Everything is a 3 leaf clover

Metaphorizing my life as things come to their inevitable ends.

Season 20, Episode 07: Everything is a 3 leaf clover
1 May 2026 – Musings on friendship, college, final exams, religion, and tattoos.

Hint: don’t go searching for four, when three is all around.

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This morning, I walked to the library to return a book I’d been writing an essay on. I was in my head the whole way over, noticing more than I usually would’ve, reeling in the tiny things that meant all I’ve known this year are readily going to change.

The book itself was heavy in my hands and fell into the return drop box with a thud that sent a deep hum through my veins. Returning this book, A Day Like Any Other by Nathan Kernan, signaled the end of a class I’d loved. I had sent over my final essay twenty minutes earlier, proud of the solid ten-pages I’d produced over a few weeks.

This ending wasn’t sad, it was just an ending, which always seems to come with its own unnameable emotion.

On my walk, I noticed a child playing in the tulips. His grandmother stepped away to take a photo.

View of the tulips on my walk

I kept walking with a little smile on my face, dodging puddles and marveling in the way life seems to burst from every seam of my college campus, which I’ve grown to know so intricately through two full years living here.

Next semester, when I’m away, I’ll miss the reveling in it all. I’ll miss the people I see every week, I’ll miss the little doves that wake my roommate and I up with their sweet songs on mornings warm enough to keep the window open.

My university is represented by a shamrock, a 3 leaf clover. The shape is echoed on merch and on buildings and now it is written in ink on my skin. And the skin of some of my closest friends. And the skin of strangers and ghosts.

Further, the soul of this school has touched so many hearts and minds and souls. This little symbol connects countless people.

Today, with three of my friends who I somehow met the very first day of college, I got a shamrock tattoo.

In Irish culture, a shamrock symbolizes good luck, renewal, and the Holy Trinity. I now have forever inked on my wrist not only a symbol of my college education and my friendships, but also thousands of years of rich history.

A more dedicated student wouldn’t have spent three hours at a tattoo shop during finals week, but I saw this as a moment in life to step out of my comfort zone and hope for satisfaction in return.

Maybe this little piece of luck will carry me through the stress I’ll be facing. Maybe my friendships will, too, though.

After our tattoos, we scheduled an early breakfast and study meet-up, which will be followed by a lunch and more studying. M got the tiniest version of our matching tattoos, but her luck is not limited. Instead, we are limitless.

I’m not religious, but I go to a catholic school. The values of this place have inadvertently seeped into me, and I’ve grown to truly find love all around.

As I write, I am thinking of the James Schuyler poem “Letter Poem #3.”

The night is quiet
as a kettle drum
the bullfrog basses
tuning up. After
swimming, after sup-
per, a Tarzan movie,
dishes, a smoke. One
planet and I
wish. No need
of words. Just
you, or rather,
us. The stars tonight
in pale dark space
are clover flowers
in a lawn the expanding
universe in which
we love it is
our home. So many
galaxies and you my
bright particular,
my star, my sun, my
other self, my bet-
ter half, my one

I love this poem for many reasons, which I just included in a long long essay I wrote, musings on which begin this article, too.

All this is to say: In a field of clovers we tend to instinctually search for those with four leaves, when three is perfectly abundant and full of life surrounding us.

Luck is not in objects or symbols, not really. It’s in the blood flowing through us, multiplying with every ounce of good we give back to the world. Be good. Keep loving. Keep growing.

P.S. I know this is a shorter one, but I hope people can still find something valuable in it!

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