Superstition

When I was hanging my exhibit at the Boston French Library with galerie directrice Noémie.

I had to get under the ladder MANY times to hold the tape straight, while Noémie placed the pictures. An anathema for me. I'm superstitious from childhood. I have my father to thank. I'd sooner walk into oncoming traffic than under a ladder.

Quite a few of you suggested I visit Le Pere Lachaise.
Are you kidding? My father insisted anytime we passed a cemetery, funeral or hearse we had to spit 3 times (figuratively of course).  I still do it.

A PBers sent me this photo of a black cat in Le Pere Lachaise cemetery!

If my dad saw a black cat crossing the road.

He would turn the car around. No questions asked.

Whenever the family went off on a trip.

We had to repeat this travel incantation before my father would start the car:

'We're off in a cloud of dust,
In fact we've already left'.
I never go to Paris or anywhere without saying this. Once I tried to explain to a French woman in Provence that we could not go to Cezanne's Mont Sainte Victoire without saying the travel incantation.

Nous allons depart au nuage de bla bla

En effect nous allons deja depart bla bla.

But there are inconsistencies.

Superstitious as I am, the night of the Boston opening, I broke a small cosmetic mirrors. What of that?

I lived on 13th street for years in the village without a hitch. And the 13th floor several times. Go figure. 

Are you superstitious? Do tell all!

Very superstitious,
Writing's on the wall,
Very superstitious,
Ladders bout' to fall,

Thirteen month old baby,
Broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck,
The good things in your past

When you believe in things
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way
BONJOUR SUPERSTITION!