It Started with “Not Tonight, Josephine”

June 2, 2024, at 12:45 p.m.

I was leading an AA meeting. About 45 minutes in, everyone had shared. People can share a second time, so I turned to a chap called Jack and asked, “Would you like to share again?”

He responded, “Not tonight, Josephine.”

Ten hours later

I spoke with my ex-wife, who had met a wonderful new man the night before. She described him as nice, successful, and a devoted father, but mentioned he was very short.

This prompted me to ask, “Have you seen the movie Napoleon with Joaquin Phoenix?”

She hadn’t. I told her I’d watched it on the plane back to Thailand and mentioned Napoleon’s reputation for being short. We chuckled and moved on.

June 3, 2024

At 4:10 p.m., I was browsing Reddit when I came across an article posted just 10 minutes earlier, with a picture of the storming of the Bastille. That event helped spark the French Revolution, during which Napoleon rose to prominence.

And the kicker: “Not tonight, Josephine” is a saying traditionally attributed to Napoleon.

June 9, 2024

Having done no online searching on the matter, I received an email from Zinqué, a French restaurant in Los Angeles, my hometown. I’d only visited once, in December 2023.

It was an invitation: “07.14: BASTILLE DAY ALL DAY / ALL NIGHT.”

June 11, 2024

I returned to the meeting nine days after Jack’s remark and talked about the Napoleon incident. This led to a conversation about another synchronicity involving Tristan Island.

A merchant navy seaman heard me and asked where it was. I said it was one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, about 1,500 miles from St. Helena.

“St. Helena—that’s where Napoleon was exiled to, wasn’t it?” he said.

That was in 1815, 209 years earlier.

The Tristan Island story goes back to 2015. I was reminiscing about the Falklands War of 1982 and tracing our route on a map: Southampton, Africa, Ascension Island, South Georgia, and on to the Falklands.

I noticed a speck on the map. When I zoomed in, I saw its name: Tristan da Cunha. We had passed it on our way to the war.

My son was named Tristan in June 1998.

My daughter’s name is Montana. The capital of Montana is Helena.

April 14, 2025

I was watching The Ghost Writer when a woman in the movie said, “I hate this island; it’s like being married to Napoleon on St. Helena.”