Lithuanian Birthday

Lying in bed this morning, betwixt and between sleeping and waking, while the world spun on in its usual mix of hidden harmonies and outer chaos, I was making a list of countries. As follows:

 

• Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Lithuania,

Macedonia, Mauritania.

 

Can you see the connection? With one exception, all of them share the following:

 

• They all end in A.

• They represent all six inhabited continents. 

• They all are 9 letters long. (And here’s the exception: Mauritania)

 

Once I woke up, I checked out a list of countries in the world to see if I missed any that fit the above criteria. And I didn’t! I did find the longest single word country. Ironically, also one of the smallest: Liechtenstein (13 letters). The tie for the two longest of more than one word? Democratic Republic of the Congo and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (sounds like a rock band!), both clocking in at 28 letters. And no, I never heard of the latter either. It’s in the Caribbean near Barbados. 

 

So yet another testimony to the strangeness of the human mind. Why would it be researching in the neuro-circuitry of the brain these 9-letter-ending-in-A countries at this particular time? Or at any time? And how could it do so so accurately in that state between sleeping and waking (and leaning heavily to sleeping)? And what was it trying to tell me?

 

Well, this is a stretch, but today is my mother’s Heavenly Birthday. She would have been 104 had she lived 11 more years. Her parents emigrated from Poland, around the turn of the century, but late in life, she discovered they actually were from Russia and went to Poland first before coming to the U.S. Since Russia ruled Lithuania and Lithuania borders Poland, it’s entirely possible that my grandparents were born there. So maybe that deep subconscious mind was trying to make some connection on the occasion of my Mom’s birthday. And then spun off into those other countries who shared the above superficial connection. Who knows?

 

Meanwhile, happy birthday. Mom. Off to care for your great-grandchildren today while your granddaughter takes a trip to Cleveland. (Also 9 letters!)