I feel very much the same about astrology. I don’t follow it at all unless I pick up a newspaper with horoscopes, as I do on very rare occasions these days. When I do, I of course read the sparkly Gemini section with deep thoughtfulness, and then laugh gently and slightly sympathetically at my wife’s inevitably bland and “balanced” Libra prediction.
My Auntie Jean, a wonderful potter who lived consecutively in South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Gibraltar, and, finally, Vancouver Island, spoke to me at times of her deep belief in, and knowledge of, astrology. She explained some of the reasons why I might be so weird, being a double Gemini in sun and moon and all that jazz. I was all ears and ready to sign up, fascinated to think that I might have some sort of roadmap for my life. Once out of the immediate sphere of that magical presence, my interest waned again to its usual nonchalance, and I went back to just vaguely hoping things would work out.
Back to numbers.
A few weeks ago, I was crossing through our office - that room which used to be called a dining room. The diminishing November light, at 4:30 in the afternoon, cast itself reluctantly onto my desk through the glass doors which give onto the terrace. Suddenly, my peripheral vision flashed on something to my left. The number 25 quite literally jumped off the desk. It really was strange, like a ghostly apparition.
The explanation was simple. A week previously, I had bought a new diary for next year, 2025. I had felt rather smug, as I usually buy them around Easter of the year to which they apply, with the shop assistant shaking their head sadly. This particular diary, being bought so early and presciently, was a rather fine-looking object - not the usual “last available” cheap plastic, but bound in an elegant “Desert Sand”-coloured linen. On the upper right-hand side is the number 25, written quite large, in a satin-finished silver effect. The wintry light had caused this to glow luminescently, leaping out of the soft shadows into my field of vision.
I was born at 5:25 on the 25th of the 5th month, and those particular numbers have definitely followed me around. As I traveled the world extensively through a 45-year career in textiles, it happened to me time and time again to be given room number 25 - often the last room at the end of a slightly gloomy corridor, occasionally a fancy suite up to which I had been bumped.
OK, I hear you say, but that is hardly significant, and your memory is probably exaggerating the frequency. Right, well, try this next one for size:
Our first child was born in Edinburgh. She had been due on my birthday, the 25th of May, but the doctors were concerned about the baby’s heartbeat and induced the birth. Megan was born shortly before midnight on the 24th of May. She and I have, over the years, had great fun celebrating our birthdays together, sometimes partying at the midnight bridge with family and friends. Now that we live close to each other in France, and she has her own family, we have established a lovely ritual of having a one-on-one lunch date on the 24th or 25th.
Fast forward 30 years to 2013. Megan’s first child was born on the 26th of May. My wife and I were there, in Casablanca, for the birth. We visited before and after, and it was a wonderful experience for both of us to be with our daughter and her husband for the birth of our first grandchild.
Megan was in a private clinic. To access her room, we had to go up a wide, well-lit, forward-and-back stairway which led to a pleasant and very peaceful landing that gave access to three rooms only. I stopped in my tracks and stared at the three doors on the facing wall: room numbers 24, 25, and 26. You just have to be kidding me.
Elizabeth, otherwise known as Liza and, much to my delight, as Zazie, was born on the 26th of May. She arrived downstairs in the birthing room, looked after by highly efficient and friendly medical staff. We met her for the first time later that day, in the peaceful calm of Room 25. Rooms 24 and 26 were, miraculously, unoccupied. Serenity and joy.
Numbers have, in fact, played a huge part in my life. As a textile designer, I have been immersed in a sea of numbers, grids, and patterns. Perhaps bizarrely for a creative person, I love maths, particularly mental arithmetic. Much to my accountant’s surprise, I am quite good at looking at profit and loss calculations on company accounts, and when I drive long distances I spend my time calculating average speed and fuel consumption. When I’m particularly tired, I’ll try to translate the French fuel consumption figures, based on litres consumed per 100 kilometres, into British miles per gallon. I know I have to stop for a rest when this makes my brain hurt.
I once had an absolutely wonderful design assistant who had the most hilarious sense of humour—that unique, dry sarcasm from Glasgow which is often delivered with a blunt brutality that only veils its subtlety. It is based on a sharp perspicacity exemplified by Billy Connolly. Alistair turned to me one day and said, in a tone of amazement, “But Jamie, when you design, you design mathematically!”
At first, I felt slightly insulted, as if my designing lacked spontaneity, feeling, and passion. But it’s not true; it has all of those things. I suddenly realised that yes, in my head there is a tumble of numbers and patterns which are closely linked to music, and also to abstract art. I see patterns everywhere—in the streets, on rock faces, and in tree bark. I remember phone numbers from 40 years ago, and the registration number of my father’s car in 1966. My vision is a constantly shifting tapestry of numbers, shapes, textures, and music. They intermingle and overlap freely.
I might say I am not into numbers, but they are very definitely into me. I think at this point I am happy to accept that my life has a slightly crazy kind of syncopation which is my very own - my own secret code. I just don’t understand, given that I seem to have a sort of left brain/right brain “accommodation”, or living arrangement, why I cannot stand all those fucking passwords I am supposed to remember. They are like a forest of unknowns, an anonymous industrial estate of identities. I suppose, ultimately, I am some kind of instinctively numerate Luddite...
Skoal!!!
Olaf
