Superstitious
Ukrainians have many superstitions. I’m superstitious, too.
My first day in Ukraine, almost three years ago, I navigated slippery sidewalks in town with my predecessor Denny, comparing in my mind the winter sidewalk and street hygiene in Vilnius, Lithuania (our previous home, outstanding) to my new home in Kyiv (not so great at first blush).
As I mused, an icicle the size and weight of a gallon of paint slammed down on my trapezius muscle from a terrace several floors above us. It hurt like Hades; as if someone punched me with full force from above my head. The dense ice chunk barely missed my clavicle, my skull, my face.
Dr. Peter checked me out at a staff party at Henry’s apartment later that evening. I was fine, just a lilac bruise for a few days. I took this as a positive omen. Injury was averted. Favorable prospects for my new tour of duty strongly outweighed any feelings I might have had of impending misfortune. My superstitious nature tends towards optimism.
Today I acted several times based on superstition.
In Kyiv we are enjoying snowfall. This means that I can enjoy cross-country skiing in a park near my apartment in town. All I need to ski here is about two inches of snow. Early this morning, wearing my ski boots and carrying my skis and poles, I walked four blocks over frigid sidewalks towards Peyzazhna Aleya. As soon as I crossed Velyka Zhytomyrska Street, I put the skis down, clicked the toe lugs of my ski boots into the bindings, and off I went, slip sliding away.
My ski destination was the snow-covered grassy area around Ukraine’s National History Museum and Desyatena Church’s stone foundations (from the late 900s!), where I made my own ski tracks and did loops for 90 minutes. It was cold out, even for here, and I was alone except for a few leashed dogs and their hardy walkers.
This is the same route I use when I jog through this area. Every time I have run here I pass right by the small Russian Orthodox Church called Desyatena Monastery. When I forget to run directly in front of this charming little Church, I feel a need to circle back and do so. Despite gloomy pandemic times, I feel very fortunate with my lot in life and I consider this church as a trusty, apolitical good luck charm.
It is superstitious of me to do so, I know, but I seek to maintain my good physical health and my generally upbeat spirit. This morning I passed the front of the church several times on my skis. And as if this would further cement my present good fortune, I made a point to pass it again on my final loop before heading back to my apartment. Perhaps my string of positive kismets would end — my superstitious pre-frontal cortex tells my decision-making neo-cortex — if I do not focus sufficient attention on the church. This is illogical yet brings me comfort.
Religiosity bleeds into my superstition. I sometimes pray as I jog (or glide) past this and other churches here, or by mosques or temples elsewhere, even if they are not sanctuaries serving the same religion or denomination as I was raised. I do not find this curious or sacrilegious. Any holy place, including unspoiled nature, may beckon prayer. In Kyiv I regularly oblige when I run by houses of worship, endorphins swirling.
Local superstition forbids shaking peoples’ hands across a doorstep. When we physically worked in our office on Saksahanskoho Street pre-pandemic, I had to remember to take a step forward or back from a door’s threshold to shake hands or to hand someone something. This came up quite a bit, which I found interesting once I became conscious of it. Today I received a rare home delivery and I remembered to step outside the doorframe of my apartment to accept it. I did so out of (1) deference for this superstition, one that demonstrates respect for a family’s ancestors’ ashes traditionally buried under doorsteps here in Ukraine, and (2) to avoid bad luck.
Overly educated people like me may seek psychological or biochemical reasons behind superstitions’ presence in our modern minds. I try to temper my superstitious tendencies with warm faith and cool logic. But this did not prevent me from uneasily watching two cats — one ink black and one orange tabby — eye me suspiciously from a crevice on the backside of that bantam church as I skied past the chilly kitties this dawn. Over the years, a black cat has crossed my path only twice that I recall. I distinctly remember spending the rest of those two days irrationally avoiding situations requiring a decision.
Researchers scan brains of those who believe in superstition, paranormal, supernatural, and religion — and those who do not — trying in vain to figure out why we believe what we do. The answers to the age-old questions of why some of us choose to believe in ghosts or reincarnation or in the Matrix or going to heaven or in a puzzling piece of art or in a desiccated rabbit’s foot — while others reject these outlooks with skepticism, cynicism, or realism — remain unsolvable mysteries.
Despite science and reason’s supremacy in the mind of the 21st Century human, superstitious beliefs remain widespread. Am I unreasonable to accept and act on superstitions? Are you superstitious?
