Synchronicities can point the way to love. When you’re on the verge of meeting someone special, or have just met them but are not sure if that sparkle is really going to set fire, you might suddenly begin to observe that meaningfully related events are lighting the way to your future with this new person—like your GPS. Here’s a case from my own life:

When I was in college in Boston, my old boyfriend and I had talked many times about moving to San Francisco. Then, shortly after graduating and moving in together, we fell into an unhappy spell punctuated by arguments and no sex. The relationship really seemed to be on the rocks. And, sure enough, one day when I was walking home from my job, I saw the sunset in a different way. This one seemed to speak to me: “Your relationship with Marc is ending.” I also had a dream where he turned into a dog. Not long after that, when Marc was out of town, I met Josh at a party. We extended the outing by going to a jazz club, and suddenly we were planning our next get-together—and the spring was back in my step!

Six weeks later, I moved into my own apartment, and the relationship with Marc was officially over. Like the early 20-year-olds we were, Josh and I quickly jumped into a relationship, and he was referring to me by that old ’60s moniker, “my old lady.” Yet I worried that I wasn’t hearing any talk about a future. He kept talking about wanting to get back to Berkeley, CA, and hinted that he still had a relationship there—but there was no mention of me accompanying him. So, while I was happy to be with someone who introduced me to jazz, talked about his show-biz relatives, and brought me to Cape Cod to meet his friends, I tried desperately not to get ahead of myself and to take this one day at a time. Sometimes, I succeeded.

Until one night. I was driving over to pick him up at his apartment, as usual, on this particular evening in 1979. At the moment I was turning onto his Boston street, with the sign—Westland Ave.—in full view, that 1967 anthem came on the radio: “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie. “If you’re going to San Francisco…” rang in my ear, and though I wasn’t into coincidences so much at the time, this one got my attention. (I had been disregarding the meaning of the earlier, more subtle, literal signpost of his street for a couple of months now.) Josh had talked a lot about going back to San Francisco after his college year was over because he missed it more than he wanted to continue his education at Berklee College of Music in Boston. But he had persisted over these first months of our relationship in never asking me to go with him.

But suddenly, this song played, appearing to prefigure my new future.

I’m not sure I ever told Josh about the song, though he was well aware of how the name of his street mirrored his state of mind.

Several months later, Josh did ask me to accompany him back to San Francisco, and we actually settled in the Haight-Ashbury district of the City (yes, always capitalized) rather than Berkeley, even though he knew more people there. I guess he thought San Francisco was cooler, and certainly where he could play more jazz. And, for many reasons that culminated in his tragic passing in 1995, I lasted there longer than he did.