I can clearly remember standing on the sidewalk in front of our house in Brooklyn. I was happy, smiling and enjoying the day when it occurred to me that I should be worrying about something. What was I supposed to worry about? I was raised in a miasma of worry, not only the worries of my mother, who with four children under five and a husband in a TB sanatorium, had every right to worry, but also the worries generated by a phalanx of paternal relatives who had lifted worrying to a fine art, or so I thought until I got to know my in-laws.
My husband’s family incorporated a belief in something called the “overlooks” into their pharmacopeia the way we would fill a prescription from the doctor. They talked about this phenomena many times but it only came home to live in my house after our son was born. Ben was a colicky baby whose constant distress kept his mom awake for most nights. Dr. Daly, our next door neighbor, after three months of my pleas for help, finally diagnosed the infant’s discomfort as the result of a milk allergy. A soy-based formula gave us a smiling and quiet child who slept through the night. End of the story? Not quite. My in-laws hand their own diagnosis. You see, Ben was crying because he had been overlooked. And, of course, it was his mother’s fault. Seems that I had praised him or said positive things about him without the required addition of the phrase, “God bless him.” This was not in my copy of Dr. Spock.
According to the Ferros, my father in-law had the ability, with prayers, to analyze such things and again, with the right prayers, rectify the most recent occurrences. It was my father-in-law’s knowledge about these tricky relationships and their amendment that, according to him, healed the child. Seems like Dr. Daly’s prescription and my father in-laws gift had worked simultaneously to the benefit of Ben and his mother, who could then count on at least four hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I have two degrees in Anthropology and the idea of the “overlooks” intrigued me. It is apparently the same thing as mal occhio or the evil eye, a piece of folklore found in many cultures with many variations, largely explained as the result of making positive comments, or feeling envious about someone or something. Apparently it is done unconsciously and can be undone in any number of ways. The term “overlooks” is really an old English term describing what happens when you look at someone or something too long. The results of this overlooking can be almost anything from what we would call bad luck to physical pain. Thus you shouldn’t praise anyone without a disclaimer, look fondly at someone or some object for any length of time lest you cause harm. Maybe that explains my arthritis or my less than beautiful hair. Who knows?
Different traditions have different ways of tempering behaviors. Both sides of my family had their own way of dealing with those who strayed from acceptable behavior, mostly over hot cups of tea while they listed all of the transgressions committed by neighbors, relatives and friends. Get out of line, adult or child, and the phones would ring, the tongues would wag and the approbation of family would yank you back onto the straight and narrow, mostly narrow.
Thus, on the day of my recollection, standing there, with no worries to speak of, wondering why. Memories of my attempt at playing stick ball in the street and the cascade of aunts on the phone talking about my behavior still lingered. My poor mother had given birth to a girl who wanted to play stick ball with the boys! I can still see my Aunt Mina in her apron standing in front of her house clucking at my disgraceful behavior, giving me the Irish equivalent of the evil eye. I would be the talk of the table for some time to come.
I can hear the Nuns at Our Lady of Perpetual Help school telling us that we weren’t put here to be happy, but to be good … obviously two mutually exclusive states of being.
Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.
