Synchronicity can be freaky sometimes. Life works like that.

I was lying in bed, reading through the six books of Tales of the City for the umpteenth time. As I began the fourth book, Babycakes, I noticed this quote on the frontispiece:

When you feel your song is orchestrated wrong,
Why should you prolong
Your stay?
When the wind and the weather blow your dreams sky-high,
sail away - sail away - sail away!
- Noel Coward

Then I remembered the lesson about bodhichitta (open heart and mind) in Pema Chodron's The Places That Scare You:

When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman siting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, "Little girl, don't you go letting life harden your heart."
Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

As I read further, this quote appeared:
With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.
- Charlotte Joko Beck

It's nice to have such good teachers, such random yet utterly applicable messages.

It helps me to start each day in peace, regardless of where I end it. And when I'm in the middle of things, it helps to stop and reconsider the idea that I always have choice.

Rejoice.