Eight Eight Eighty Eight

 

How August 8, 1988 (8,8,88) Came To Yield 22

By Teak Kilmer, May 20, 2010

 

 

Minneapolis, MN, winter nineteen eighty-eight…Christmas season; Jo Anne and I had met on two-fourteen of that year at a Valentine’s Day party – twenty two years ago; it’s now twenty-ten, ten years after the millennium change, you remember – the year the world’s computers did not blow up the planet, but alas I regress.

 

At the Valentine party, we had but fleeting interchange, and I was still in the year of abstinence from romantic, sexual and economic co-dependence recovery type thing; but she was beautiful and played sing-a-ling piano songs, and I sang like I used to only at piano bars, only this time I could stand up at the same time.

Her smile and her spirit were as bright as summer sunshine, but true to my pledge, I did not play the flirt; yet I was noticeably happier just by being near her.

 

Then in July of that same year, I attended A Course In Miracles spiritual retreat in Wisconsin, whereat an astrologer/numerologist told me emphatically that eight, eight eighty-eight would be a very powerful day on which to settle my manic, frenetic, exuberant, whimsical lifestyle into a placid sitting position and write out (affirm – to make firm) what I wanted to manifest in my life. 

My belief in such did not have an opinion one way or the other, so being adventuresome and having been in need of a few minutes of rest for several years at that point; I girded my loins and girdled my pen and placed a pad upon my lap and, by God I wrote. And I mean by God because now I know there is a God or a God-ness or a God-ish-ness or Godess-ish-ness because I penned every virtue and attribute I could think of in a wife and Jo Anne appeared two and one half weeks later.

On Jo Anne’s end of this, she, on her birthday, the following day, was in an automobile (meaning moves automatically) headed to her place of human origin in Montana on vacation with her sister; and on said day eight, nine eighty-eight she did declare most vociferously and convincingly to all who witnessed that she was darn well done dating henceforth and forevermore; and proceeded to order straight away a very particular (not peculiar, although that came along with the package that is I myself), and immediately deliverable, husband. 

On her first day post return from vacation she and I eyed to eye and heart to hearted right there in a lobby of a mystical church type place, that was used to witnessing the granting of supplications we exchanged phone numbers and began slowly (on my part mostly) to round the mulberry bush and the May Pole ever more closely to each other come…a ti yi yippe yippee yah yippie yay;  Jo Anne, being the wiser and more mature of us two was certain right away she was to be my soon and eternal wife and I her adoring, grateful husband,which somehow brings me back to that Christmas just before we were to leave for Tempe, AZ (she) and Petaluma, CA (I) on obviously separate vacations. 

We decided to buy holiday presents one for the other per each; and dag-nab it a very glamorous, yet affordable hat I scooted up to procure at that charming little shop at Uptown had “just been sold”.  Dismayed but not deterred, I whirled about and down the bedecked halls I sought out a fresh piece of giving when there on my left was a rambling toy store flush with plush stuffed fauna.  I purchased an item and rendezvoused with herself.at her place.  We wrapped and exchanged, and amazingly and prophetically each of us had purchased a cuddly stuffed rabbit – to snuggle when in the absence of the other but while imagining it to be the other.

The next morning we were off for the holidays.  On about the fourth day visiting my brother Marty, I had an epiphany: I knew Jo Anne was right about us.  Immediately after I acknowledged this to myself and to Marty, I began seeing twenty-two’s and two-twenty-two’s all over everywhere: on license plates, whenever I looked at the clock, on street signs, house numbers, et al, and this went on for a considerable time.  It was remarkable, so of course, I remarked about it and repeatedly as did brother Martin in his turn. 

When we got back to his abode, I called Jo Anne to tell her of my awakening.  I had to leave a message to call and so she did.  I told her of my wondrous discovery and we both gleed and jollied a lot; and then I told her of the two-two’s and the two-two-two’s and she gasped and I said, “what?” And she said that thing with the two’s and two’s and sometimes two’s had been happening with her in AZ as well, AND around the same time interval.  We both amazed-afied and guffawed and stuff and beside that we just knew it to be a special little miracle on our behalf, but did not know of else what significance it might have.

We came home, met for dinner, did our official “Hey, let’s get married thing” at Kikigawa restaurant and upon leaving spied dead on in front of us “The Antique Jewelry Store” and bought an engagement ring apiece that just scream “Those are so you” with money I did not have, but trusted I would by the time the check would clear, and by gum I did.  Since then we have 2222 or so 22 and 222 stories.  We even met a guy named Love Twenty-two, and we found out early on that in numerology two represents relationships, and 22 is the master number for relationships, which means we have great blessings and responsibilities in our mutual all of our other relationships – our job is our joy, our virtue, our victory and whenever we seem to have misfortune, we almost always start seeing 2’s in multiples and are reminded all that seems unlike love is but illusion.