Lucky leaves

Somebody once told me that for every leave you catch in autumn, you get a lucky month in the new year. A few days ago, I remembered this conversation with a jolt. The ground was covered in frost and the trees were almost bare. For weeks, I'd been going for long, crunchy autumn walks under trees laden down with leaves, completely forgetting about the luck I might be able to catch. How could I have gone for my entire childhood without ever hearing about the lucky leaves?

Last year, after said conversation - I now remember it quite vividly - I spent an entire afternoon under the bows of the old oak trees in our village, no doubt oberserved by amused neighbours. It must have looked ridiculous - leaping to and fro, frantically trying to snatch the twirling leaves out of the sky. I didn't manage 12 leaves, I gave up at 7. Somehow, catching all 12 months of good luck seemed overkill to me.

Now here I am, more than a year later, looking back. I don't even remember where I put those lucky leaves. You're supposed to keep them somewhere safe or you won't get your luck after all. I wonder if you could describe the past year as lucky. Then again, what is luck anyway?

The dictionary defines luck as 'The chance happening of fortunate or adverse events' or 'prosperity, success'. Now that I've typed it out, I realise I wasn't really looking for the dictionary's answer to my question, but rather a more philosophical approach. Every person I've met so far in my life defines luck a little differently. Most link luck directly to happiness. I am no exception.

So, in retrospect, I must say that the past year has been lucky in many ways. I know this is not really the best time to reflect, with the New Year still more than two months away, but it's never too early to start, right?
My year has been lucky in so many ways: discovering true friendship, having some of the best times over the summer and of course realising that all this will always stay a part of me in my box of inspiration. So writing this blog is part of that too.

And I must say that catching luck no longer appeals to me now. If you really think about it, luck is only exciting if it happens by chance, something you didn't expect. Just like happiness. Trying to catch luck is an amusing game, exciting for children, and trying to convince yourself you can control it.

There are always ways in which we surprise ourselves, discover there are things to say that we never thought about before. It means that I can walk under the trees in autumn, under all those snowing leaves, without reaching for those spinning brown spirits of luck. But if one of them should happen to land gently on my shoulder, I wouldn't brush it away.

Love, x