"Deja-vu"

I've actually experienced deja-vu. I took an impromptu trip to Washington, DC and got lost. Somewhere in a pretty neighborhood of brick streets and large brick homes, a little dog ran away from a couple of children. I told my companion everything that would happen next as this little, seemingly inconsequential event played out in front of us.

I can't see how this moment in time mattered. I don't know how this odd wrinkle in time happened in the first place, but it makes me wonder about how the universe is stacked together and what role I play in it. Maybe I dreamed it before it happened? But even so, how would I know to dream it?

I was a poor college student at the time. I came home from class, and my boyfriend had packed the car with clothes and supplies, with our bicycles strapped to the back. It was probably his most spontaneous and best idea in our 10-year relationship. He didn't tell me where we were going until we'd hit the Pennsylvania border.

The bikes were great for riding from monument to monument, he had planned for me to see a friend living in Chevy Chase, and we ended up sleeping in a pup tent in a fishing camp on the beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. Lovely, wonderful, my first view of the ocean when the sun came up in the morning, and looking for seashells in the morning mist was magical.

But why did I have deja-vu in the first place? Why did the children and dog matter? Or maybe it didn't matter at all? We get to thinking that our lives are important and the world revolves around us, but what is life really all about?

Sometimes I think of this blip in time and simply remember the feeling of wonder I felt in the moment. Happy, laughing children and a dog running free may be the most important things in the world. The memory gives me a sense of peace and pleasure, and maybe that's enough of a reason for a fold in the continuity of time?