The Red Thread of Fate

As a romance writer, I tend to focus a lot on the idea of fate - someone ending up exactly where they are supposed to be and who they are supposed to be with. It's sort of the idea from Japanese legend, the Red Thread of Fate: the idea that two people are tied together because they need to be a part of the other's life.

Writer Lucia Ortiz Monasterio says: "For the Japanese, who know so much and intuit more, human relations are predestined by a red string that the gods tie to the pinky fingers of those who find each other in life. Legend has it that the two people connected by this thread will have an important story, regardless of the time, place or circumstances. The red string might get tangled, contracted or stretched, as surely often happens, but it can never break. This legend, so much more aesthetic than that of the twin souls, occurs when it is discovered that the ulnar artery connects the heart with the pinky finger (which is the same reason why in many cultures promises are made by two people crossing their pinkies). The thin vein running from heart to hand extends through the invisible world, to end its course in someone else’s heart. But unlike other amorous superstitions, the Japanese one isn’t limited to couples, or a single person who one is destined to find. It speaks of a type of arterial ramification that emerges from a finger toward all those with whom we will make history and all those whom we will help in one way or another."

This is true for many of my characters - not just in love, but in life. In The Touch, AJ is pulled towards a town he's never been to before, and ends up finding that he needed to be there for both love and for paving a future for his kind. In my newest book Fifiteen Years, coming out soon, the main characters are tied together by a red thread of fate. No matter how far away their lives have taken them, they can never quite lose sight of one another, as though they were destined to meet again.

While the romantic background of the red thread of fate is the stuff romance novels are made of, to me the most interesting part is that idea that we are tied to other people for a while or a lifetime. When we stop to think about all of those who have made a difference in our lives and how we came to know them, we are reminded yet again that our paths intersect with those we are destined to meet. Perhaps it is a love, perhaps a friend, or perhaps a perfect stranger who touches our lives for just a moment.

It's a pretty incredible concept to think about, isn't it? That people don't randomly enter our lives, but rather, we are destined to meet them for one reason or another; that we get close and then grow apart but are still connected somehow in the grand scheme of life.

And as a romantic at heart, I believe in the idea of destiny; that no matter how twisted or damaged the string gets, you are still connected to the person you are tied to.

Do you believe in the red thread of fate? Have you ever felt that connected to someone?

(From Pinterest)