Just My Luck
This morning, I saw the slender black cat that slinks around our place driving our near thirteen-year-old black Lab crazy. Pip will rouse from her old dog sleep on the back deck or in the sun by the slider, barking ferociously in what is a very unique bark reserved for this cat alone.
“Slinky pissin’ you off again, girl?” We say, as my wife or I quiet Pip down. We have no idea who this cat belongs to or what her name is, but she slinks around just in Pip’s line of sight or smell and we imagine her delighting in “owning” our dog’s territorial emotions.
This morning I saw “Slinky” walk casually across our front walk. “Oh, no! Just my luck! A black cat walked across the front walk! Now I can’t use the front walk or the front door. I’ll have to go out the back and jump over the railing on the deck, fall and break my ankle. See, black cats are bad luck.”
I didn’t actually do that, but my brain did.
I’m not sure where my superstitions come from, but when I describe good fortune, “At least we’re all healthy,” I quickly look for wood to knock upon and if I’m in the car I rap my knuckles on my forehead.
I cringe when driving, if someone says ‘traffic’s not too bad today,” or going to an outdoor event if someone says “looks like the rain’s gonna hold off.” Jinxes are very real to my brain.
Some superstitions I have mostly grown out of. I was about twelve when I spilled the salt at a big family dinner. I quickly grabbed a pinch of the spilled salt with my right hand and threw it over my left shoulder. Unfortunately, at just that moment, my mother was bringing a full gravy boat to the table and reaching across my left shoulder to place it on the table.
The gravy exploded over half the table, my mother’s Madonna-blue dress, the grey and white table cloth, the sage-green plush rug, my hair, my sister’s hair, and the ceiling.
“What were you doing?”
“I spilled the salt. I was pitching the spill over my left shoulder.”
“Why would you do that?”
“For good luck.” I can still hear the echoes of raucous laughter.
Some superstitions make a lot of sense:
Don’t “walk under a ladder,” is to avoid getting paint spilled on you or knocking someone off a ladder. Ouch.
Don’t “open an umbrella in the house’ is to avoid poking someone in the eye or knocking Victorian bric-a-brac off a front hall shelf.
Other superstitions are at least understandable:
Wood, trees were very important to the Celts as was the wooden cross to Christians, so “knock on wood” probably seemed reasonable to ward off evil spirits and bad luck.
The seven years bad luck from a broken mirror, probably came from the historical expense of mirrors and the “magic” of your reflection, which you wouldn’t want to shatter. Salt was similarly precious; Roman soldiers thought useless were described as “not worth his salt,” the ration given to avoid electrolyte damage in the field.
Triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, is old. Death is the thirteenth card in many Tarot decks. Judas was the thirteenth disciple, perhaps starting the dinner party planning prohibition of “thirteen at table.” On Friday October 13, 1307 King Phillip IV of France arrested all the leadership of the Knights Templar ultimately killing them all, and starting Friday the 13th trepidation and endless Jason movies.
As children we used to assiduously practice avoiding the “step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” Now in my seventies, I understand the dangers of the dreaded “uneven pavement.”
I get why a lucky penny, found on the ground face up might be considered lucky. Found money is special.
I once won a thousand dollars from the Publisher’s Clearing House, (yes, really). I immediately spent it on a mountain bike. A short time later, I dumped the mountain bike in a big hole in the trail and broke a vertebrae spinous process. A colleague said, “Of course, Alan, everyone knows you don’t spend found money; you save it.”
But why is my brain still superstitious?
People talk about the amygdala, or “lizard brain,” the part of the brain that holds our deep seated emotions and reactions like “fight or flight” response, Some say that this brain stem holds our ancestral memory, like sabretooth tiger anxiety, and the similarity of an inverted horseshoe to the “sacred vulva” of pagan moon goddess Diana. Maybe.
In my case, more likely it’s behavioral training. If any of us kids dropped silverware while setting the table my mother would say, “Company’s coming.” A dropped knife meant a man was coming. A fork indicated a woman would arrive soon and a spoon meant an extra child for dinner. I imagine my mother meant a neighbor child and not that she was pregnant.
When my father fashioned a bobby pin into a screw driver to fix his glasses or some other little improvised innovation, he always called it “workin’ a rabbits foot.” I never understood why a rabbits foot was considered lucky. It certainly wasn’t lucky for the rabbit.
My dad picked up lucky pennies, lucky pebbles, and had many lucky pocket knives. I still have some of his lucky things and have my own collections of clutter. I’m not sure any of it has made me particularly lucky. I’ve learned that gambling isn’t where my luck lies. I always lose at casinos and always lose too much chasing the “my luck’s about to break” delusion. I don’t gamble anymore.
My luck, I’ve learned, is having the love of family and friends, and staying mostly healthy, (knock on wood) and not listening to my lizard brain about spilled salt and black cats.
