Fanatics in the Mist

Some years ago I reluctantly attended a New Year’s Eve party that was thrown by a friend of a friend (of a friend) who owned a sports team. Because I haven’t had a lot of exposure to men who are into sports, unless you count golf (which bores me to tears), I was warned ahead of time (that I might be bored to tears). I do have to admit that I initially felt a little like Dian Fossey observing a band of silverbacks in Rwanda. But as the group of guys I was sharing a table with started talking about superstition and game day rituals, I’d stopped worrying that someone would quiz me on names of sports teams or that I’d accidentally ask “what team are you VOTING for?”

I grew up in a house full of women who weren’t particularly interested in sports, so this was a world I’d never been exposed to. The friend I was there with said he never wore his team’s t-shirt or jersey on a game day. Why? Because he’d jinx his team and they would lose. Some of the others said they had specific items they wore on game day: Lucky socks, hats…one gentleman even admitted to having “lucky underwear.” One told a story about a friend who had to see every one of his team’s games in a bar, on the same barstool, and would (even forcibly) remove anyone who didn’t immediately give up his seat before the game. This same man also said he had to look away when someone on his team was up for a free throw.

My favorite was the one who said he had to have three shots of his favorite whiskey (it had to be that brand) each quarter of his team’s basketball game. That’s 12 total, in case you’re counting. I was fascinated, so much so that I wanted to take notes. They seemed so… ordinary. These were not men wearing wedge-of-cheese hats or brandishing giant foam fingers.

Not really understanding the male tendency to become extraordinarily tied in to rooting for a team, my response was “wait a minute—really? Really? You think if you wear the jersey your team will lose. If you don’t wear your lucky underwear, your team will lose. Haven’t they lost when you have done all of your rituals and rites?”

From the uproar of explanation that followed, I’d clearly missed the point. Science and logic had nothing to do with it, they said. It was about participation, about accountability. However, if the team loses, they’re not responsible because it was probably due to someone else not doing their ritualistic part. I do understand (now), and the next time I’m dating someone who insists on wearing his grimy and tattered Boston Celtics ball cap on his beloved team’s game day—even though we weren’t going to be watching the game—I think I might keep my mouth shut.

Because, I realized, I have my own little collection of rituals, lucky charms, and superstitions—they just don’t happen to have anything to do with organized sports. I have lucky underwear too, but mine is for tests and court dates and medical emergencies. I also have a lucky leather bag (that I refer to as my “I don’t have cancer” bag because I bought it while waiting for some test results a few years ago).

When I’m writing, which is my “sport” of choice, I have to have certain things in order. I like to think of them more as habits or routines that make me feel comfortable enough to get my wordy groove on, but that’s just a cop out. They’re talismans, just like the guys’ lucky sportswear. The small paper kite that hangs above my desk, my 1940s desk chair inherited from my grandmother (I have two that match in case something happens to one), the painting on the wall behind my desk that I address instead of talking to myself—all of these things were chosen because, in some small way, they make fate fall into line behind luck. That, combined with a little effort, and I can meet my deadline, get the word count done for the day, and have just enough inspiration to carry me through. These are my lucky underwear, my team jerseys, my whiskey shots with a beer back that will lead Team Me to victory.

Unfounded and unscientific? Absolutely. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke refers to superstition as “the religion of feeble minds.” But our feeble minds believe, and that’s enough to make it work. And if it doesn’t, there’s always another superstition to explain it away.

There’s the absolution of responsibility factor for me too, just as if the team loses, it’s because someone else didn’t do his part. For me, it’s, “it isn’t my fault my last essay was crap. I was out of town and didn’t have my special notebook with me and I had no painting to talk to” or, “it’s not my fault I haven’t found The Love of My Life yet; my lucky bamboo died and I haven’t replaced it because you’re supposed to receive it as a gift, not buy it yourself.” And maybe if I’d smudged (by lighting a bundle of sage and waving it through the house) after my last dinner party, I wouldn’t think I picked up that one person’s bad juju just from being in her presence for two hours and absorbing the lingering after-effects of her horribly negative vibes. But I forgot to smudge and I’m sure I’m screwing something up somewhere in my future as a result. Possibly. Maybe. Don’t think I never ask myself, just as I asked those sports fans, do I really believe this stuff? Really?

I think I do. I like being able to pick and choose. I knock on wood without even thinking about it. I won’t open umbrellas indoors, I wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, and I have a Korean spirit mask hanging outside of my front door to scare away evil spirits. I eat Hoppin’ John and collard greens (luck and money, respectively) every single New Year’s Day. Do I believe in Karma? Yes. Hell? No. And even if they only work for me because I believe in them, I’m holding on to my lucky underwear for dear life.

Kelly Love Johnson is managing editor for skirt! and hopes to someday study the habits of the elusive Midwestern Cheesehead tribe. E-mail her at ­kelly.love@skirt.com. 

~Kelly Love Johnson