The Rituals that Anchor

There are those things we do, some large, some small, that we barely give thought to. That shape our days, our lives. Rituals help to establish our sense of reality. If you maintain them. you keep your wits about you.

In the beginning, there were many rituals that held me in place. Each of us sitting in our assigned seat at the dinner table. The older siblings getting the grown-up glasses, the younger kids getting the plastic cups. My father in the kitchen in the early morning hours when the rest of the house was still asleep, mixing his cereal. The scrape, scrape, scrape of his spoon along the bottom of  the bowl was comforting. Dad was up. He was in charge. Everything was A-okay. Saturday mornings, watching cartoons all morning long, eating our favorite sugar-laden cereal. (To which we added even more sugar.) My mom putting dinner on the table at exactly 6:00 every night. Saturday night baths. Sunday morning mass. Sunday noon dinners of pot roast or pork chops or city chicken. Sunday evenings watching Ed Sullivan.

The other day a memory returned to me of my parents playing "thumbsies" at the kitchen table. My father would hide his thumb in his fist, then flick it out and back. My mother would try to grab it. This would result in giggles from the two of them. Such a silly thing, really. But endearing, too. It made them human. It made them real. A ritual game.

My husband has a ritual of singing dirty songs in the shower. He also does the crossword puzzle every day. And he calls me at work at about the same time to check in. My morning ritual includes reading the funnies while I'm eating my breakfast. I will have to change this ritual when the paper is no longer published every day. It won't be the same reading them on the computer. I don't know what I will do. Other rituals that are part of my daily routine include checking the locks on the car/house door

before walking away. Kissing my loved ones aloha. (I don't like to say "goodbye," it sounds so final.)  I count a lot. The number of times I swallow when I take my pill in the morning. The number of times I shake the cream before I pour it into my coffee. The number of stairs ascending or descending. (This is a safety measure, too, so I don't lose count and fall up or down.) And, when I arrive safely at my destination, I say, "Good car" and murmur one Hail Mary. I also like to imagine a white light around the people and things I hold dearest, for protection. (It's good to cover all the bases.) As I sit here and imagine my days, I realize there are hundreds of rituals I perform without being conscious of them.

Rituals can be soothing. They create a sense, however flawed, that everything is right with the world. Maybe some of them are obsessive/compulsive. So what? Everyone has rituals. Even you. Think about it!