Maturity Leave

Good Luck In General

“Do you have any good luck charms? What are those?”

 

“Uh, the onamori? They’re charms for different things—this one’s for giving good birth, there’s one for children to get good grades. They’re blessed by a temple priest or something.”

 

“Do you have anything that’s good luck in general? Just—in general, good luck for everything. Family, job, money, health, all of it. Do you have a charm for that—a charm that covers everything?”

 

“Well… uhh… maneki-neko is the good luck cat. It’s supposed to bring good fortune, we’ve got a solar-powered one in the back there, it waves its paw when you put it in direct sunlight.“

 

“Does it cover everything? The whole package, good luck for everything? That’s too big, I need something small, a little charm, something I can put in my pocket, have on me all the time—“

 

“Well, it’s supposed to bring wealth, prosperity, people put it in businesses, and it’s like, whichever paw is raised means something different, one paw brings wealth and the other brings visitors or something, I forget which is which… I’ve got a maneki-neko necklace here…”

 

“Let me see that—what is this? A necklace? I can wear it, right? Both its paws are raised—what’s that mean?”

 

“Well… I guess both paws means…”

 

“Everything, it can cover everything?”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“Great, I’m covered. How much?”

Half.commentary: Taking Charge of Your Fertility

The first in what might be a series of snapshots from the author’s Half.com inventory

 

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control and Pregnancy Achievement by Toni Weschler

Sandra would leave it on the shuttle bus for the rest of us to read. I tried to be discrete about reading explicit contents in view of the general public, but would inevitably be caught off guard by the inevitable Midwestern tourist shouting “Konichiwa!” into the driver’s side window, and I’d scramble to cover the illustrations of the concept of “egg-white consistency” while giving directions to the garden entrance.

 

Sandra was married, her second Master’s degree was in Medieval Literature, and at some point between Master’s programs she had worked on an Alaskan fishing boat. She was the only one of us planning on getting pregnant, but our collective curiosity led us one by one to each purchase our own copy for future reference.

 

Sandra left the garden to go to nursing school, and ceremoniously passed her gate keys on to me at her Last Day party. Sara left a month or two later, once she got her massage license. Jacque left to move to Florida with her Navy boyfriend, who later became her Navy husband. Mali and Kris got promoted, and I got laid off while working on my grad school application. Fortunately I got in to the school I applied for, because I’d otherwise run out of things to do in Portland.

 

Despite reading this book cover to cover, I’ve never actually bothered to track my ovulation. Without actual plans to have a child, it just seemed like a lot of work to acquire knowledge I didn’t really have an immediate use for—like learning how to change your oil when you don’t own a car.

 

I know how to check the oil, a skill I’ve only used when doing maintenance checks on the shuttle bus. I learned it from an ex-boyfriend who kept promising one day he’d show me how to do a complete oil change. He never got around to showing me, but also I never got around to getting my own car. Last year I found out he has a wife and a baby, and it totally weirded me out. I heard they live in Portland now.