How Much Luck Can I Handle?

My brother-in-law Mike McGee posted on Facebook a history of how eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day became a good luck tradition. His post said the collards, turnips, or mustard greens represent paper money and that some folks drop a shiny dime in the bottom of the pot to make the peas extra lucky. Born and raised in the South we always ate black-eyed peas with hog jaws, white rice, and cornbread on New Year’s Day. I didn’t like them much, they tasted too earthy for my childhood pallet, but I ate them anyway for luck.

I excitedly commented on Mike’s post about how I was making black-eyed peas with Italian sausage, fire-roasted tomatoes, and turnip greens. Then I got to cooking. As I diced the onion, I thought maybe I’d drop a dime in for luck. With the edge of the knife, I pushed the chopped onions off the cutting board into the bubbling pot then fetched a dime off the top of our coin jar. I thought about grabbing a quarter for even more luck but decided it was too big and probably had weird metal alloys we shouldn’t eat.

But really, a quarter seemed extravagant. Why push it? While washing the shiny dime with soap and water I thought, shit, I’m already so lucky. I mean, how much luck can I even handle?

Brian and I went for a walk in the Piedmont Cemetery after we ate black-eyed peas for lunch, getting a jump on New Year’s Day. Neither of us got the dime in our bowl. We parted ways because I wanted to walk longer than he did and from a hilltop I watched him, thinking how handsome he is and how I adore him. To be cute, I waved and yelled, “Bye, bye” and then took a curve out of the line of sight. My thinking turned fearful. What if one of us dies before we get home and that was the last time I got to say goodbye to my beloved? Then I wondered about that shiny dime in the peas cooling in containers on the counter to be eaten again tomorrow. What if one of us choked to death on that goddamn dime? I teared up thinking about it. Quickly I thought what a head case I am and how telltale it is for me to fear another’s death. It just means that I love them. I giggled at how my river of crazy runs deep and how much I like it and I couldn’t wait to tell you about it.

Wishing all of you luck and hope in 2024. I have a good feeling that the wild ride this year will undoubtedly bring for each of us. I’m off to rake through those peas and get that that shiny dime out of our food and back into the coin jar.