I went for a walk down my local high street with a dear friend the other day and we took the opportunity to indulge in one of our favourite silly traditions.
I can’t recall how it started, but every time we pass a particular charity shop together, we scrutinise the items in the window and decide which is the most hideous. The store is particularly well equipped for the challenge, a dumping ground for tragic eveningwear, china figurines, questionable puppets and paintings from the outer suburbs of outsider art. (I did once spot a mint Hermes 3000 typewriter in the window at a bargain price, but it had vanished by the time I returned to buy it.)
For some reason, this never fails to raise my spirits. So I felt a sense of validation when I read a New York Times article with the headline Why you should make time for oddball rituals. These weird little practices are, apparently, really good for us. They can help us with performance anxiety, strengthen relationships and make us feel more in control of our lives. “While habits help us to organise important tasks by routinising them and making them mundane, rituals imbue our lives with meaning by making certain things special,” writes Dimitris Xygalatas in his book Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. While a habit usually has a clear goal, a ritual does not.
That is a big reason why such behaviours often evoke a sense of foolhardy joy. I know someone who, every time she gets in from work, bursts into a rendition of Peters and Lee’s Welcome Home; all I can say is her family must really love her. Another oddity is practised by old friends of mine on New Year’s Eve. Every year, they don coats and boots and walk around the block carrying a suitcase. A tradition introduced to them by a Peruvian family member, it is supposed to augur well for world travel in the coming year. “It seems to work for her,” says my friend Patricia. “Not so much for us – but we always get at least one mini-break abroad a year, so who knows?”
Rituals around travel are common. In my family, we have a tradition of always buying yum yums if we are going on a long train journey. For reasons lost in the mists of time, it has to be this sort of twisted doughnut; no other pastry will suffice. Then there are the car journey rituals, such as the daft singalongs that will see us belting out Christmas Is Coming in July.
My friends Annie and Allen have a ceremonial practice involving bunking off for an impromptu night away from home, which they have dubbed “doing an Uncle Wiggily”. I had often seen their jaunts depicted on Facebook, but they had to explain the meaning of the term.
As a child, Allen had been given an Uncle Wiggily book by American cousins. Wiggily turns out to be an elderly rabbit who drives a bus and whisks children off for spontaneous adventures.
Apart from being fun, these activities can help us to cope with stressful or sad events. During the endless calendar of orthopaedic appointments to mend my broken shoulder this year, a friend who lived nearby created a bright spot by arranging to meet me for scrambled eggs at the cafe across the street after each visit. By the end of my treatment, I had come to really look forward to going.
Bereavement is another life experience where rituals can help. Having gone through my own losses, and wanting to support friends facing the same, I established a ritual of sending small gifts. But rather than shove the mini chocolate bar or poetry book into an envelope, I now elaborately wrap the items with lavish paper, ribbons, bows and proper gift tags. This performance always cheers me up, because it’s so over the top, given the modest nature of the contents, and I know it offers some small comfort to the recipients.
So, you may risk looking a bit eccentric, but trust me, adopting an oddball ritual or two can brighten up your life – not to mention those of your loved ones.
• Anita Chaudhuri is a freelance journalist and photographer
