Dark nights,bubbling stews,and warts
Witches be among us
Ahhh. Here in Downeast, Maine, we have arrived at the tipping point between winter and summer. The bushy mums and purple asters give way to cornstalks and pumpkins while the sweet twins, Sunrise and Sunset, cower before the Long Night.
While our Pumpkin Spice Tourists are wearing lumberjack plaid and cream colored knit hats with pompoms, locals are in jeans and hoodies. I am in layers ready to swing from ice cold to inferno, high 30s to low 60s. The woodfires are burning, sucking the humidity of summer from creaky floorboards and my bony hands. My hair is static and wild from the cold northwest winds, fresh sourdough bread and beef stew are on the stove, and I am transforming, again.
A local friend said that end of each Bar Harbor season, we are born again. Reforged in the fires of long days and hosting so many visitors basking in the glory of the beauty of the Mount Desert Island summer. It is a particular kind of lifestyle we have here. Once the crocus poke out their heads, his town goes from 0 to 60, faster than a Ferrari indulging in the socially acceptable forms of consumption there are: hiking, biking, swimming, sailing, kayaking, golf, rock climbing, plein air painting, tide pool exploring, fishing, etc. The preeminent focus of this island is our natural beauty —we have mica in the pink granite of our seaside cliffs, cedar forests with moss carpeting, harbor seals, whales, puffins, peregrine falcons, foxes, whitetail deer, pink beach roses, coves, harbors, streams, stone bridges, and babbling brooks. In short, this is an island of fairy tale scenery and outdoor vigor.
Artists like Trina Schart Hyman, use the island as inspiration for her Little Red Riding Hood illustrations.
Long before Shart Hyman, In 1852 Hudson River School artist Frederic Church painted our epic skies and rugged coastline.
And just today, I took a walk in the forest and the trail was covered in a confetti of reds, oranges, and yellows. We, here in New England, only indulge in such obscene colors for three weeks of the year, or at sunrise and sunset. It’s our puritanical heritage. We can’t help it. In fact, we don’t even choose the color, it simply happens. No one would here would be so gauche as to try and out-do nature.
My fairy tale landscape in combination with darkness of our long nights, pumpkin festivals, corn mazes, and reading an old book review by Margaret Atwood, led me to read John Updike’s Witches of Eastwick last week. Once consumed, I discovered this BBC Podcast Witch, which I haven’t finished but am LOVING. Obviously, I’m in my witch era, which is an era that I’m grateful Taylor Swift hasn’t entered yet, because she’d take it over and make it beautiful and bring all the girls with her and shine her bright light into the darkness.
Needless to say, I’m enjoying the darkness more than ever. You see, a couple of years ago, I went to the dermatologist for a lump on my nose, sure it was skin cancer. It was a wart (not large or hairy, don’t get all carried away). The doctor took out the smoking liquid nitrogen and froze it off. But you see, the damage had been done, I still felt like a witch. I realized a wart doesn’t make a witch, the witch makes the wart. It’s a symptom. Or if you’re feeling positive about it, it’s a sign.
Once a witch, always a witch; once you take a ride on a broomstick, there's no going back.
-John Updike, Witches of Eastwick
Entering my crone era so abruptly was perhaps more traumatizing for me than if it had been a basal cell carcinoma. I loathe to admit it, but I’m formerly a Sansa Stark kind of character (A Game of Thrones-book 1)—concerned with doing things right and following rules and being pretty. Remember how we yelled at the TV or the book and shook our heads. “Sansa, you idiot! Open your eyes. For the love of God, think about what you are doing!”
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately, thinking about my Sansa (book 1) years. There’s some societal strength in pretty and nice, and having moved so many times as a child, I learned to parrot, reflect, and observe in all the new communities I arrived in. I wore the dresses, sewed the pillows, baked the cookies, ate the lemon cakes. I always smiled. Assimilation was critical for my acceptance because in a small town you are either in the group or out, and it’s a horrible kind of torture be a young woman without friends. These early years are when, as women, we learn about how to get along in groups and just when I finally started to get it, a wart appeared on my nose and that old me that I was still trying to figure out disappeared. POOF!
RIP to the young girl, the blushing bride, the new mom, the gymnastics mom, etc…
Not only are selves conditional but they die. Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time? -John Updike, Witches of Eastwick
Having said goodbye to those former selves, I now have time to write and work on my craft, my practice of creation, and I marvel at how writing and witchcraft feel synonymous.
Here’s a poem I wrote about some of my illustrations to show you what I mean.
The Artist
Yesterday, I changed the color of the sky. The clouds needed more slate The sky, more tangerine. Today, I cut a woman in half She wasn’t all there in the first place Tomorrow, I will crown a queen With a hundred cherry blossoms made from one. Next week will be hard I will make the sea, large and lonely On it will forever drift a girl and her dog in a rowboat
I worked this poem over and over at least a hundred times until the words made just the right images, though there are no actual images. And thanks to Hollie McNish, I realized how when my babies cried, I turned their hunger into milk; and this afternoon when a sadness came over me, I turned these sad thoughts into water and the thoughts dripped out of my eyes. I am a clearly a witch.
We are all clearly witches. Turning work into food. Turning love into a warm touch. Turning sunshine into vitamin D. In this constant becoming, there is so much power, knowing that every day, we are both ending and beginning again
Ciao, n
PS: Leah Scott-Kirby and I have a little something new going on over at The Practice of Writing (TPOW). We considered our first foray, a 6 week Flash writing series, a success, so we are bringing you more opportunities to write and learn with us.
I’ve got an 8 week session of Thursday Lunch & Write coming up on Thursdays at Noon (EST). I’ll deliver a mini craft lecture with a curated reading, followed by a writing prompt where you can dive into your imagination on your lunch break and come out of the hour with something to show for your time.
For my friends in the UK, we can call it Dinner & Write, Brekkie & Write for those in California, and Snack & Write for everyone else :)
All writing levels are welcome. I’d love to see you there.
Oh, here’s a promo code that works for all of these— THURSDAYSHALF
Oh, oh, and another thing, on Thursday, I’ll close registration at 11:30 and send out a zoom link so you can be last minute, but not totally last minute. I know how we writers operate.
PPS: If you are craving a modern retelling of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to get you in a witchy October mood, this really video by
cracked me up.
What a pleasure to read your writing again, Nina. And to glimpse your autumnal landscape! (Texas is still hot and dry). That BBC podcast is amazing, as is Pam Grossman’s The Witch Wave, if you’ve yet to stumble upon it, you might want to seek it out. Sending you lots of love and magic 💫
This piece gives me goosebumps. I don't know if I should laugh or cry—maybe both. It's funny, poignant, and scary, and you make me happy I get to spend falls in New England. You had me at Pumpkin Spice Tourists. Love your writing.