Of Superstition and the Economy

By Rebecca Powell, 2-07-09

When my grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia, we made the 800 mile trek to Oklahoma the next weekend. We made it not because I thought she was dying (my brain had not yet entertained the thought), but to keep her from dying. See, I thought if I did something illogical, something my family could laugh about and say “Remember when Becky came flying up here to see Gram? And look, she lived another twenty-five years. That one is sure silly,” then death would lurk off and bother some other family. I thought death might play by the superstitious rules of the playground. Death did not bother to blink.

I have played the games of superstition and reverse logic my entire life. Wash your car and leave the windows down to break a drought. When the husband is late, plan the funeral and make future life plans to insure his safe arrival home. It is my brain’s first defense against disaster. Throw fate superstition and the illogical; see if it will play. Thus far, I have never broken a drought, but the husband has always made it home. In truth, I am not looking for an outcome. I am looking for comfort in the moment, for the act of doing. As we sped across Texas and over the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma, I was not coming to the aid of my grandmother, but to the aid of myself. I was and am no match for leukemia, but I could show up, deprive myself, husband and child of rest. I could move. I could pretend my trip would appease, would make death blink, and the pretending made those few days purposeful and bearable.

The Obama stimulus plan seems an excercise in such superstition. Throw gobs of money in all directions and see if the gods of markets and prosperity will play. Congress and the President and are saying, “Look. Look! We are doing something!” They are moving. They are pretending to know the outcome. To whose aid are they coming? Will the gods play?