09/09/09 recently flew off the pages of calendars and it got me to thinking about being superstitious and why some of those age-old traditions won’t go away. I don’t consider myself to be extremely irrational when it comes to superstition, but I’ll admit there are a few leftover habits from my childhood that I have not been able to kick out of my belief system. Sitting down with a glass of iced mango, anti-oxidant hoop-de-doo kind of tea this morning (I guess age brings good health superstitions of its own), I made a list of all the mindless rituals that have come and gone and those that continue to stay.
For some reason, the idea of walking under a ladder is still totally uber-wrong in my estimation, if for no other reason than it is just a dumb thing to do, plain and simple. Breaking a mirror still causes me some minor anxiety and if the salt spills on the table I’ll still casually toss it over my left shoulder for good luck. The whole lucky salt thing actually once turned out to be pretty unlucky, when this particularly crabby woman was in the booth behind me at Coco's Whatever. Lady, it is called a salt & pepper do! No sense of humor or appreciation for my juju.
There are some old myths that I have managed to let go of. For example, I let go of the whole avoidance of walking on lines and cracks for fear of parental broken spines and backs. And the idea of putting a dyed neon rabbit’s foot on my key chain I now just consider gross and bizarre. I have my limits.
Friday the 13th is no longer considered an unlucky day to me and I stopped throwing rice at newlyweds a long time ago, when I discovered it made birds that ate it blow up, or some such tragedy. Anything that turns out to be bad luck for the birds, I want no part of.
In assessing what was left of my good luck/bad luck repertoire this morning, I found there are some routines that are second nature now. I still pick up a penny when I see one, which could have more to do with the economy than luck. After all, there’s a special store now where 99 of those babies come in handy! In conversation, I find I absent-mindedly knock on wood (or my own hard head) if misfortune is discussed and I still have the rather bad habit of counting my chickens before they hatch – and that’s just illogical thinking that leads mostly to a bad outcome and has nothin’ to do with luck.
It’s a small handful of old wives’ tales that I continue to practice and maybe that’s just because I’ve finally reached the point where I’m actually somebody’s old wife. No matter, because I could use a little good fortune in my life and I will continue to hang a horseshoe over my front door, eat my apple a day and keep my eyes open for Lady Luck … because I’ve heard it said that preparation, hard work and opportunity are the true secrets to “luck”. So, I’m not taking any chances.