just another intriguing arrangement of life to create a coincidence that is just that, a coincidence and nothing more....
OR....
or just maybe I am on the verge of becoming a psychic sculptor.
Oh, oh, ooooooh, I vote for possibility two, I could use a crystal ball.