–Holding My Breath, watercolor and ink painting, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
- Holding my breath when I drive by a cemetery, else spirits of the dead will invade my lungs. (Present. Given to me by my husband. Something he did as a child. Now it belongs to our family.)
- Checking all the locks on doors and windows in the house at night before bed. (Present. New, ever since we moved into the big house. Before that we lived for 16 years without ever locking our doors.)
- Making a sign of the cross right before my flight takes off. (Present. Limited mostly to international flights.)
- Making a sign of the cross any time I drive by a church. (Past. Picked up from my sister who’s six years older than me. She still does it and so do her daughters. The other day I pulled up to a red light at the corner where an old Catholic church sits. A man in a big service truck made the sign of the cross, and it reminded me of my sister.)
- Turning all the pennies so Abe Lincoln is staring at the dealer in games of Black Jack or Poker. (Present, although I don’t play much anymore. Given to me by my grandma. We played cards almost every day when we visited. Dealer almost always goes bust when this ritual is used.)
- Not stepping on cracks in the sidewalk lest I break my mother’s back. (Present but sporadic. I did catch myself last week doing it on the walk from my car to my work building.)
- When putting the girls to bed, saying Good-night (me), sleep tight (them), don’t (me) let (them) the bedbugs (me) bite (them). (Present. We even do it over the phone if I’m traveling.)
- Scratching the roof of the car while driving through a yellow light. (Past. Again, my sister. I wonder if she still does it.)
- Picking up my feet while driving over railroad tracks. (Past. Her again. I realize her rituals were a big part of why I loved her so much. I should tell her that.)
-from Topic post, Rich In Ritual.
You remind me so much of Tinkerbell, all her impish, disarming ways. You are so beautifully quirky. Thanks.
So what’s with half of these being what you do when you’re in a car? Or on a plane? Or walking outside? Why so many rituals associated with moving from one place to the other? And you realize, of course, that the spirit of the dead looming out of the cemetary in your drawing looks just like you in the passenger front seat.
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Interesting observation. I don’t know why so many have to do with getting from one place to another. I do know I didn’t take my first plane ride until I was 17. Planes were completely out of the ordinary for my family, and so riding on one was a big, scary ordeal.
Cars. Well, you’ve seen all the descanos (crosses by the side of the road where people have died in car accidents) in NM. I think there’s a cultural thing around travel and ritual and superstition. It’s definitely safer to stay in the house than to go out into the world.
Em saw the painting last night as I was working on it and she said, That doesn’t look like Dad. Where’s his goatee and his ponytail? It’s not really painted as if it were us. His cheeks aren’t chubby and he doesn’t have funny hair like that. Dee said, You’re hair’s black, not brown (she doesn’t notice all the gray that’s coming in). My observation was the spirit from the grave was the one that looked like me, not the person in the car. Jim saw it and looked at me hard and said, You’re so strange.
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“Jim saw it and looked at me hard and said, ‘You’re so strange.'”
I have to confess that my heart choked up a bit when I read that line. I can’t tell if Jim appreciates your strangeness. I do. Some of the synonyms associated with “strange” are “surprising,” “extraordinary,” remarkable,” “astonishing.” That what I think when I look at your drawing.
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I can almost see your husband saying “Your so strange” in the same way my kids say “Daaad” to my odd joke or strange observation.
The picture reminds me of one that was commissioned by our “adopted” grandmother when she had a dream where Jesus talked to her. I think it is the clouds that look both ethereal and foreboding as well at the spirit coming out of the graveyard. Funny but I saw the spirit as protecting you but your ritual has a darker implication.
We too lifted our feet when we crossed railroad tracks and went over/under bridges. I remember it was not part of my childhood but was introduced by a friend when I started to drive.
R3
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Hmmm, Sharonimo, here I’d refer you to my other post on marriage ;).
Jim just now walks through the house wearing gloves. I yell to him, Do you think I’m strange? Strange? he yells from the other side of the house. He walks past again. Do you like my drawings? Yeah, he says, I like your drawings. Do you think they’re scary, I say. He walks out the door. Yeah, they’re sometimes scary.
I can’t explain it.
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Oh yeah, the implication is the spirit will inhabit your body. It’s definitely spooky. What’s weird is, being that I’m into all sorts of supersititions, it wasn’t even my ritual. But now it is. We drive by one cemetery all the time, and I now have an instant reflex. Take in a huge breath on approach, hold it all the way past. It’s a big one on a main road. Whewwww, let out the breath for the last part. Done.
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That’s a lot of breathholding. I had not heard of that one before. Raising the feet over railroad tracks, I’d heard of it, but like R3, not part of my childhood.
R3, is that the painting hanging in the garage? If so, I recently saw it when the garage door opened and it brought back all these memories.
ybonesy, I think you’re strange AND scary. I think that’s why we get along so well. 8)
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ybonesy — love the painting and the post. When you talked of checking all the locks on doors and windows, it reminded me of a little impromtu skit my nephew did, detailing all of his obsessive-compulsive rituals, which he felt he’d come by honestly from his mom: checking all the locks (even getting out of the car to go back and check to see that the door was locked.) Also, before leaving the house, seeing that all the burners on the stove were off and appliances off or unplugged. It was hysterical as he acted it out, but I also remember seeing myself in it and for the first time realizing that I didn’t HAVE to do those things…
I love the contrast in your painting: the black road and the pink car; the grey clouds and the bright green grass. I also thought at first that the spirit was protective…except that the eyes are vacant. The left hand of the spirit almost appears to be in a yogic hand position called Gyan mudra. It is said to stimulate knowledge and wisdom within you and to give receptivity and calmness. This is also an interesting contrast to those vacant eyes…
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I have a friend who for a long time used to walk by a cemetery in the old center of our town. One day, she told me, someone started following her. It was a man. A spirit from the cemetery. She’d talk to him the entire time during her walk. Why are you following me? What do you want? What happened to you?
She said he really started to bother her. She told him to leave her alone. To stop following her. He finally did.
Another friend had a ghost in her home when she first moved there. My friend had to ask the ghost to leave her alone, too. My friend used sage and a ceremony to rid the house of all lingering spirits. The ghost wasn’t mean or evil. But she was impish. Eventually the ghost left.
I hear these stories and I believe them. I think I am receptive to spirits. My own powers scare me. If there were thing I could do, it would be to not be so afraid of ghosts. It’s a conundrum, to be so receptive yet so afraid at the same time.
When I painted the spirit in the cemetery, I wasn’t at all afraid of her. She was gentle. The people in the car were oblivious to her. Their ritual had become a funny little thing they did, yet there she was. It was true. She really will inhabit their lungs. But she wasn’t really going to hurt them. She just wanted to be with them. breathepeace, hearing about the Gyan mudra position and what you see relative to the vacant eyes – it’s soothing to read that.
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breathepeace, I take it your nephew’s mom is your sister, yes? Did you two grow up watching your own mom check and recheck irons and stoves and ovens and locks?
I remember sitting in the backseat of the car, Mom on the passenger side, Dad jumping out to go make sure something was turned off. Mom saying, My God, let’s just go! Dad saying, I’ll be right back. Us sitting there.
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ybonesy: No, my nephew’s mom was my sister-in-law. We had our own ritual compulsions in my family, but not those specific ones.
My dad had a thing about visitor’s cars being parked “just so,” before he could rest…not in front of the house, but by the garage. He had a stong sense of order and control. It wasn’t until he was in his 80’s and sick that he lost energy for that kind of vigilance. He saved his energy for more important things then. I learned a lot from him in the process and decided not to wait until I’m 80 to let go of trying to control things that really are not important.
A sense of order can be a good thing, but when it goes compulsive it becomes THE thing and begins to consume a disproportionate amount of time and energy.
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Fun stuff. My friends and I used to do the railroad tracks one. Love the drawing, especially the faces of the family members.
These rituals that you describe make life so much more interesting and textured. It reminds me that I need to add more of them to my life. My grandmother used to make the sign of the cross every time she heard an ambulance siren. She would stop talking, cross herself with a look of worry, and then continue the conversation.
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What a beautiful ritual. To stop what you’re doing and for a moment send an intention to the person who’s needing the ambulance.
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I love all your rituals and I recall having some of the same which are on your list. I also like your watercolor painting of the dead spirits invading your lungs. I will have to remember this next time I visit a cemetery.
-Jana
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8. Scratching the roof of the car while driving through a yellow light.
I visited with many members of my family here in PA today. On the way home from ice cream, catch up, family stories, and laughter, my youngest brother scratched the ceiling when he saw a pididdle. When my mother asked him about it, he explained the ritual and a discussion ensued in the car filled with all women, except for my brother. (This is unusual in my family as the women and girls are most times outnumbered by the men and boys exponentially!)
Someone in the backseat said this is a guy thing. There was also some commenting about taking off an article of clothing when you see a pididdle (link). I had not heard of this but see that it’s backed up in the Urban Dictionary. I never did any of these pididdle rituals. But they sure seem alive and well!
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I didn’t know what a pididdle was. Hmm, I wonder if it’s regional or if my older sisters just missed this one.
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