One lazy evening in late June, my roommate Erin was making rhubarb pie in the kitchen, while I sat in the armchair in the living room. As we talked about something, she came into the doorway, holding a large green glass bowl that my mom had given me – and which she always made a point to ensure I still possessed when she came by.
Although Erin has never broken any of my kitchenware and was not doing anything threatening toward the bowl, for some reason I jokingly said “don’t break my bowl!”
She laughed and looked at it, scoffing “don’t worry, I’m not going to break your green bowl.”
Then she walked out of sight toward the sink. The water ran for a moment, and then I heard her curse in surprise.
I jokingly yelled something like “what of mine have you ruined in there?!” (Although I’d just made the comment about the bowl, I’d already put it out of my mind – it was just a random comment – and besides, I’d heard no breaking glass.)
But then Erin returned to the doorway, still holding the green glass bowl – a shocked look on her face.
She held up the bowl, which looked intact – at first.
Then I noticed that three jagged cracks ran through it. No pieces had come apart – it had simply cracked when she’d put the frozen pieces of rhubarb into it.
Huh.
It felt too coincidental to be a coincidence …. but what? Did I somehow know, at some level, that it was coming? Did it happen because we thought about it? Did I unconsciously pick up from her body language when I saw her with the bowl that she, at some unconscious level, was aware that the hot water & ice cold rhubarb that she would soon be adding to the bowl might crack it?
Even if ‘merely’ the latter, still fascinating!
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