.
Today’s word prompt:
“Are you superstitious?”
.
Recent weeks have left me grasping for topics, I must admit.
So, while I know that it is irrational, yes, I am superstitious and perhaps it was inevitable that I should be.
.
Severe asthma took control of me as a child making it impossible for me to run around with other children or even walk up a flight of stairs.
Struggling for breath renders you helpless.
.
It was fortunate for me that my father took an overseas contract which took us to SE Asia, where asthma left me, almost completely.
Yet that move destabilised my life in many other ways.
.
My education was disrupted.
For a few months I attended an American school in Phnom Penh. Curiously, I never asked my parents why I was removed from it. I only know that after a while I simply stopped going to school at all, a situation that lasted for a whole year.
.
During that period, I spent much time hanging out with my mother’s maid who took me to Indian movies that were loud and very dramatic. You didn’t need to understand the language to get the gist of the story.
We ate street food that was always fresh and good. Even the shaved ice never made me sick.
.
That second year in Cambodia, I met an Australian girl my own age and we became fast friends, spending our days exploring the markets and getting into different sorts of trouble.
It’s a time I look back on with fondness.
At the American school, I’d been befriended by a girl and had suddenly found myself kidnapped by her.
That was how I regarded it, anyway. Her father had picked me up with her from school one day and taken me to their home where I was kept with no means of contacting my parents.
.
Obviously, it must have been prearranged, yet I swear I was not told to expect it and I felt trapped.
Then, after some days, I was let go and that was the end of my association with Americans, for the time being. It was strange and unsettling.
.
My association with the Australians was entirely different. I spent many nights with that family and wanted nothing more than to be a part of it.
There were two older brothers, though we didn’t have much to do with them except when they were telling us off!
The mum was devoted to cats of which there was no shortage in Phnom Penh.
.
The one in my friend’s arms belonged to my mother’s maid. You could say it was the first cat in my life.
That care-free year on the streets with a great friend was idyllic, but of course it couldn’t last.
My parents finally did what they should have in the beginning and sent me to the local French school, where I was placed with 5-year olds because I couldn’t speak the language.
Why putting me with children half my age was believed a good idea, I can’t imagine. In that class I was penalized for being older as if I had any control over the situation.
What I learned from the experience was that motivation works. As if by osmosis, I acquired French as a second language , fast.
.
Short weeks later, we left Cambodia for my father’s new post in Vietnam and I was sent to another new school, where at last I was with children my own age.
Life stabilsed for 18 months until another move saw me sent off to my first boarding school, in a country where the political situation was becoming dangerous.
This soon resulted in my redeployment to a second boarding school back in Cambodia, but that too became unmanageable, so after 6 years in Asia, it was back to England for me.
.
There, I battled to understand maths that I’d been taught in French, as I struggled to adjust to the climate where asthma returned, though luckily not as badly.
A year later, just as I was beginning to conquer the latest adjustments, I found myself sent off to meet relatives in America and encouraged to accept living with them.
.
Seemingly, there was no alternative, so at the age of 16 I began again.
All of which is a long way around of explaining why I needed to fall back on superstition as a means of gaining some control in my life.
.
Superstition additionally serves to explain things that otherwise make no sense, which I’d had some experience with, both in terms of human behaviour and strange events.
Admittedly, I never myself saw a ghost, though they were reported both in one of our homes and in the Vietnamese boarding school.
In Thailand, there was a reported incident of unusual spirit activity.
.
When you seek to gain control over your life, you make bargains:
“If I do X, Y will happen.”
Thus, compulsions are born, like not stepping on cracks in the pavement, or any of a thousand activities.
.
Perhaps I am not truly superstitious, but more a believer in the constants that I observe.
To me, birds are mystical creatures, so I notice them. Consistently, when faced with a potentially bad situation I found that it turned out well – after I’d caught sight of a pheasant.
Ergo – pheasants are lucky.
.
What I’ve noticed in the past few years is the value is trusting instinct.
It has to be completely spontaneous, though. The minute you ask yourself the question, you have already lost absolute trust.
.
What?
Do you ever put pills into one of those weekly pill boxes? It’s the only way to be sure you remember to take them, so I do.
If I shake out a handful without thinking about it, I almost always get the exact right number.
.
My Mum did the same sort of thing when she was cooking. She never had to measure anything and yes, some of it was experience, but I am convinced the Universe is in control.
It’s in the patterns you see in Nature.
Pay attention and you’ll notice.
Wow, you’ve certainly moved about, Carolyn. All these things that happen to us when we are young must have a big affect on who we become.
I marvel, Carolyn, that you have turned out the way you are after the chaotic childhood! Thank you for the philosophical musing, and the excellent photography! Superstitious? I don’t know if I can even spell the word! I do believe that the universe has some power over my life.
Joanna
Your life is always interesting, your photo’s always beautiful. Try not to walk under any ladders and all will be well…
Ah, your page has made me anonymous again. Your blog on Reader recognises me, but refuses to show me your photo’s, so I am forced to flit back and forth. Oh how we love WordPress!
I’m with you all the way on getting the right number of pills. Strange isn’t it!
As before – the cosmic radio is always on. Proper antenna positioning is our responsibility.