***
Just look at it. 11 is a funny number, isn't it? (Notice and be grateful that I did not go for the obvious pun — think of a synonym for strange or unusual...the one that begins with "o" that also refers to a type of number. You're welcome. 😉)
For those of us thinking in base-10, it has a curious sort of symmetry, no?* 1 and then another 1. Like goalposts, or a doorway. To what...who knows?
Is it the gateway to another dimension...or to an empty stadium, a beautiful game with no spectators?
Well as it turns out, my life has been pretty much haunted (dogged? shadowed? trolled?) by the number 11. I don't really know what to make of it — if anything — but it does give me pause.
Mind you, I'd much rather be trolled by 11 than by, say, 23 (you know, like the movie?). Let's be honest: 11 is far prettier and more interesting to look at, right? It's an arty integer, as integers go.
Pythagoras apparently didn't think so: He thought 10 was the perfect number, and the later Pythagoreans avoided gathering in groups larger than 10. Their loss, I say.
Modern numerologists hold that 11 is the "master number" (whatever that means) that is tied into instinct and intuition. 11:11 is supposed to be a magical time. I can get behind all that.
And I can say that I do have a sort of affection for the number, as one might for, say, someone who rides the same bus or subway you take to work every day. Or like a particular squirrel who is always playing in the same tree when you walk by on your way to the store.
I have had a couple of students who turned out to be siblings of students I had had in a previous year. Maybe something like that.
Indeed, I can honestly say that I'm proud of my number, 11. It's a groovy number. It's happening, like mountains on the horizon, or the sound of the ocean, or the smell of spring.
But 11 especially rocks for the way it entered my life:
 |
| My mom |
Probably nothing. It's just another strange coincidence...except that it was not the last one. It was literally the beginning.
November 11, when I was a kid, was Armistice Day, celebrating the end of a war — until that Reagan dude changed it to Veterans Day and made the holiday fall always on a Monday. Killjoy. Before that I always had my birthday off from school.
Some other time, maybe I'll tell you about Carlisticeday. If you ask nicely.
Anyhow, in the summer of 1965 (6 + 5 = 11, by the way) when I was four years old, my family moved from Logansport, Indiana, to Indianapolis.
The digits of our phone number in Indianapolis were: 293-4578...they add up to 38 (3 + 8 = 11).
The telephone area code for most of Indiana is 317 (3 + 1 + 7 = 11).
In the summer of 1973, when I was 11 years old, my parents separated and eventually got divorced. It was without question the formative event of my childhood.
When I was 29 years old (2 + 9 = 11), the business where I worked in San Francisco, Sierra Natural Foods, went under. This precipitated a chain of events that led directly to my moving to Rochester, NY.
The Rochester region has proven to be a central location of my adult life. Not only did I get my undergraduate degree in Brockport (while living in Rochester), my first job of my academic career (a post-doctoral fellowship), my first actual job on a tenure-track, and now tenure — all have taken place at the same school. Although I had barely even heard of Rochester earlier in my life, the move there in the early 90s was a huge turning point for me, one that I still ponder with mixed emotions. (See my blog entry: "Of Lilacs and Old Lace")
The 90s were not that connected to the number 11. There were no years, for example, that added up to 11, and no age of mine that did so, either.
But in the summer of 2000, when I was 38 years old, I met my wife and life partner, Rosa. 3 + 8 = 11, again.
Things sped up dramatically after that:
Rosa's birthday is 9/20 (9 + 2 + 0 = 11).
We moved to Brockport in 2006, into the ground floor of a house at 38 Gordon Street. (3 + 8 = 11, yet again). The zip code for Brockport (where we still live, by the way) is 14420. 1 + 4 + 4 + 2 + 0 = 11.
Our daughter, Leyla, was born in that house in the spring of 2009 (2 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 11), when I was 47 (4 + 7 = 11).
Leyla also has 47 chromosomes, by the way. I'm not sure how I feel about that!
I turned 50 years old on 11/11/11.
The extension number for my office at the college is 5699. (5 + 6 + 9 + 9 = 29; 2 + 9 = 11)
The numbers on the license plate of our previous car were 7843. (7 + 4 = 11 and 8 + 3 = 11 — an 11-11!).
In the fall of 2014, we bought a house. The original price was $139,900. We offered $125k. Mind you, the owners had already moved to Virginia. They were done with the place. Nevertheless, their counter-offer, which we accepted, added $3000 to that. I have no idea why they chose that particular amount, but it brought the final price to $128k. (1 + 2 + 8 = 11).
When we went to the closing, I signed my name 38 times (3 + 8 = 11, yet again).
And this brings us up to 2018:
I turn 57 years old on 11/11/2018, which means that I was 56 years old throughout most of the calendar year 2018.
11/11 — of course, as already noted.
2 + 0 + 1 + 8 = 11
So for 10 months out of 12 (83%, 8 + 3 = 11) of a year when the digits added up to 11, the digits of my chronological age added up to 11, also.
In just the last 12 months, I have been to Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Morocco (twice), Egypt and Lebanon!
My participation in international fora in my field has gone through the roof (a "quantum loop"), including appearances at four conferences, plus an invited lecture. For li'l ol' me coming from li'l ol' Brockport, this has been quite a run.
In the process, I have more than tripled the manuscript resources available for my scholarship and now have four academic papers in process at various stages of development. I'll need another year to clear my desk of all this work.
Two different astrologers told me that this year-that-adds-up-to-11, at age 56, was going to be a remarkable one for me.
They were right.
And I cannot wait to see what 11 has in store for me!
***
Just sayin'.
Post-Post Script: We bought a Honda Odyssey in 2014. As I mentioned above, the New York license plate included the number 7843. 7 + 4 = 11 and 8 + 3 = 11. Since that time I have been watching license plates as I drive around town or on the highway. There are "elevens" (plates whose numbers add up to 11 or a number that adds up to 11), and "eleven-elevens" (plates whose numbers combine to form two elevens, like our Odyssey).
But there are also "elevenses" — plates whose numbers, if you break them into two-digit numbers and add those, add up to eleven or a number that adds up to eleven. Our current car's plate is one of the elevenses: 7265...like this:
72
+65
137
1 + 3 + 7 = 11
And so on.
Post-Post Script: I recently went abroad with some students, touring the south of Spain and Morocco. Seat number on the train from Málaga to Córdoba, and on bus from Sevilla to Granada: 29. 2 + 9 = 11. Seat number at the flamenco show: AA29.
And so on.
* Base-2 is also sorta cool — 1011 (there is actually someone at the college where I work who has that number on his or her license plate) — but that's still not as cool as base-10.
Base-1 would be entertaining, also: 11111111111 — eleven ones, but maybe that's overdoing it?
Base-11, however, would be truly anticlimactic: 10. Bo-ring!
This past Wednesday (11/21) I bought two tickets to see my daughter, Leyla, perform in the Rochester City Ballet's annual Nutcracker. One of the seats was numbered 407. I swear I didn't do that deliberately!
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