We are the weirdos, mister.
When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a witch. This was well before Harry Potter, but I don’t know many women who didn’t go through some sort of witch phase as a child. I think it’s ingrained in our DNA or something. A friend and I, raised on a steady diet of Hocus Pocus, The Craft, and supernatural fiction, would try our best to carry out witchy spells whenever our families got together. This being the time before Google (positively prehistoric, practically), we would often just make these up ourselves, or copy things we saw in movies. (Who among us DIDN’T try Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board at a slumber party at least once?)
Most of our spells were to A) get our crushes to like us or B) figure out which of our crushes liked us. I remember one spell using a deck of cards. Another involved carving words or initials into pieces of melted candle wax. The most dangerous involved burning things in a coffee can on my friend’s bedroom floor. And, look, if you think your kids aren’t playing with fire in places they aren’t supposed to, even the smart kids (ESPECIALLY the smart kids)...you’re wrong.
It must be these residual witchy feelings that make me want to mark the winter solstice in some way every year, even if it’s just reflecting on the fact that the days will soon start getting longer. When I volunteered with Oak Tree Corner (a center for grieving children in Dayton, Ohio), we would always do a candle pass to mark the winter solstice, which I liked. We’d stand in a circle in a darkened room, all holding unlit candles. One person would light a candle and say some words about remembering those we’d lost that year (again, this was a center for grieving children). We’d pass the light from candle to candle, each of us stating the name of the person we were lighting the candle for. It was a way to honor those who were no longer there, but also to provide some light in the darkest time of year.
This year, a year that seemed chock-full of darkness, I felt like I needed to celebrate the winter solstice in some way. (I’ll basically take any excuse to celebrate now.) I wanted to do, as another friend said, “something witchy.”
It sounds cheesy, but last Monday, I sat on the sofa, in the deep quiet of the afternoon, and lit a candle. I held a stone in my hand, one a friend sent me after Mara died. I sat, squeezing it tight, and thought about all of the difficult and exhausting and terrifying and heartbreaking things that happened this year. There was a lot to reflect on. The loss of our dogs, one of which died after a two year battle with cancer. My own cancer diagnosis and the complete derailment of our lives (seriously, fuck cancer). COVID, which touched us personally when family tested positive, and led to my own family being unable to visit while I was going through treatment. Not being able to go home for Christmas. Did I mention cancer? Even though treatment is over, it still in almost complete control of my life.
Most of the time, I still feel pretty normal, at least in my head. I look slightly different. I sound a lot different. I am different, really, in ways I haven’t even realized. But sometimes it really hits me. All I’ve gone through this year, specifically in the last few months. It’s a lot to process. A lot of change. A lot of trauma. A lot of fear for the future. I don’t know how to handle it, really, other than to keep talking and thinking about it.
So on the solstice, I held onto that stone and tried to squeeze every bad feeling from this year into it. And when I was done, I went out onto the porch, stuck out my arm, opened my palm, and let the rain wash it all away. (It was convenient that it’d been raining for what felt like forever at that point.)
I’ve been getting frustrated with myself lately, with how slowly things seem to be progressing. After three doctors (…I have a lot of doctors) reminded me that I was only a month out of treatment and that I need to be patient with myself, I’ve been trying to give myself a break. They reminded me that I’ll have days where my energy is great, and then days where I’m exhausted. That regaining my ability to speak and eat will take time. That I’m doing well and I should get used to not be able to do everything perfectly for a while (UGH).
Sometimes the timing of all of this seems really appropriate. I was diagnosed at the end of summer, and went through surgery, recovery, and radiation and chemo at the beginning of fall. Just as my body was being deconstructed, torn apart, broken down, so was the world outside. The days were getting shorter (not that I noticed), the darkness was encroaching on us again. Leaves were turning colors, first beautifully vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges that I was lucky to get to enjoy now and then, and then browning and dying until they blanketed the sidewalk. This being the PNW, there are still plenty of evergreens around to provide some color, but the deciduous trees are all now skeletal, resting until spring. Now that it’s officially winter, I feel a bit like I’m in hibernation until my burnt-to-shit body fully heals. I’ll be spending the season tucked away and recovering, both mentally and physically. Learning how to be a real person again. Learning how to be ME again.
As spring approaches, as the world becomes vibrant and sunny and warm and alive, as more and more people get the vaccine, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to step out of this self-imposed hibernation. I might not be the same person I was before all of this started, but I assume I’ll still like spring. And, if nothing else, I’ll need to keep tabs on whether Mulder and Scully, the resident ravens, have any more babies. Ravens are pretty witchy, right?
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