A Ramble on the Randomness of Numbers: 13, 2017, 77, 7, 8, 48, 30, 31, 1… and don’t forget the over 6,000 and growing
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Whether we like it or not, numbers seem to take over our lives – or at least they refuse to be ignored even as we desperately try to turn our backs on them. So here are a few that I’ve noticed and taken note of in the past few days.
13 – Today, as I begin to write this, it is midday on the first Friday the 13th of this by-now-not-so-new 2017. Again, another number that, if you really think about it, is really arbitrary. Just as someone said at some point that Friday the 13th was unlucky, someone else said, “Right, from today we start counting the years like so and so.” “Amen,” responded nearly everyone since then, and, through the years as more and more nodded in agreement, we have ended up with 2017.
77 – If there was an agency that certified people with green thumbs, my name would certainly be rejected. Apparently I tend to kill plants that fall under my shadow. But today, with plastic watering cans in either hand, I remembered to check on our remaining almond trees. I can’t recall how many we originally planted, but three we still have. Two of them had almonds ready for picking. Some of the nuts were already on the ground because of the winds we’ve had these days that have driven the various fires in the Cape out of control. I tried to stuff them in my pockets – luckily I had those baggy shorts with multiple expanding pockets! So the unexpected harvest of +/- 77 almond nuts (that still need to be shelled)!
7 – Yesterday, with the slightest touch they fell into my cupped hands, seven cherry tomatoes. Funny that we are getting a nearly daily supply from something I never really planted. About two months ago I just noticed seedlings sprouting about in the garden where I used to pour the water we save from washing vegetables and fruit in the kitchen – I guess sometimes bits of seeds somehow end up in the same bucket. I moved those seedlings into pots, with a vague hope that they at least grow, if not bear some tomatoes one day.
7 is also the number of poetry books under my name. But in a few more weeks another one will join my paper children. Wings of Smoke will be released soon by The Onslaught Press, an independent UK-based publisher. A proper post for that new baby soon, I hope, as it officially becomes poetry book number 8!
48 – I’m not so sure I should be sharing that number. But what the heck. This year I turn that many years on this planet (although I believe in other cultures they start counting your age the day you are conceived instead of when you are born).
30 – I’ve read at Off the Wall in Observatory before, both times after being asked by the organizer. This year I acted like Hermione and raised my hand, so to speak, and said “Pick me! Pick me!” for Thursday the 30th of March. I was thinking I might as well own up to having this new paper child, Wings of Smoke, and go all-out to promote it. It will be my first book that will be made available in South Africa largely through me and one other distributor until some arrangement can be made with interested bookshops. For now people can contact me through this blog or my Facebook page (search for Jim Pascual Agustin, in case you don’t know who you’re reading here right now hahaha). My publisher will put up online orders through Amazon. Signed copies through me. 
