Home Didn't Feel So Far Away

After a four-day stretch at the hospital, I was exhausted. And I don’t just mean physically, or even mentally tired, I was soul tired. I worked a shift that requires me to wear hospital-issue blue scrubs, no make-up, and no jewelry. All of my usual tricks for bringing a little sparkle to work were forbidden. Perhaps a more enlightened witch could have exuded love and passion through every twitch of her nose. I mostly spent the day fussing with the scratchy elastic bands on my scrub jacket while answering yet another phone call about re-timing antibiotics.

So when I got home, after wallowing for a respectable amount of time about not being a super-powerful witch with complete command of her life, I did two things: I bought a pink witch hat from an artist on Etsy, and I asked my best friend, Katie, if she'd spend Friday in Salem with me.

She said yes. Katie almost always says yes to my wacky adventures.

For months I'd been trying to figure out where I belonged. I knew I wanted to live somewhere on the seacoast, but Portsmouth, Newburyport, Salem, and Hampton all tugged at me in different ways. I wasn't sure where I could happily hang my hat and broomstick, or where I might actually feel welcome.

As soon as we arrived, I put on my pink hat. I'd tried wearing it in the car, but it kept getting smooshed against the ceiling, and I worried that opening the sunroof might launch it into the Atlantic. It was far too beautiful to risk.

“How’s it look, Katie?” I asked.

“I love it,” she said with a smile.

At Oak and Moss, she handed me temporary tattoos of a snake and a rabbit while I picked out a greeting card covered with couples, friends, and families of every imaginable variety. It read: All love is beautiful... yours is extra special. I wasn't sure who it was for yet.

A few shops later, we wandered into Witch City Broom Co. The saleswoman caught sight of my hat from behind.

"Oh!" she said. "Are we having a visit from the Good Witch?"

I turned around.

"Wow," she laughed. "You look just like her."

"Who?"

"Ashley. The Good Witch of Salem. She has a shop around the corner."

"Oooh, Katie," I said. "We'll have to go."

Katie smiled. She'd already accepted that this was now part of the itinerary.

Before we left, I turned back to the saleswoman. "What's your name?"

"Emily."

"Me too! Where are you from?"

"North Dakota."

Now I was thoroughly intrigued. "What's North Dakota like for witches?"

She didn't hesitate. "Oh, they're persecuted as hell."

"What brought you to Salem?"

"My husband wanted to move back east. He's from here originally, but he told me I could choose the town."

I asked the question that was burning in my chest, "How did you know Salem was home?"

She smiled. "I was driving around one day and crossed the town line without realizing it. This peace came over me. When I found out I was in Salem, everything just clicked."

I looked at her for a moment. "I'm looking for my home too."

Then I held out my hand. "Will you press some of that feeling into it to help me?"

This incredibly kind stranger took my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, "You'll find it."

I believed her. And the rest of the day, I found myself looking for that feeling.

As we wandered through Salem, the pink hat had a way of introducing me before I ever said a word. People smiled. One woman asked where she could buy one of her own. Several more people mistook me for the famous Good Witch of Salem. A little girl looked up at me as though I'd stepped out of a Disney movie. "Are you a real witch?" she asked.

"Yes."

The smile she gave me was one of the best gifts I've ever received.

A little later, Katie looked over at me. "Do you feel like a character?"

I laughed. "I do. It feels like I'm stepping into a new facet of who I am. She's a little cartoonish right now, but I think I'm growing into her. Do you ever feel that way?"

Katie thought for a moment. "I don't know."

"What about Bad Witch?" I teased. We had a running joke about a character who did things like shove pencil lead into door locks so the key wouldn't work, while her seagull, Snacks, stole French fries from unsuspecting beachgoers.

Katie laughed. "That's not really a character. That's just who I am."

We eventually made our way to Hauswitch, where we had our auras photographed. The pink-haired reader studied our photos for a while before smiling. "You complement each other," she said. "You approach the world from different angles, but with the same sense of wonder."

I liked that.

Before we left, I picked up a spell kit to manifest my dream home.

"You'll have to tell us when it works," the cashier said.

Holding the little house-shaped box, I realized something had shifted. My work was still exhausting, my business still felt uncertain, and I was still living with my parents, but for the first time in a while, none of it felt permanent.

With that, I was ready to meet the Good Witch.

Finding her shop turned out to be its own little quest. We followed bad GPS directions, got turned around twice, and eventually resorted to asking for help inside a shop devoted entirely to rubber ducks.

Apparently there was an initiation process.

When we finally arrived, I stopped beneath the flag outside the store. The blond witch smiling down from it looked remarkably like me.

Katie laughed. "Wait," she said. "Let me get a video of you walking in."

Inside, the woman behind the counter looked up. "Oh! I didn't know you were coming in today..." She paused. "Oh."

Not who she thought I was.

I wandered through the shop, taking in the pink hats, children's spells for bravery and self-love, and sensory toys inspired by Ashley's children's book. I thought about my own book, Happy Hedgehog. For a moment, it felt less like I'd stumbled into someone else's dream than into proof that mine might be possible too.

I floated back out into Salem feeling a little like Snow White after finding the friendly woodland creatures. Then a little girl looked up at me. "You're dressed like a witch."

I smiled. "Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?"

She considered the question carefully. "A bad thing."

Children rarely invent prejudices. They inherit them. I smiled back at her, but as she skipped away, something inside me quietly folded in on itself. For the next several shops, I couldn't stop hearing those three words. A bad thing. Not because I believed they were true, but because I knew she hadn't invented them. Somewhere along the way, someone had taught her that witches belonged in stories, but not next door.

At lunch, Katie happily worked her way through a grilled ham and cheese while I made an absolute mess of a portobello caprese sandwich. Around us, people wandered Salem looking for a little magick. I found myself thinking about everyone we'd met that day. The woman from North Dakota who held my hand. The cashier who helped Katie build an intention spell. The woodworker whose Bridget Bishop ornament somehow managed to make tragedy funny. The dancer at the Good Witch's shop who said I'd made her smile simply by walking in.

Then I thought about the little girl. I looked at Katie, and I started to cry. It wasn't that I was sad. It was that I'd spent the whole morning collecting evidence. Evidence that extraordinary kindness exists. Evidence that misunderstanding exists too. Evidence that both travel together. That felt truer than pretending I'd ever find a place where everyone agreed about who I should be.

The drive home was quiet. I stared out the window, letting the towns I'd been considering drift through my mind. Portsmouth still tugged at me. It was the last place I'd lived just for myself before I met my ex-husband and moved inland with him. Newburyport had its charming town square, all Gilmore Girls energy, though I wondered if it might be just a little too polished for my particular brand of weird. Then there was Salem. Only a few hours earlier, I'd imagined it might be the place where my weirdness would finally feel ordinary. Instead, I found myself thinking about the little girl.

At one point, Katie glanced over from the driver's seat, and reading my mind, she asked, "What did that little girl say to you?"

I swallowed. "She said it was a bad thing that I'm a witch."

Katie was quiet for a moment. "I don't know why," she finally said, "but that makes me irrationally angry."

I laughed.

Then I breathed.

For the first time since that beautiful little girl had unknowingly handed me someone else's fear, I felt myself come back into my body. We drove another few miles in silence.

"So..." Katie said. "Where do you think it'll be?"

I shook my head. "I honestly don't know."

"You don't have to figure it out today."

No. I didn't.

As the miles slipped by, my mind wandered backward instead of forward. I remembered sitting in my car years earlier, coming undone because I couldn't imagine spending another year teaching. Katie had simply told me I was going to be okay. I remembered telling friends I was pregnant. Most people congratulated me. Katie asked how I was feeling. I remembered telling the people closest to me that I wanted to leave pharmacy and build a strange little business around witches, stories, and healing. Most of them gave me reasons it couldn't work. Katie simply said, "You'll figure it out. You always do."

I looked over at my friend, the woman who had spent an entire day beside me in a bright pink witch hat without the slightest hint of embarrassment, and then I realized something. I'd spent months looking for the town where everyone would understand me. Perhaps that town doesn't exist. Maybe home isn't the place where no one questions your weirdness. Maybe it's the place where the people who matter never ask you to shrink it.

I looked over at Katie. "It'll be Hampton."

She smiled.

"I'd like to live closer to you."

"You know," she said, "it's only a short drive to all those other places."

I laughed. Of course it was.

The rest of the drive home I imagined opening my front door, walking down the street to meet Katie with a mug of tea, and listening to the ocean while we painted seashells on her porch.

For the first time in a long while, home didn't feel so far away.

***

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