Invisible Luck

You would not be able to tell by looking at me, but I
have had some incredible luck in life.


First proof: an old black and white snapshot of not-quite-two
year old me wearing nothing but toddler's white cotton
underpants.  I seem quite happy, dwarfed by a Great Dane, Pal.  My parents,
who were probably smack in the middle of another argument
while on vacation fifty years ago, said that Pal was someone else's dog but
that he had taken to me and we were inseparable.  Plus, he did not eat me and he
could have, so I think that this makes my first proof an astonishing and
auspicious start for a life of luck.


Second proof: Summer recreation not quite a decade later.  The counselors
announced a contest with a special prize: First kid who could bring them
a picture of a pirate would win a fifteen-cent soft drink from the brand new
fast food restaurant kitty corner from the playground.  Maybe the counselors
innocently imagined they would have some time alone after issuing that
challenge, but they did not know me.  In about five minutes, I had dashed home
and was already running back as fast as I could, clutching the orange 1954
Childcraft volume of poetry--Ho, for the pirate Don Durk of Dowdee!  Nobody
else ever stood a chance.  Sipping that root beer, I felt victorious, leafing through
the pages of my book, smoothing fingers over that tale of wicked mermaid
attraction.  I never said, but I kind of had a secret crush on that rakish
swashbuckler, so my lucky win had the added thrill of girlish infatuation
with a drawing.


Third proof: Seventh grade, my very first boy-girl dance at the YMCA.  When
you needed a break from the sweaty gym humming with girls with long
straight hair dancing like bored zombies and thirteen year old boys vibrating with
surges of testosterone, you could step out for a refreshment.  Down the hall, they
would mix all the soda pop together and call it Grave Yard--ten cents
a cup.  And someone would mix all the ticket stubs for an end-of-the-night
drawing.  Mine was the winning number.  I walked downtown a few days later
to choose a record album--the prize.  I no longer remember
if I chose The Frost or Led Zeppelin II that day.  Some things--dogs, root beer,
happiness, choices--last longer than others, even in our memory.


My three children were all born healthy--bonus evidence inserted
amidst ordinal proof--but each one stayed inside their mother at least
two extra weeks until it was be born or else.  I don't blame them
for not being in a rush to hear their parents' misery first hand,
its woeful sound unmuffled outside my body.


Fourth proof of luck: Fast forward almost thirty years from me dancing
to Spirit in the Sky and see my husband and me
at his department Christmas party.  Again, there was a
drawing for a prize--a travel voucher--but only those present could win.  I wasn't
about to go home early; I got out about once a year then, usually for a
department party where I would discover two things: how wonderful
my husband was, and how lucky I must feel, according to all the
women there.  The dance floor was crowded but I was shy and my husband
hated dancing.  At the end of the evening, everyone stood, fidgeting, looking at
ticket stubs, waiting.  The first number was called.  Silence.  The second,
same thing.  But the third time's a charm and we were the winners that
night.  My husband and I never did end up going anywhere together but
seven years later the children and I flew away on that prize to visit
my sister.  Back at home, things were increasingly complicated in spite of
my fabulous streak of good luck.


Fifth and final proof of my incredible luck:  The summer I filed for
divorce, a hummingbird flew into my garage.  I heard it buzzing and banging
again and again into the ceiling looking for escape.  I could not understand
why it did not turn and fly out through the wall of daylight.  No one saw, but I
rescued the hummingbird all by myself and held it in my hands,
its wings at rest, lying quiet and amazing, after it had been terrified and weary. I
had swooped it to safety in my grown son's cobwebby insect net, a real one, stiff
from disuse.  There had been other summers, now faded along with
his freckles, when his particular brand of little boy luck had seemed
never to end--cicadas, cecropias, cowkillers--and more!--all had
their moment in that net, but I think that, in a certain way, after so many
years of neglect, the hummingbird was the net's finest moment, its
swan song of all it had ever captured.  For me, that moment was like
winning the grand prize: it was like I was holding the smile of an
old, old woman, or holding the laughter of a new baby.  There was something
like the glory of God shining forth from its green iridescence.  Finally, I opened
the net and gently nudged the hummingbird out and it zipped
away fast--faster than people change, faster than a gavel strike ends a marriage, faster
than anyone danced that Christmas, faster than childhood flees.


Luck has a way of surprising you, and sometimes people knock on wood
to ward off any threat of thievery or other loss.  I do not need
such superstitious measures.  My own luck is thoroughly unjinxable.  All of this
has already happened and can never be undone.  I thought my luck had ended
along with my marriage, but I was wrong.  Sometimes there is nothing better
than being wrong.


It is a secret kind of luck I've had, I know.  Some of it
has been bad.  I only really told about my good luck here.