I don’t consider myself a superstitious person.
Quentin bringing a little luck to the Garden.
When my nine-year-old son Quentin started leaving the room every time the Celtics seemed to be playing a little worse, I sat the boy down.
“Whether you’re in the room or not,” I told him, “whether you’re wearing your Garnett jersey or not, whether you have a basketball in your hands or not—none of that is going to help Paulie drain a three from downtown.”
Of course . . .
When I was pregnant with Quentin—as with his older siblings—I didn’t wash a single article of baby clothing until thirty-six weeks’ gestation.
I once wore my grandmother’s charm bracelet every day for five months—in the shower, to bed, walking my dogs—until I had secured the literary agent I’d been working those five months to snag.
When the clock reads “11:11,” everyone in our family stops what he or she is doing and makes a silent wish that is all but guaranteed by the unique state of a clock’s four digits all being the same.
If any one of us sees a white horse, he or she licks his or her right thumb, presses it to his or her left palm then stamps that palm with the right fist to ensure the very best of luck.
When salt is spilled, some amount of salt is always ground or shaken into the hand in order to be thrown over the left shoulder, this to ward off bad luck.
There is not only the wish made on your birthday candles in the seconds before they’re blown out, but there is the taking of a ring from a finger and the quick slipping of that ring over someone else’s still burning candle, the ring allowing not only the birthday celebrant, but also the ring’s wearer, the benefit of a wish.
There are even years when I feel the need for extra good luck, when I slip a ring off my finger and onto my own candles.
I would never ever tell you what I wished.
What I can tell you is that the wishes I made before November 30, 2009—the day my eldest son was diagnosed with T1D—are very different than the wish I made twelve minutes ago when the computer read 11:11 or when I drove past the white horse in Woodside yesterday afternoon on the way to soccer practice.
My wishes before November 30 were more varied and less intense and more trivial-seeming than they were last August, when I turned forty-two and blew out my candles, one of them with a gold ring around it.
