Getting On

Coincidences and an almost never to be found necklace

Linda Levy, aka Aunt Linda, came on Life’s Accessories the podcast, and it felt a bit like a recorded conversation of one of our in depth in person Starbucks meetings — the ones I come away from feeling inspired, with so many ideas and also great advice on a whole slew of topics.

On the pod, Linda told me a story I had never heard before. It’s about an accessory, a necklace with Linda’s mother’s monogram on it. Linda did not know that this necklace existed and may have never known about it if not for one random, could have never happened, moment. Listen to this episode to hear the whole story at the player below. I got chills when Linda told it to me on air.

Linda Levy’s mother’s almost never found necklace

Coincidences

The story of Linda’s mother’s almost never to be found necklace got me thinking about coincidences — why things happen, why they don’t happen.

Linda is my aunt through marriage. She married my dad’s older brother when she was 19 years old, which BTW is a year younger than my son is now and my son getting married a year ago sounds even more unimaginable then the possibility of Linda finding her mother’s necklace. As the story goes, Linda first went on a date with my dad, but then she met his brother and that was that. When I first heard this story as a little kid, it blew my little kid mind. I wondered what if Linda kept going out with my dad, and what if they got married? Then Aunt Linda would be my mom, but of course I wouldn’t be me. Wait, what?!

Linda married my uncle as the universe would have it and she became my aunt, a wonderful coincidence for me at least. She also became a writer of humorous greeting cards, a weekly humor newspaper column, two health cookbooks with a sense of humor and a dark but hopeful (and not humorous) novel.

Most recently Linda became the writer of the weekly Substack newsletter, Getting On. She came up with the idea around the same time that I came up with the idea for my own Substack. Coincidence? Also, it feels quite meta to be writing about the coincidence of someone starting a Substack right here on my very own Substack. What is even happening with the universe right now?

The logo for Linda Levy’s new Substack, Getting On. It’s exactly what she imagined the logo to look like even before she saw this image.

I’ve always admired Linda for her writing prowess, intelligence and sense of humor. I first started showing Linda my own writing over 30 years ago when I was working on my college essays, and since that time, I have sent her many pieces to review. She often makes me think about things in new or different ways, and I am better for it.

Even though Linda is 30 plus years older than I am, she has always felt to me like she is my age. When I was 25, she kind of seemed 25 to me. And now that I am 50, I sometimes forget that she is not 50 too. Strange? Coincidence? I don’t know. Some of our most recent meetings at Starbucks have included strategy sessions on writing for Substack, and let me just say that Linda often knows more about the technology behind Substack than I do. And she certainly knows more than I know about the Starbucks rewards points. Point being, what does age even mean? I don’t know. Universe?

Getting On is a newsletter for people who find themselves older than they used to be so basically, yes, everyone. And as I find myself older than I used to be right now at age 50, I see morsels that I relate to in so much of what Linda writes about now that she is older than she used to be. I sense from her excellent reader comments on Getting On that others do too.

Linda and Getting On give me hope for ….. Getting On. One of my most favorite pieces in the publication is about how Linda’s grandchildren made a game out of playing with the wrinkles on Linda’s neck. I recognize that people don’t usually get excited about having neck wrinkles, but if it’s something that your grandchildren like to play with, then why not?

I look forward to Getting On, to exploring what else is out there in the universe whether coincidental, almost never found or otherwise. Thanks Linda Levy for all of that, and more.