Send in the clowns...

What is divine intervention? What is coincidence and what is karma? What is it when you are confronted with what seems remarkably more than just a random occurrence in your life? I'm not religious and do not enjoy speculating over matters beyond my control, so I don't know the answers to this. But, what I do know is that when strange things happen, I embrace them to the fullest degree!

Over the past couple days, I've been deeply troubled by some personal matters. It's one of those situations where you are pretty sure there's not going to be a happy outcome, so you must find some way to be delicate about painful and sorrowful issues. I'm fine, it's just one of those things.

Yesterday, I'd finally grown weary of chewing over my dilemma and decided to pick up my young daughter from summer camp and we'd go to The Central Park Zoo as a cheer-up. About five minutes into our ride uptown, the train makes it's scheduled stop at 28th Street and about twenty clowns board our car. Clowns with bright wigs, full make-up, big floppy shoes, billowy pants, and giant red noses.

My first reaction was of panic, having been traumatized by the violence of The Dark Knight. But then my daughter smiled. The clowns were silly. They honked their noses. They gave us stickers and a balloon fashioned into a dog. They made us laugh. Wonderfully moved by this sudden circus in our midst, I asked where they'd come from. One of the girl clowns tilted her head and looked up wistfully and said in a sweet voice, "We just got back from Wall Street. Those guys are so sad and we decided to cheer them up."

I've never been much entertained by clowns, but this was pretty amazing. And, if this is performance art, it's the best thing I've ever witnessed. Wherever this troupe went, people were amused and a part of their day became extraordinary. I know ours was.