"I'll Take My Chances"

21 August 2017:

“Now some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate
And for them I cannot disagree.
But I never learned nothing from playing it safe.
I say fate should not tempt me.” –Mary Chapin Carpenter, “I’ll Take My Chances”

This, the day of the eclipse, has been a hard one for me. I can’t really say why, partly because I don’t want to be specific, but also because I don’t think that specificity would really explain anything. Now there were lovely touches of light and goodness—watching the eclipse with a couple dear friends, a message from another friend just when I needed it—but man, I spent most of the day just feeling…not great.

By 7:30 or so, I needed to do something. So, as I have done so many times before, I hopped in the car. I took a drive to Martinsburg to run an errand that could have waited. But driving makes me feel better. So that helped a bit.

And on the drive back, I found myself following a solitary big cloud, much taller than it was wide, giving off an amazing light show. It was in front of me, just off to the left, the entire twenty minute drive. That helped a bit, too.

As I drove home, I switched off the podcast I was listening to, hoping to hear *that* song (whatever it was)—the one that would make me feel even better or give me some insight. I keep changing the station, but it never came on. I mean, “Highway to the Danger Zone” was about as close as we got to topic-appropriate, but that isn’t the exact tone I was going for. Ha. When I got home, I sat out back, watching that cloud move further away, and hit shuffle on the iPod. It took a lot of clicking, but then we got there.

I’ve always liked “I’ll Take My Chances,” especially those amazing lines that I quoted above, full of sass and boldness, but for me, they are more aspirational than the motto by which I live my life. I am not a big risk taker. Not a bold one. Not a feather-ruffler. Old Prufrock and I have always had that in common, opting not to disturb the universe. And I don’t think that’s going to change in any substantial way any time soon.

But maybe, every once in a while, I will try. I have a time or two, after all, and it’s been okay. So maybe I will try that a bit more. And it will be okay.

So yeah…”I’ll Take My Chances.” That helped.