Hundreds. And Iβm not exaggerating. And yes, Iβve been lucky in my life (mostly)
Is luck an inherent thing? Or maybe inherited?
I was told that my Swedish grandmother found four leaf clovers too, all the time. My Dad told me βOh, sheβd look down and say βThereβs one.ββ Which is what happens to me more often than not.
I found my first ones when I was about seven. I remember looking into a friendβs wire rabbit hutch in her back yard, with two rabbits in it. Of course I was looking at the rabbits, but then I saw the clovers. There they were, two four leaf clovers. They often come in groupingsβ if you find one, thereβs probably another nearby. As I recall, a rabbit munched on one then and there.
Since then, not one year has gone by in my 71 years where I havenβt found at least one. I recall finding one at a petting zoo where there was a fawn, and I fed it to the fawn. I canβt help actively seeking them outβ I suppose itβs an addiction. I usually give myself about 5 minutes or so when I come across a promising clover patch, and If I donβt find one within 5 or 7 minutes, Iβll move on. Finding them is so commonplace for me that long ago I stopped collecting them as souvenirs, but during my childhood I would press them in squares of toilet paper (pink, as that was the color my mom bought) and stash them in my favorite bookβ The Golden Treasury of Poetry, by Louis Untermeyer, illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund, artist and poet. I still have my well-loved early edition of that book, along with all those little pink squares of paper tucked between the pages.
In truthβ I feel that I have been very lucky in my life. Not just because Iβve managed to survive betrayal, divorce, open heart surgery, illness, sorrow, deep loneliness, and some very ill-advised choices and stupid decisions, but also because Iβve been blessed in a number of waysβ too many to count. Iβve also won a bunch of thingsβ contests, prizes, trips, door-prizes, raffles, you name it. Not the lottery though, because I leave that to others whose luck might not be as good as mine.
For the past few years Iβve posted pics of (some of) my four-leaf (and five and six leaf!) finds on Instagram, but Iβve slowed down with that because frankly, itβs boring to keep seeing all of them. Same old, same old. Iβve tossed so many of them away. But recently, Iβve started tucking them into pages of one of my coffee-table art books. So there are lots of squares of toilet paper (not pink) between those pages.
If I had thought to document and save all of them, maybe I could have entered them into the Guinness Book of World Records or something. But then again, would I be famous for being the person who found the most four-leaf clovers? I think Iβll Google thatβ¦ π
You are a lucky woman! And I suspect youβve done the work for that luck tooβ¦π»
Great post - and, lucky you!!! My older bro used to divide one of the clover leaves in two and then pretend he'd found one for me. (I've never found a real one either!) And what kind of cross is your lovely dog? I have a Border Terrier and yours looks like he definitely has something like that in his lineage. (You can see a pic of my Stanley on my stack, under the Blueberries piece.) Maybe a spot of Pug too with those eyes? Regardless, he/she's magnificent. P.S. I love the look of your Golden Treasury book too!)