The Bumbling Mystic’s Obituary: A Memoir about Synchronicity and Second Chances by Constance Mears was a true surprise. The blurb was interesting enough to snag my attention – an obituary writer receives a premonition that her death is imminent and decides to write her own obituary. I apparently didn’t catch the “memoir” portion of the title, but that’s not a big deal.
When I opened the book on my kindle, the status read “17 minutes left in book.” Wait, what? This is a short story? Dang it! Nothing wrong with short stories, really, they just aren’t generally my first choice unless I’m familiar with the author (and the characters, if it’s a series with an accompanying novella). But that’s okay, it’s only 17 minutes of my life, right?
Since I was already disappointed with the story book, the first chapter was ho-hum. I just wanted to get through it so I could move on to other things. The author starts out telling us that she’s received the premonition and wants to write her obituary. Yep, got it. And then she shifts to her childhood. This is just 17 minutes, right? We’d better be moving this along…
I think it was near the end of chapter 2 that I made the “memoir” connection. By chapter 4, my kindle had sorted itself out and fixed the glitch, so I was definitely reading a full-length book. But by that point, I really didn’t care what the kindle said. I was hooked.
The author didn’t live a mainstream life. She screwed up. She made bad decisions. In this telling, at least, she was honest about it. She also made some decisions that struck me as being absolutely wonderful, regardless of whether or not they worked out how she intended or hoped. She was (and still is, I suppose) very focused on synchronicity, which isn’t something I’ve ever really stopped and considered – and honestly, if someone were to ask me about it, I’d probably say something about it being merely coincidence and move on.
By the end of the book, I was in tears – which generally only happens if a cat or dog dies in a story. Memoirs and biographies don’t, as a rule, turn me into a crying mess. On the surface, I have very little in common with the author. This book, though, resonated with me in a totally unexpected way. Maybe because I’ve had a lot of changes in my life over the last couple of years. Most of them are my own doing and I certainly don’t regret them. There’s always been that little niggling voice that would pop up occasionally to tell me I wasn’t truly happy, that I wasn’t living my life in the way that was best for me, that there had to be something better out there. Ever so slowly, I’ve been taking steps to change that, because that voice finally reached a point where she refused to be shushed one more time. Darn it, I deserve to be happy, even if the life that makes me happy doesn’t necessarily fit with everyone’s expectations of me.
One particular passage has stuck with me: “I have spent a lifetime trying to hide my weirdness, to get with the program, to pass for normal – without much success. Like the Ugly Duckling, I am no longer willing to disown essential parts of myself. I’m claiming my full wingspan these days, even if it ruffles a few feathers.”
This book might not be for everyone. Five years ago, I don’t think it would have appealed to me much at all. I might have found it mildly entertaining. I might have done a whole lot of eye rolling. I feel that you have to be in a certain place emotionally (or at least heading in that direction) in order to get the full impact. Or maybe this is just a bit of synchronicity in my own life…
