Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can—and surely will at times—fail.

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.      

 ~~Dr. Joyce Brothers

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.  

~~Mark Twain

I got out of bed this morning. Well, first I sat up a bit and looked to check where the cats were. Cleo was settled into my desk chair across the room and Gabby, at the foot of the bed on the folded afghan. Fair enough, my space was in order. Note, no male in my bed; the cats are both female. Things aren’t quite as I would want them to be, but today, this is fair enough. Take a chance. Get out of bed. What will this day bring me? Or what can I go out and find?

I can tell you that I am sitting outside at Bread Euphoria, my new favorite place, less than ten minutes from my house. I can sit outside, eat something decadent, or not too, feel the comfortably warm air on my skin and see lots of sky. It is the sky that most attracts me here. Some raptor was soaring so high up; I want to be her and look down on the world from that height.

I see my own reflection in the computer screen, right about here on the page is the necklace I bought yesterday at Silverscape. Yesterday, on my way to write in a café, I listened to my body and it told me my back hurt too much to write. Plan B: take a chance. Drive downtown and go to all my favorite beautiful craft stores in search of a token, this token that I now wear around my neck as I type through its reflection.

Five and half years ago I took a big chance, one of those opportunities that don’t occur many times in a lifetime, though I certainly hope it happens again. I fell in love. I fell in the traditional head-over-heels fashion. A dancer, a man filled with laughter, a playmate. A man in pain from his divorce and mourning the loss of his belonging  to a family unit. Skipping ahead through the rough stuff, I will just say that he had bought me a “hamsa” in Venice shortly before we broke up. It was no longer sweet to me. I went on a hunt to find a new one, a gift from me to me.

I went downtown and went from craft store to craft store.  I was on a hamsa hunt. The first store had a pretty pewter one, a local craftswoman I like, but too cute; not what I was looking for, a flower in the center. At the 4th store, there were several to choose from. The first, in gold with a tiny diamond, even on sale for a reasonable price, was just too tiny. Wait, said the saleswoman, did you see the one in this case over here? Aha. White gold, smooth shiny surface, simple hamsa with a star of David in the center, nice size. Part of the summer sale. What made it most lovely was that the other side was a pretty textured gold; I was sold. Found a silver chain that completed it beautifully. I had bought my own hamsa. August 21, I deemed my Liberation Day. I am buying my own good luck. I mourned through the heat of the summer and am refreshed by the late summer breezes and cool nights. It is time to move on.  I give myself a gift of new life, of good luck of my own making. Hamsa: Hand of Miriam, Hand of God. My future is partially constituted of luck, but also courage. Would I take a chance on love again? Absolutely. I would run off a cliff again, ok, looking way more carefully over the edge first, but I would gladly leap.

Have I been through hell this summer? I don’t even want to talk about it. It was “the worst,” and it was worth the risk.  Was I hurt by this relationship, by this man? Yes, horribly. But was it a failure, a mistake? Oh, no. I danced and laughed my way through five years; no regrets at all. Would it be worth the possible hurt to fall in love again, take a chance? I know myself. I am full of love and love is for sharing. And chances are for taking. What will this new season bring me?

Life is like a tornado watch. You can hunker down in the basement, or get up on the roof, let the wind give you rock star hair and yell, ”I knew you were coming. That’s why I didn’t rake the leaves.”  

~~Fireman’s Fund Ad