Good Fortune(s)

“But it’s not a fortune,” I commonly lamented, staring at the red-inked phrase dusted in crumbs.  “It’s a kind of description, maybe.”

Still, I loved the vanilla crisp and plastic crinkle. I welcomed two or three or four fortune-reveals despite my dad’s assertion, “You don’t get more than one.”

Who says? What’s a fortune, or even a fortune cookie, anyway? How could there be a right way for fortunes to find us when fortune cookies aren’t really fortune cookies as we think we know them either. Today is Fortune Cookie Day.

Spoiler, They didn’t come from China.

History sources track the fortune cookie with Japanese immigration when, due to discrimination against Chinese workers, they became a large portion of cheap labor in the 1880s and early 1900s The cookie was reassociated with Chinese restaurants when Japanese Americans were interned during WWII. I suppose when futures are nebulous, why not their origins. 

Today, you can take full ownership of your (fortune) cookies. You can buy them made-to-order with self-selected phrases inside. Or, you can even bake them yourself.

Fortune cookies are made almost like any other cookie: eggs, butter, sugar, flour. Rolled out, the cookies are baked as flat circles. Not unlike dreams that hover above snuggled blankets, just after coming out of the oven, they are still warm and flexible.  Slips of paper with fortunes are folded inside and the cookie shape is constructed around them. Once cooled, the fortune cookies retain their shape, and grasp, on the fortune.

The recipes quickly admit that fortune cookies are not as easy to make as chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies.  This makes sense.  Despite starting out the same, fortunes aren’t as easy to check off as other life choices. For example, getting a haircut or a dog. One baking expert recommended getting a few helpers.  This seems like great advice for taking care of a dog, choosing a haircut, cookies, and especially for making fortunes come true.

 So… How are fortunes made? To come true (at least). 

Fake it until you make it... Collage a vision board...  Reflect on a sentence inside a Dove chocolate... 

Getting ready for work, I stare at the calendar from 2022 that I continue to cycle on my wall, July reads You are stronger than you think. My last act is to slip the dangling necklace chain around my neck and sweep my finger across the front side of the pendant.

Ishet chayl.  Woman of valor. Woman of value.

This is not the only necklace I own, but it is the one that prompted the purchase of several.  Others dangle just above my heart dreams of safety, belonging, and beauty. Still others repaired memories. A reflection separate from cellophane, they are reminders of my good fortune(s) that will never limited to just one.