Things that happen easily

I arrived at my apartment door and slid the key in and turned it and the door opened. I arrived at the second door and the same miracle repeated itself. And again, at the main door. Yesterday, I slid my bank card in the ATM slot and it went in. I put in my code and I got money.

These may all seem totally normal to you, but believe me, they're not. In my experience, each door has its own stubborn, capricious character, and you have to cajole and coax each and every one. These Peruvian doors are sweet and generous and understanding. They are self-confident and don't feel the need to humiliate or frustrate you to feel their own self-importance. Each encounter with them is a little miracle; a reminder of how easy life could be if only we were more self-assured.

The bank card is something else. That's some financial god's vengeance on me, or his way of trying to tell me to spend less money (lost cause). My bank card would simply NOT GO IN through the slot. No one understood this. I struggled for a year to get the ING to resolve the problem but after the first step of total disbelief, ("ah non ça c'est pas possible, hein, comment ça, ça ne rentre pas,..."), they'd go to the ATM themselves and oh, dear, their face was a sight o be seen I wish I'd video taped each episode! This god was in cahoots with the higher echelons of ING but I finally decided to open a new bank account and lo and behold, his reach does not extend to Deutche Bank! I can get my money any time I like. There, too, each experience is a little miracle.

So I decided to tell all of you about how happily astonished I am by how easy life can be. I tried to log into my blog and... the password wouldn't work... I had to recreate one... But first I had to prove I'm not a robot... Grrrrr... Well, the gods want to remind me of their presence, I suppose, some miracles notwithstanding.