I was a witchy little girl

One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 4 years old. I sat in the dirt, in a little yellow flowered dress, joyously slapping the ground as mud sprayed everywhere. My friend, we'll call her G., 5 years old, gleefully sprinted toward me, carrying a huge and nearly-overflowing water bucket. We dumped most of the water in the dirt and squealed as it splashed us. She grabbed a thick fistful of grass and carefully tossed it into the slop. "Look," she said, "we're making a potion."

I remember in 4th grade, my best friend N. was over at my house after school. At that point in our friendship, we had long-established that we were both "witches" -- which up until this point had mostly consisted of making bouquets out of neighborhood weeds and kissing her neighbor's truck with red lipstick (addendum: I ended up feeling so guilty about this, worrying it would damage the paint, that I snuck back over afterward and carefully wiped the mark away). Now, she was raising the stakes. "Prove it," she was saying to me, "do something witchy right now!"

I wrinkled my nose and looked around my room. Without thinking, I picked up a sharpened pencil from my desk and set it, pointing down on the outstretched tip of my index finger. I took away my other hand and there the pencil stood, balancing perfectly on its lead. We scarcely dared breathe as it hung in the air.

I remember something sadder, in high school, my books on crystals and herbs and the moon were stuffed in the darkest corner of my closet because if my mother saw them, there was a very real chance she would, at best, chastise me for "being so satanic" or, at worst, demand I get rid of the books immediately. Ouch. Quite literally a closeted witch.

I must have devoured several thousand books on magic and witching and fantasy worlds so vivid and close to my heart, they became real. I mean, try telling a 14 year old girl that The Mists of Avalon has no actual historical bearing...please. I could feel something like magic, which was in retrospect most likely a mix of hormones and a healthily active imagination, in my every experience: As I walked through the snowy Vermont woods near my house, moss and ice and utter stillness; in the grit and dark beauty of the streets of downtown LA; in the fucking pissed off music I blasted through my headphones.

For a long time, I lost this sweet and angry and powerful part of myself. I let other people tell me who I was and what I was capable of. My internal compass had been shattered, rendering me an empty and obedient husk. For a long time, I thought there was nothing of me left.