February 7, 2015
I can’t decide if I don’t believe in luck, or if I ONLY believe in luck.
At the time, the above post was more about the nature of finding a teaching job than the nature of luck. But when I saw this pop up in my memories, it got me thinking about my grandmother. My Grandma Merry taught me an an early age to knock wood or touch wood when I tempted fate by openly admitting to avoiding misfortune.
Me: I’ve never broken a bone!
Grandma: For Pete’s sake, knock on wood!
Sometimes we would be talking and someone would again carelessly thumb their nose at fate — Thank goodness I still have my health! — and I would see Grandma reach out and place her fingers on a door jamb or the kitchen table. While I don’t think she truly believed that evil spirits were drawn to hubris or lack of humility, I do think she used it as a way to keep arrogance in check, and to acknowledge our blessings. Either way, my teenage boy now rolls his eyes as I shriek at him to KNOCK WOOD! when he tells me that he’s never had an accident on a snowmobile or 4-wheeler with his friends. Billy is not superstitious.
I think — and my mom concurs — that Grandma was fairly casual about the superstitions in which she participated. She wore an evil eye around her neck, but just for fun. Also, how superstitious could she be if she owned an opal ring? Opals are purportedly bad luck for anyone but those born in October. My mother will not wear it anymore, as she said that something negative happened to her each time she did!
Casual or not, my grandmother primed me for membership in one of the most superstitious groups of people out there: Theatre People. From 7 years old, when I was first exhorted to Break a Leg! before a performance, I loved the weird and wonderful customs of the theater. It is *known* that every theater has a ghost; the "ghost light" that is left burning onstage at the end of the night may well be to ensure the last stagehands don’t trip and come to harm in the darkened space, but it also might be an opportunity for the ghosts to perform onstage when the mortals are gone.
You must never whistle in a theater. This one also has its roots in practicality: before the dawn of technology, with backstage crew equipped with headsets to speak to the stage manager in the light booth, cues for set pieces to fly in and out of the space were communicated with whistles. This practice was adopted from sailors, who whistled to each other to raise sails on their ships.
It was my senior year of college when I inadvertently spoke the true title of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play” during rehearsal. One of my fellow actors immediately marched me right out the door, into the courtyard, and supervised me until I had completed the turn-around-three-times-and-spit ritual to counteract the invocation of evil into the space. I felt immediate relief, but probably more from the fact that my cast mate stopped glowering at me as if I had tried to poison his nachos.
My post-college restaurant gig was not free from rules of bad luck. One should never, under any circumstances, comment that business is slow — no amount of wood-touching will save you from the avalanche of hungry, crabby customers sure to pile through the door. Similarly, dropping a fork was a guarantee of a mad rush, leaving cooks and servers alike exhausted and crabby.
Schools are fairly superstition-free, I’ve discovered … except when it comes to snow days. Ask any teacher about their rituals for when the white stuff is in the forecast. One teacher I know is pretty sure he can manifest a snow day just by saying it out loud. Others believe that if you say it out loud, it will never happen. Myself, I loudly and vehemently state that we are absolutely not going to get a single flake (hoping The Universe proves me wrong). My dear friend Jessica was so famous for her Snow Dance that it was mentioned at her funeral. More than once. In fact, I have one teacher friend who texts me when she has a snow day: “Jess must be dancing.”
I still don’t know if I believe if luck exists, or if only luck exists. It does seem like we are all flying by the seats of our pants sometimes, so it makes sense that we want to ascribe some power to lucky charms (not the marshmallow kind, unless they work for you) or a talisman of some sort. I think superstition is often a type of mindfulness — an acknowledgement of our relative tininess in the vast universe, an expression of humility, an admitting of vulnerability. It is a big, scary world and we need whatever protection we can get, imagined or not. (Column on religion to follow, at some point. Don’t come at me.)
And for Pete’s sake, knock wood!
Thanks for reading.
Love, Susie
