In the novel I'm writing, one of my favorite scenes involves a parrot. It's a version of a factual gathering I read about. I used it because it serves to develop some characters and because it's funny, even though, in the kind of novels I write, those reasons alone are not enough to thoroughly justify a lengthy scene.

Still I chose to include it, and a month or so afterward, while continuing to research, I learned in a book about politics in LA during the 1920s that a fellow named Parrot served as the mouthpiece for one of the story's potential bad guys.

Because I'm not always awake to the obvious, I didn't catch on right away. But later, while jotting notes, I saw the connect. I laughed and shouted "Yes." And in the scene I'll probably finish this afternoon, Tom Hickey will realize that the reason the leader of the gathering brought a parrot was to clue someone to the possible involvement of Parrot in the crime.

Tom didn't see that connection at first because, like me, he's not always awake.

I could deliberate about whether the parrot and Parrot connection is a result of coincidence or something otherworldly, but I'll pass on that and instead point out that such connections are occasions for joy and delight, and the willingness to accept them and use them may be part of what we mean when we call somebody gifted.