A series about ways to take life off “hard mode,” from changing careers to gaming the stock market, moving back home, or simply marrying wisely. In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx.
I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses. He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it. When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me