Ritual Routines

The other day, while I was in the shower, washing my hair, I got to thinking about personal rituals or routines, the kinds of things that in other discussions with other people would be described as obsessive-compulsive behavior.  And I wondered when we, as humans, began giving everything such a negative connotation.

Why is not only perfectly acceptable, in fact, almost required, for athletes, professional or amateur, to have "winning rituals?"  We all wonder when the "rally caps" will come out in baseball games.  We ask winning football coaches if the team is changing their socks, or participating in "No-Shave November" in order to get into the playoffs. 

Why, then, is it something shameful for the average person have similar rituals or routines?  I am not talking about a true diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; I am discussing average everyday people, doing average, everyday things.  I thought of it as I was washing my hair; what I do first in the shower...always.  I wash my hair, then my body, then my face.  The pattern never varies.  After the shower, I dry my face, then wrap a towel around my hair, after which I dry myself in the same, never varying pattern -- right arm, left arm, front torso, right leg, left leg, back torso.  Many people would consider this obsessive behavior.  But I am sure those same people do the same tasks in a similar pattern.  Everything from tooth brushing to putting on socks and shoes to dish washing has a pattern.  No one person does it in the same pattern, but everyone has their own rituals and routines for performing everyday tasks.

Feline researchers followed cats in rural England for over two years.  I do not remember what they were specifically researching, but they found something completely unexpected.  Everyone knew that cats are creatures of habit and routine, but the researchers were surprised to find how strictly cats adhere to their own personal cat schedules.  The farm cats patrolled what they considered their territory in the same pattern, using the same paths, in the same order, at the same time, within minutes, everyday.  One cat was so regular in his daily patrol that you could literally set a watch to when the cat past a particular post.

I see this same phenomenon, on a much smaller scale, with my own cat.  I know that if it is 10:00 a.m., she will be in the sliding glass door sunning herself.  At 7:00 p.m. you will find her slinking away to a not so hidden hidey-hole (a box with cutout shapes all over that has been lined with lambswool), because she knows that her daily dose of fluid will be coming within the hour.  She sleeps on the foot of my bed for most of the night.  But for some reason, when 4:15 a.m. comes, she gets up, has a bit of a bath and moves to the floor in front of my dresser.  I do not know what marks the time to move from the warm bed to the floor, or how she knows, often within seconds, that it is time to move.  I just know that she does.

Similarly, I know that my right foot needs to have its sock put on before my left foot.  I know that my upper right teeth are the last to be flossed and that the bathtub should be scrubbed in a clockwise direction starting from the middle of the front side.

None of this means I am obsessive or compulsive, it all just means I am human.  And all humans have rituals and routines that ground our days.

Rose Ribbons

Today is December 1, a day which is known as World AIDS Day.
I find it interesting to note that Yahoo and other websites have changed their logo banners to mark the day, with red ribbons and slogans like "Act Aware" but Google, arguably the largest search engine and one of the most visited websites went with a 55th Anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to get up as the Google Doodle of the day.  I was so hoping to have a red ribbon woven through the Google logo...