There is a mannequin posing above my local bus stop. Headless, the mannequin is wearing a woollen white turtleneck with puffy, textured sleeves, from J Crew, I think, and a white polyester mini skirt. Red roses bloom from its neck, sprawling out toward Dalston Kingsland High Street, as if waiting for the bus to go north, past the Aldi, past the cinema, all the way into Stoke Newington.

While walking home with my groceries I am holding a penny between the first and third spaces on my index finger, feeling the ridges around its circumference as I draw my finger closer into my palm. I do this unconsciously now, but for years I would secure whatever loose change I found like this, tightly between the folds of my finger, acknowledging this, the finding of a coin, as a sign as from the universe, something beyond myself, letting me know that everything was going to be fine.

Pennies, in particular, have symbolised this kind of knowing for a long time, an affair with resplendence. Since I was little, my mom pointed them out whenever we went shopping, a sign from Baba, she would say. Heads up, preferably, but any form of loose change in my Croatian household was said to be a sign, an omen of good luck, of someone watching out over you.

There was a period of searching, my head down towards the pavement, looking for loose change. Considering it a bad day if a coin didn’t catch my eye. Me, a failure, not doing enough, not making enough of a good impression of whoever was up there, my Baba in my mind. Looking for the thing rather than being the thing, living the thing, unable to separate myself from the validation a round shiny thing would give me, presence not even a word in my vocabulary. It was almost an addiction, the amount of times I would check Co-Star a day to tell me what would happen in my life, the areas that would feel pressure, tension, peace - rather than see them for myself, with my own eyes; I was obsessed, both with my own suffering and the high I got from seeing a coin next to my shoe, phew, it’s okay, all is well, I am safe.

Beliefs of this nature have existed for a long while. The idea of ‘signs from above’ and cosmic ways of aligning ourselves within the discomfort of our lives at present have prevailed throughout history. My laptop is currently filled with studies on skepticism toward the supernatural showing showing both positive and negative results, encouraging healthy doses of cosmic intervention, among other tabs - essays on how to be more productive, audition listings, online shopping carts filled with short, sheer curtains and toilet roll holders.

Danish theologian Viggo Mortensen (not to be confused with the actor who played Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) questions our qualms with existence, saying:

As human beings we cannot help but feel that we are some significance, that we are worth something. Unfortunately, however, science does not provide us with the remotest justification for feeling thus.”

I have yet again found myself spending pockets of times in cafes, between breakfast at work, even scrolling before bedtime, reading poems, essays, short stories, anything I can get my hands on about luck, about signs, about the divine intervention of the universe, teetering with glimpses of belief within the books I read, feeling yes, no, maybe, I’m not so sure, wondering where that leaves me.

I am entering my third autumn in London, the first that really feels the part. It’s daring to be New York, if I’m honest, with New York, so I hear, clinging on the idea of summer. 80 degrees and sunny, my mom tells me on the phone while I throw another layer to leave the house. London is grey and cold but with pockets of blue that seem to emerge nearly every day, in encouraging bursts that take me back to 13th Street, basking in the glory of New York’s eternal blue sky in Autumn, a personal phenomena, the unmatched feeling of a cloudless sky guiding you along the grid of the city, to see friends after class, to get yet another coffee from Birch, to be lucky enough to have another moment in the magical blue of this time of year.

After we hang up, I go out the front door and turn right to take the back roads up to the high street. I take my headphones off and walk on the opposite side of the road to get a good look at the mannequin. As I go to get my phone out of my pocket to take a picture, a woman catches my eye. She is maybe 60, 65, wearing a furry black coat that goes just past her knees, with thick gold hoop earrings that hug the lobe and hair shorter than mine, chocolatey and trimmed at the neck. A warm, round face she has, and big brown eyes, like mine, wearing soft black gloves she tucks into her pockets with glee. Her walk is slow, measured, patiently taking in the day, she smiles at me. A feeling rushes over me, not so much a knowing but a memory, a comfort in knowing that she looked like Baba, and I knew Baba once, too. I smile back.