Monthly Archives: May 2025

Feeling Bad Weather in Your Bones

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Antonio, Texas
Language: English

1. TEXT/TRANSCRIPTION
“If my back or my knee starts aching out of nowhere, I know it’s going to rain.” That’s what I always say, and I mean it. It’s not just a guess or a coincidence, I really feel it. The ache has a different kind of weight to it, almost like pressure building in my joints. Sometimes I’ll be sitting down or walking around and suddenly my knee starts acting up, and sure enough, within a few hours the clouds roll in, the temperature drops, or it starts drizzling.

I know it sounds kind of folksy or “old-person-ish,” and maybe it is, but I’ve been saying this since I was young. I remember hearing my grandparents say things like, “My joints are flaring up, it must be a storm coming,” and I always thought it was just something older people said to be dramatic. But as I got older, I started noticing it myself, especially after I injured my back a few years ago. The pain doesn’t always show up from strain or use. Sometimes it’s just there, sudden and unexplained, and every time, the weather ends up changing.

It’s become a running joke with people around me. They’ll ask, “How’s your knee today?” like I’m some kind of walking weather app. And I’ll say, “Uh-oh, the storm’s coming.” And then, sure enough, it does. I don’t even check the forecast anymore, I trust my body more.

2. CONTEXT 
I picked this up from my family, especially the older generation. My grandfather had arthritis and used to say things like, “Storm’s coming, I feel it in my bones,” and I remember thinking it was a funny expression. But I also remember him being right, more often than not. The same thing happened with my mom. She has knee pain and swears by it. So when I started noticing the same thing in my own body, especially after dealing with back issues, I realized this wasn’t just a saying. It was real.

At first I thought I was just imagining it, but then I kept noticing the pattern. There’s something about the barometric pressure dropping before a storm that makes certain pain flare up. I don’t think I would’ve even made the connection if it hadn’t been passed down to me as a known thing. It helped me name what was happening instead of feeling like I was losing it. And even now, it feels like a small way of staying connected to my family, like I’m carrying their wisdom in my body.

3. INTERPRETATION
This saying reflects a deeply embodied form of folk knowledge, rooted in generational experience and personal observation. While it may sound anecdotal or “unscientific” on the surface, there’s actually physiological logic behind it, barometric pressure changes before a storm can affect joint tissue and inflammation, especially in people with previous injuries or chronic pain. The body, in this case, becomes a kind of barometer, registering environmental shifts in a way that scientific instruments later confirm.

Culturally, this phrase expresses an important value in traditional and familial forms of knowledge, wisdom that comes not from books or data, but from lived, bodily experience. Saying “I feel it in my bones” is a way of asserting trust in your own senses, especially in cultures or communities that have historically relied on oral tradition and intuition in the absence of formal medical care or scientific explanations.

Historically, this also reflects a long tradition of weather-related folklore. Before modern meteorology, people paid close attention to the natural world, and their own bodies, as signs of what was to come. This belief bridges the gap between human and environment, showing how people once (and still) read their bodies as extensions of nature. It also serves as a symbol of age, wisdom, and resilience, only those who’ve lived with pain or experience are seen as having the “sensitivity” to detect such subtle shifts.

In modern life, this superstition can offer emotional and psychological comfort. It gives people a sense of control and foresight in situations that are otherwise unpredictable. And for those who live with chronic pain, it offers meaning: a way to interpret their symptoms as useful rather than arbitrary.

Bourbon Street Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I interviewed MW who is from New Orleans. Although born in Ohio, his family moved to New Orleans when he was 4 years old, and has lived there since.

M talked about Bourbon Street and the spirituality in New Orleans. He works at a bar on Bourbon Street and he always has to be careful. Along the street there are vendors that may tell you they can tell you your future if you tap his elbow. M emphasized that you’re never supposed to tap elbows as this induces destiny swapping. He doesn’t know the exact reason why it has to be the elbow, but he says it stems from voodoo, and that these vendors are out to get you if they sense you have “good” energy.

The folk belief that you can swap destinies is very apparent here. We see the role of the trickster at play in this situation. The power of the vendor on Bourbon Street is something that’s respected or feared. Even his everyday behavior seems to be shaped by this idea as he is cautious about running into people like that vendor. The fact that he also doesn’t know why the elbow is important indicates that he is following oral tradition without knowing where it comes from. He believes it and passes it on, something very natural in folklore.

Mardi Gras

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I interviewed MW who is from New Orleans. Although born in Ohio, his family moved to New Orleans when he was 4 years old. This means that he was raised there.

M talked to me about his experience with Mardi Gras and growing up in New Orleans. Every year, his family makes a big deal about going to Mardi Gras. They plan weeks ahead by buying beads and decorations for themselves. He explains that his family primarily focuses on getting green and purple beads as that’s what his dad did for his first Mardi Gras. They don’t do elaborate costumes but do have a spot that they like to go to. This year he took his girlfriend, and his parents allowed him to go out by himself instead of staying with them.

His family seems to have a routine. They focus on the beads and not the costume portion of Mardi Gras. I think this is important to note as they have personalized Mardi Gras in a way that doesn’t prioritize what they wear. It’s also important to note that they seem to have a sacred spot where their family continuously goes. This is an example of tradition in their family. His girlfriend going also peeked my interest because when I asked him about being alone in previous years he said this is his first Mardi Gras without staying with his family. I think this symbolizes a coming of age, where now that he has a girlfriend and is more independent, his parents are allowing him to go out and explore on his own. This public ritual holds such a personalized meaning, and I’m sure it’s the same for all the families that participate in Mardi Gras.

Christmas Tree on Halloween

Nationality: Mexican/American
Age: 18
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Berkeley, CA
Language: English

I interviewed SH and she told me about putting up the Christmas Tree on Halloween.

My family doesn’t celebrate halloween. It is seen as a pagan holiday, and coming from a Christian household, it is a taboo, but more specifically deemed satanic. This created a period of time where my classmates would be engrossed in the spirit of halloween, and I would be left out. In order to substitute this time period, on halloween every year, my family put up the Christmas tree. It was a time of bonding within my family and was very common amongst our Christian community. Our community would host events on this day since the kids of the community wouldn’t be allowed to go trick-or-treat. We would invite our friends and family to commemorate the coming of Christmas.

The taboo with halloween is a description of a folk belief. The switching of a dark holiday in this household inverses to the lightheartedness of putting up the Christmas tree. This change in ritual replaces the seemingly pagan holiday with a more Christian one. The church uses this time period for communal bonding and resistance to mainstream practices.

Folk Ritual: Funeral Custom – Saranta

  1. Text: It is custom in the culture of Greek people to practice an extended window of mourning after a loved one dies. This window lasts 40 days and is called Saranta. It is the belief of the Greek people that during this window of time, the soul continues to stay within the earth and navigate within it. It has not passed on to heaven, but remains wandering for a period of time in order to complete and review lingering tasks from its time in life. This concept has been colloquially believed in by Greek people for centuries. It is at the basis of their concept of mourning, becoming something almost as equally important as the very funeral service itself. By participating in a continued mourning during this time, the family becomes adjacent to the spirit of their loved one as it exists around them.
  2. Informants Context: The Saranta is very important in our culture. For 40 days after the death, we continue to mourn. This is because we believe that the spirit continues to walk the earth for 40 days after passing. After my husbands death, I wore black for 40 days. This was to recognize and signal my own mourning. For the first three days after the death, they say the spirit remains near where they lived. I believe this – I felt him around the house, I heard him around where his bed was. After that, its said that they begin to explore the world, go back to places where they used to spend lots of time. Maybe he went back to Greece for a few days, I don’t know. But then in the final few weeks, he has to be with God, or so they say. Then on the 40th day, he gets to be free. He goes to heaven. We do little things in that time so to watch over him as he wanders. Mirrors are covered during the 40 days, my grandmother used to say that souls get trapped in the glass if they go into it. During the funeral, we make sure a small window is open in case his spirit wants to leave, to wander. Other little things are part of the 40 days. For example, very little cleaning and no renovation to the house after the death so not to disturb the soul if it wants to visit. The most important thing is that we light the Kantili (oil lamp) everyday to assure that he is guided back to us when he wants to visit. If the candle burns, it will also in part assure that his spirit will be eternal. These rituals were passed down to us by our families when we used to still live in Greece. They showed us how to practice these things when there were deaths in the community. I was there during the second world war when I was very young, and then during the civil war. So even though I left at an early age, we attended many funerals before I officially departed from the country.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: Both the 40 day period and the superstitious rituals that occur during this period reflect certain distinct values on the part of the Greeks. Firstly, these superstitions clearly reflect a value for the concept of the eternal. Specifically as it applies to the burning light, Greeks want to assure that the spirit remains forever in existence despite bodily death. This is consistent with the superstitious fear of windows as well. Juxtaposing the hope for eternal paradise is the fear of eternal purgatory that could arise from getting trapped in these reflective surfaces. The Greek concept of 40 days of mourning clearly evolves into a folkloric concept in and of itself, as it is born out of and coupled with many of the superstitious concepts surrounding it.

Fields

AGE: 85

Date_of_performance: May 5, 2025

Informant Name: Confidential (EZ)

Language: Greek/English

Nationality: Greek/Canadian

Occupation: Retired

Primary Language: Greek

Residence: Canada