Embracing Serendipity
May grace and peace be yours in abundance.—2 Peter 1:2
Long ago and far away, in the exotic land of the Incas, I grew up in a Peruvian-American family, navigating two worlds in one childhood, first using a microscope, then later in life looking back with a telescope.
Through my newest lens, the telescope of memory, I recently viewed the preparations for an island adventure I had with friends, long ago in Peru. American friends, Loren and Sue McIntyre and their young sons, Lance and Scott, were spending an autumn day with my family at the Isla de San Lorenzo, the largest island off the Peruvian coast. A small naval contingency guarded the area, and my father Papi was the officer in charge. We drove to the main navy base at the Port of Callao, where we bundled up and boarded the launch which transported our group to the secluded island.
The excitement en route was palpable. Lance and Scott were enthusiastic fellow adventurers, hardly able to sit still along our assigned bench as they chatted nonstop about hunting for buried Spanish treasures on the island. Little did we know that independent explorations were discouraged, we would all be under the watchful eyes of our nannies, parents and navy sailors.
The afternoon passed like a blur. Even though we did not find lost treasures, it was a fun day, playing around the island, looking through the binoculars, and spying on sea birds and each other. On the ride back to Callao, Papi promised a return trip, during the summer months, when we could explore the beach for unusual seashells, like the ones that had captured our imagination in the display cabinet at the officers lounge. There would also be swimming and snorkeling in the mighty Pacific, not possible on an autumn day when the surf was too rough and too cold. Everyone cheered and clapped!
Several months later we learned the McIntyre family was on the move to Bolivia, for Loren's work assignment with USAID and the National Geographic Society. One afternoon after school, Sue brought Scott and Lance over to drop off a box with books not making the move. The Hardy Boys, King Arthur and His Knights at the Round Table, The Three Princes of Serendip, and several others were a most welcome addition to our library, that would keep me and my little sisters entertained. Happily I arranged the books side-by-side along the library shelves already holding La hormiguita viajera/The Traveling Ant, The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, and other books.
Afterwards, we went out into our backyard, where Mami's homemade lucuma ice cream awaited at festive tables set up under umbrellas. Lucuma, an exotic fruit, comes from a rare and ancient fruit tree in the Andes, and our family's fruit vendor in Miraflores would set these aside for la gringuita's helados. Mami's ice cream experiments were a hit with our Peruvian family and American friends. Interestingly, commercially produced lucuma ice cream was not sold in Peru until sometime in the mid-1960s, after we had moved to the United States.
I loved getting lost in a book, especially when it came to reading fairy tales with adventurous characters traveling the world, like those gifted by Scott and Lance. For a time I was totally intrigued with The Three Princes of Serendip. In this old Persian fairy tale the three princes of Serendip, (Sri Lanka of today), traveled the world making accidental discoveries of things they were not looking for. What I found captivating in this book were the historical facts carefully woven through the text, based on the life of a real king in Persia in the Fifth Century AD!
Many years later I became intrigued with happenings in my life and would look up the origins of the word serendipity. In 1754 the word 'serendipity' was coined by Horace Walpole. In a letter that he wrote to his friend Sir Horace Mann, he made reference to the fairy tale about The Three Princes of Serendip, and their accidental discoveries. Serendipitous chance happenings and accidental discoveries are an integral part of the scientific method that is shared by Nobel Prize winning scientists who also shared three qualities -- a prepared mind for observation, a flexible mind for interpretation and a passion for science.
One of the most famous discoveries in medicine is Alexander Fleming's chance discovery of penicillin in 1928. As a young girl in hospital, suffering from a misdiagnosis of a burst appendix, and peritonitis rapidly spreading inside my 4-year-old body, my uncles, Tío Guillermo and Tío Manuel, both medical doctors in Lima, saved my life. Penicillin was in short supply after WWII, and in 1949 there was none available in Peru. It was my Uncle Bill, Mami's brother, in Washington, DC, who came to the rescue. Penicillin was flown to Miami where, just by chance, our neighbor, a pilot for Panagra, (Pan American-Grace Airways), was waiting for his flight crew to arrive before heading back down to Lima. I would remain hospitalized for a month under the watchful eyes of my two uncles who were pleased with my progress recovering from a near-death-experience.
Connecting the past to the present with a telescope and a microscope, I find my life is full of serendipitous happenings. But the choice is mine to open my mind and heart to receive, or close the door shut. By living with serendipity, I make new and exciting discoveries that I would never have anticipated, and I am grateful, and welcome these with an open heart.
"End"
About the Author: Katacha Díaz is a Peruvian American writer. She earned her BA and MPA from the University of Washington, and was a research associate of the University of California at Davis. Wanderlust and love of travel have taken her all over the world to gather material for her stories. Among the children’s books she has authored is Badger at Sandy Ridge Road for the Smithsonian Institution’s Backyard series, and Carolina’s Gift: A Story of Peru for the Soundprints’ Make Friends Around the World series. Her work appears with Skipping Stones Multicultural Literary Magazine, ZiN Daily Literary Magazine, Fresh Water Literary Journal, 10 By 10 Flash Fiction, Galway Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, Big Windows Review, Anak Sastra, Shimmer Spring, Hibiscus, Barely South Review, Gravel, Westview, New Mexico Review, Foliate Oak, The MacGuffin, among others. Katacha lives in the Pacific Northwest, near the mouth of the Columbia River, USA.
Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/a-metal-object-with-a-sign-on-it-by-the-water-w6YAP-1wkcI) 18. 1. 2025.
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