A blonde jumped out, she sounded panicked.
“Where is your mother?” She barked. Just her head was visible over the top of her car door.
I should have responded but I just kept drifting across the street.
“Where is your mother!”
I had wandered out into the middle of Weldon Avenue, again, didn’t even see her coming in that white convertible, a Lesabre maybe, until she hammered the brakes, coming to a screeching halt. Memories get foggy but I remember the smell. Burning tires or brakes, sulfur, on a crisp afternoon.
It was close too. The bumper just brushed my pants as the car settled back, letting go of her downhill momentum.
I was still totally out of it. Didn’t pay her any mind. I was scared. Probably in shock. Embarrassed.
That was a lucky break, for both of us. A few more feet and lives are changed.
Long before
Long before I crossed Weldon Avenue, my mother was in a car accident. The broadside impact ejected her from the passenger’s seat, slipping through the open window, and flying headlong into a telephone pole. The impact left her in a coma for months, with rehab coming close behind. A missed year at Pacific University. She still thinks fondly of the old Morris Minor, a British car that was uncommon in most places but even more so in Forest Grove, Oregon.
Long before Mom was broadsided in downtown Wenatchee, her father was shot by a Fallschirmjager (Parachute Hunter) while fighting for La Panetiere in France. The slug ripped through both of his dog tags, which he had taped together, through his chest, before exiting his armpit. He was injured, lucky to have medics nearby. He quickly field-striped his Browning Automatic Rifle, tossing the pieces in nearby bushes before medics pulled him out of the battle. No need to leave the enemy with a souvenir, or worse, change his fortunes by being struck down with his own weapon in route to safety.
Don’t get me wrong. Not all your relatives survived bullets and car crashes. Some of them actually had it bad.
They came out of Africa, migrated across continents, settled, and procreated.
Survived famine and pandemics.
Survived wars and depressions, survived car accidents, survived crossing Weldon Avenue in Oakland, California.
An absolute crapshoot.
“It’s for good luck”
Elon Musk walked into Mission Control and held up his Palo Santo for the camera.
“It’s for good luck.”
They were preparing for the first manned space launch from US soil in almost a decade.
“I believe luck is the best superpower. If you can have any superpower, luck is the one you’d want.”
Luck. From the physics-loving engineer turned CEO billionaire.
Maybe Elon isn’t our robot alien overlord after all, maybe he is not from the future, maybe he just has supernatural luck, and he’s willing to embrace it.
Luck might be where preparation and opportunity meet, but if you could simply conjure luck, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better power. Things going your way at an odds-defying rate. No need to fight Lex Luther if he slips on a banana peel en route to Metropolis.
Luck can also be really confusing. People feel that it robs them of their hard-earned credit. They want their flowers.
Lucky breaks
Garrett McNamara got famous for surfing Nazare, a bizarre location in Portugal that kicks up some of the biggest waves in the world. He deserves all of the attention he gets as a big-wave surfer. He put himself and Nazare on the map when he got the big one, 78 feet. His white whale.
But he wasn’t alone that day. He was surfing with Andrew “Cotty” Cotton among others. Big wave surfing like this requires a team. You need someone to tow you into the wave and someone to pull you out, so surfers take turns.
What happens if the big one comes along when Cotty is surfing? I’m sure he’s spent nights thinking about it.
That would be the lucky break that changes everything. But Cotty was already lucky, he’d been working as a plumber before joining McNamara’s surfing experiment in Portugal.
On August 17, 2000, Laird Hamilton caught the “Millenniom Wave” at Teahupoo, Tahiti. His timing could not have been better when the rogue wave came rumbling towards him.
And the reason his timing was perfect? He was running twenty minutes behind schedule. He’d been helping a friend look for their sunglasses while other surfers were in the water, looking for their next ride.
“During every big session there was always one wave that stunned everybody and would be remembered in years ahead. It represented what had been possible that day, and the man who had ridden it—if there was one—he would be remembered too. Every rider wanted that wave, even if he didn’t say it quite so baldly, but he needed luck as much as skill to catch it. He needed to be in the precise spot at the exact time, ready to take off when The Wave appeared on the horizon. If he had just finished a ride, or he was rescuing his partner, or someone else’s partner, or was in any of the wrong places he could be, doing any of the countless things he might be doing, that was just too damn bad.”
– Susan Casey, The Wave
Examples are not hard to find. Compelling stories from compelling people. But you are compelling too. Look at your own luck. Maybe you’ve lost the girl or the game, but that’s too narrow and too recent. Look wider and deeper. You and your family defied the odds. The moments that got you here are worth reflection, appreciation, and gratitude.
Life is full of lucky breaks and second chances. Moments when you possess superpowers.
What you do with them is up to you.
