Maria Scott Herndon: Fabric Of Being

Luck. Is there such a thing? I don't think so. I think "luck” is a cop out. It's a word we've treasured word over time. We cherish it because it implies hope. Luck suggests that there are powers outside of ourselves that work in our favor; elves for ourselves. The truth is that things like winning the lotto, missing a flight on a doomed plane, or even meeting the love of your life is more about probability and statistics. Most of the goodness comes from hard work and the decisions we make. We strive to get what we want in life. We make decisions, big and small and we have to live with those decisions. Sometimes we make mistakes but sometimes we thrive. I haven't always felt this way. Like the rest of us, the years have taught me plenty. I went from having a sort of a hippie-dippy ideology where everything was up to chance and that we were fools to think we had any hand in shaping our own lives to realizing the power of simply being aware of good opport...

I stood aimlessly at the check-out stand embracing a six-pack of two-ply toilet paper. The clock reads 8:15, as I itemize the groceries; I toss them on to the conveyer belt. A woman about 70 or 75 cuts into line, two steps before me with a package of ravioli and a loaf of French bread. Dinner by 9:30 and bed by 10:00, I figured as I observed her. No children, no hips, no husband, no ring, a dog, no a cat, I presumed, sits curled on barely worn paisley sofa waiting her lonely owner's return. Standing behind me was a twenty something girl. I remembered a young me. Then I realize that my own daughters were older than she is. I clung the toilet paper rolls to my chest. It’s in the cold, brightly lit grocery stores where life gets very real. I glanced at the Cosmo propped precociously in its wire shelving. I always feel a little resentful at magazines like these make money by attempting to make women feel like they’re not good enough offering topics galore on how to diet,...

  As the day looms and time marches on, sometimes the smell of my fear becomes more pungent. While my determination to make middle age an era of opportunity and adventure, there is just something about actually crossing over the great divide  that I can't not wrap my mind around. A moment in time, a mere second and here I am halfway through my fifties. Sometime overnight I’m going to cross the great abyss of sixty. Logically, I know, that if the fates allow,  I’ll wake up in the same bed, in the same body, but sometime during the night when the moon steals the light from the sun, time will steal from me another decade. I have no need to mourn the loss of perky boobs or a thin waist.  My confidence and body have now finally crossed paths and whilst there’s a few things I would tweak, I’m certainly not crying over the loss of my twenties’ body. Sometimes I look at people the same age as me and am overcome with the sensation that I am surrounded by ol...

Sam Kapp was a sax player. He was an Aspie, which means he was afflicted with the mental disability known as Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. A lot of people know about it now, but not when Sam was growing up. Nobody could put a finger on what was really wrong with Sam. Everybody concluded that he was just basically slow because he didn't try to play touch football or baseball or even hopscotch and although he hardly talked at all, when he did open his mouth and respond to teachers or waitresses or secretaries, it was always something odd. It was odder than odd. It was so off-the-wall weird it often made people uncomfortable. His parents feared he was retarded but not stupid enough to be committed so, through third grade, he sat on the bunk bed in his room looking at pictures in National Geographic and Dr. Seuss; Cat in the Hat, or naked African virgins. Sam  watched TV. He couldn't actually work the TV. ...