The Church of Carrie and Her Cat

Over the last month I’ve done so many readings in my space that the energy has gotten shall-we-say kerfuffly. (Yes, I made up that word; it’s absolutely necessary.) So after finishing this weekend’s readings I got the hell out of dodge. I fetched my groceries, worked out for the first time in a dog’s age, and took advantage of the pretty sunshine by visiting with various friends in neighborhoods all over the city. Basically I did the grown-up lady version of standing outside pals’ houses and screaming, “CAN ANGIE COME OUT AND PLAY, MRS. ANTONELLIS?” which is how we Boston kids used to arrange play dates back in the un-helicoptered 1970s.

It was a great day.

When I came home, the house still felt like Carrie had just gotten her period. Within 15 minutes, my head was spinning: I’d burned my dinner, stained my best housedress, and realized my beloved kitchen shears were lost. While I was tearing my apartment apart searching for them, permakitten Grace–apparently possessed by a far naughtier kitty–shrieked and shattered my favorite plate into a thousand pieces.

“Asshole!” I bellowed, not just at Grace but at myself and all the other bad spirits in the house.

Just then a call came through from a far smarter witch, a lady whom I’ll call Beztie (our nickname for each other) since she’s too decorous to have her business aired in public. “Smoke out your house with Van Van and open your windows,” she said. “You need to get all that residual energy out of your apartment.” “But but but,” I started to protest, but she cut me off. “Do it. It’ll help.” I did, and it did. Ten minutes later, the nutty was gone from my house. I’d found my shears, accepted that three years was a great run for a gown I wore every day, and made up with a certain familiar. (She so piteously cried and so sweetly exposed her striped belly that it was impossible to remain angry.) The lesson? It takes a coven to make a good witch.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy