It is no coincidence that too much has already been said about synchronicity, so I’ll “hop” straight into my narrative.
The most excellent bunny pictured here is Sally, as rendered by San Francisco artist and printmaker Beth Van Hoesen. One day in the late 1980s, while walking west on Sacramento Street, Sally came to mind. I was on my way to see my shrink, Tanya, imagining what it would be like in a few minutes when I entered her office. On the wall just inside the door to the waiting room would be the handsome print of a rabbit.
That image always made me smile. The outright beauty of the creature, its composure, and, as I imagined, a look in her eye that seemed to say, “I’m going to have to think about that.”
As I strolled down Sacramento Street, something struck me that I had not realized before. Tanya’s waiting room was not the first place I had encountered Sally. I suddenly realized Sally used to keep me company while I did my laundry.
There is a coin launderette at the corner of Noe and 22nd Streets in San Francisco that I visited once a week during a period in which I was reading a lot of books on Jungian Psychology – and thinking that being in therapy with a Jungian might be a wonderful experience. On the wall above the driers hung an identical print of Sally.
One day while my laundry swirled, and I had my head in a copy of “A Primer of Jungian Psychology”, a pleasant fellow about my age approached and asked, “Are you a student?”
“Actually,” I smiled, “I’m thinking about getting into therapy with a Jungian, and I figured if I carried this book around long enough I’d meet one.”
I was kidding, or at least half kidding, but the guy was not amused. Rather, he appeared somewhat peeved. “That is SO Jungian!” he groaned. But after a deep breath he asked me if I had a pen, and gave me Tanya’s phone number.
“How funny,” I thought. Sally saw the odd encounter at the launderette that lead me to therapy with Tanya, and now Sally sees every time I come in for a session.
Something on the sidewalk in front of me caught my attention. I was in that block of Sacrament between Buchannan and Webster, on the north side of the street in the cool shadow of the California Pacific Medical Center. At my feet was a quantity of cedar clippings, some raisin-like rabbit turds, and even a trickle of milky rabbit urine – the entire contents of a rabbit hutch sans the rabbit. “Tanya’s gonna love this!” I recall thinking.
About fifteen minutes later when our session began I described the progression of recollections and discoveries related to Sally that I had just experienced. Tanya laughed and said, “The man who gave you my number is one of my graduate students.” I had not known that. “Did he tell you his name?” she asked. He had not. She laughed some more and told me her student’s name, but I didn’t get the joke so she explained. His last name – Lapin – is French for rabbit.
The Wikipedia tells me that “In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations that contradict prior beliefs.” Whew! Nonetheless, gentle reader, I confess that to my untrained eye, Sally looks very French to me. Perhaps someone who knows their rabbits will weigh in on the lovely creatures likely nationality. Merci !
Guilty as charged: I’m the Rabbit who steered you to Tanya. Hope your Journey was productive.
Here’s the backstory: over many nights, I read Watership Down to my ex-wife just before lights out. We fell in love with rabbits. In the Feminist 70s, it was fashionable, upon marrying, to hyphenate the guy’s last name and the gals last name. I failed to see how this addressed the sexism: her last name was her father’s last name. So we decided to create our last name. Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit? No. We rejected Conejo and Pfeiffer. Picked Lapin, but anglicized the pronunciation.
So it seems you were referred by the right critter.
I actually don’t remember making the referral, but your version sounds close enough for folk music.
Many thanks for responding to my Google-facilitated inquiry regarding whether you might be the Lapin of my story! And thanks especially for giving me this opportunity to thank you for the referral. What followed was, and continues to be, wonderfully exciting, alternately tremendous fun and deeply troubling, and always incredibly interesting. Also, the backstory of how you came to Lapin-hood delights me. Thank you for sharing it. It’s like discovering that a story I told has a marvelous prequel.
I was walking in the neighborhood after reading this and the pizza place on Fillmore and California was playing “Synchronicity” by The Police. Coincidence?
I love that neighborhood. So pretty. And apparently a magnet for psychic practices. Lots of therapists! Over a twenty year period, I was in therapy with Tanya on Sacramento, Tom on Clay, and Sam on Jackson. All in the blocks between Fillmore and Steiner. Years of strolling in the park after sessions, chewing on ideas and sometimes even that wonderful feeling of the mental tumblers falling into place. Regarding pizza, The Police and synchronicity, I wonder if “coincidence” is in the mind’s eye of the beholder. For some people, two events that seem strangely related may constitute a distraction from the pursuit of an ambition – so declaring the events “coincidence” is the comfortable or convenient way to go. The emphasis being something like, “Go away kid, ya bother me.” But for others, the sensed relationship between events may be like a spot of light on a dark surface, or a hole in an otherwise opaque fabric. Drawing nearer perhaps something unexpected is glimpsed on the other side, accompanied by that feeling of the mental tumblers falling.