Irish Luck

“C’mon Barley, let’s go for a car ride and a walk!”

My 11yo blonde lab perks his ears forward, making sure I mean it. He sees me heading to the door and jumps up, starts wagging his tail ear to ear, all excited and ready to go. He whines impatiently as I put my sneakers on and grab my keys.

We’ve been exploring various local parks and trails, but this time we’re heading over to some state lands just a few miles down the road. I find an off-road parking spot and let him out of the back seat. We start walking into the woods, and as I expected, there’s no trail, so we just head in a general direction.

Being off the leash, Barley covers a lot of ground in a short period of time, even at his age. He loves the fresh air, the many different scents, and seeing the wildlife scurry as we get closer to them.

After walking for about thirty minutes, I decide to turn around and start heading back. I see a couple bushes we walked by earlier, so I know we’re heading in the right direction. As we start passing them, however, something catches my eye.

It’s an older black stitch-bound notebook, with some wear and tear. I don’t have any of these nice notebooks myself, but I’ve always admired people who do because they’re often filled with beautiful sketches or notes that make you want to reread them a hundred times. I’ve always bought cheap notebooks because I tend to erase a lot or rip out pages, and never wanted to ruin such an elegant book.

Totally curious to see what wonders await me in this new-found treasure, I open the cover to see if there’s a name or contact info. It’s blank. I turn to the first page, and then to the next page, and then flip through the book. The whole thing is blank. That’s odd.

I turn the notebook over to look at the binding and the overall condition. It’s definitely a well-used notebook, not just some randomly lost new one. The cover is cool and smooth to the touch, with slightly rougher edges. Well, I’ve always wanted one of these, so I decide to take it home and put it to good use.

Later that evening, Barley is passed out and snoring, tired from his adventurous afternoon walk. I take the black notebook and start looking at some of the pages more carefully. Maybe to see if any pages were ripped out, any erase marks or indent marks, or any other indication of the notebook’s use. Nothing. It’s totally blank.

Inside the cover, I gently write my name, and underneath it I write “Lyrics”. I’ve been writing poems most of my life, and I’ve started to venture in writing lyrics for songs. I pull out one of my other notebooks, and start writing one of my finished songs into the new notebook. I was feeling nervous to not make a mistake, but I was smiling because it felt special, almost majestic, to be writing on such fine paper. I finished the one set of lyrics, and put the notebook away with the others.

Settling down for the evening, I crawl into bed and wander through my phone for a few minutes. Checking my emails, I notice one from the song-writing organization I’m signed up with, informing its users about a lyrics contest. That started me thinking about the possibilities of entering the contest, maybe with the song I just wrote in my new notebook. I don’t really have the courage for it, but why not?

I get out of bed, sit back down at my desk, and turn the laptop on again. I log in to the organization’s website, and see the lyrics contest information front and center on the main page. I take a deep breath.

“Let’s do this,” I say out loud, as I click on the contest link. I enter my name and account, type the lyrics, and hit submit. Done. Okay, seriously, back to bed now because it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. As I close my eyes and relax, I try to hum a melody to those lyrics.

Monday morning at work has been hectic, as usual. Finally stealing a few minutes for a lunch break to enjoy some lunch, I check my email. I see one from the song-writing organization, confirming my submission. My heart is racing a little bit, and my first thought is relief that it wasn’t rejected.

A couple weeks go by, and my nervousness about the contest subsided very little. I haven’t worked on any of my other lyrics, nor have I written anything more in the new black notebook. My thoughts keep going back to the one song submitted for the contest, and waiting to see how it fares.

Finally, after 3 long weeks, the song-writing organization announces the winners via another email. I read through the letter from the judging team congratulating everyone, with over 700 submissions, and only 5 winners. Then the list. I see my name.

I look over at the little black notebook. The one I randomly found in the woods. I look back at the screen, almost looking through it. Everything is blurry for a moment.

I see my name again, at the top of the list, in first place. I’m truly in shock. My family has always joked that we weren’t born with good luck, we had “it could have been worse” luck. I have never been a winner, as I have earned no blue ribbons, no trophies, no first places. I’ve never even won random contests for tickets or giveaways. And now, a first-time winner as a first-time entrant of a lyrics writing contest, with a whopping grand prize of $20,000.

As my shock turned into joy, happy tears rolled down my cheeks. I take my new notebook into my arms and hug it tightly against my chest. Barley sees my excitement and comes over to join me in the hug and celebration.

Smiling ear to ear, I open the notebook to read my lyrics again, excited to reread the words that have brought me to this accomplishment, and gasp. The first page is blank. My name inside the cover is gone too. I close the notebook and hold it away from me a bit, looking at it in disbelief.

I slowly open the notebook again, and again, it is still blank. I close it, thinking. Could this be? No. I close my eyes and shake my head, thinking I really just need dinner and to get some sleep.

The next morning, as I’m getting ready for work, I notice a new pep in my step. I chuckle to myself, as I sit down for some breakfast. I look over at that black notebook, sitting atop my others. I turn back to keep eating, trying not to think about it.

Finally, I gently pick up the notebook, and set it down on my desk. I look at it for a moment, and find myself holding my breath as I run my hand across it’s worn cover. I remind myself to keep breathing. I look at my phone, and find the contest’s email again. I look at the list and confirm that my name is indeed in first place.

I look back at the notebook, and pull the cover open. The inside is all blank. No pen marks. No pencil marks. No eraser marks. Nothing. Nada. I lay the cover back down again.

And smile.