ESSAY BEGINS NOW
I like to think that in most of the ways that count, I am a very tolerant person. This is a hard thing to quantify, but my only criterion is that I don’t get that upset when people speak different languages on the subway. That’s it. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s actually the exact definition of little-L liberalism: not getting angry at stuff that’s probably pretty chill. I’m quoting that, by the way.
Also, I am accepting of all religions. Personally, I was Catholic for a bunch of years, then stopped because I’m too lazy to believe in God and I don’t like having to wear khaki pants. Though, my dad actually called me today to see if my girlfriend and I had any special “Palm Sunday” plans. No, Dad, I think we’re going to keep Palm Sunday low-key this year. Mix it up and stay in for once. It’s always so anticlimactic, anyway.
The point is, one’s personal worship doesn’t get me too riled up. It doesn’t matter who your God is, I’m cool with it. Unless, of course, your God is Gaea, the Mother Earth Goddess, in which case I’m whatever the opposite of “cool with” is. I like to imagine that the opposite of “cool with” is “punching at”. So, Mr. Or Mrs. Warlock and Witch Wicca Person, I am not “cool with” you, I am “punching at” you.
For those of you don’t know, Wicca is new-agey bullshit witchcraft, where you worship the moon and the earth and the Goddess and sometimes all of the elements. It’s like the poor man’s Captain Planet. You do things like get together at the Solstices and eat sweetmeats while celebrating Pan, half stag god of the herd. I’m serious. Grownups do these things.
Whenever someone mentions a Wiccan, super specific images come to mind. I imagine a short, overweight person, with a beard, who scoffs at society’s insistence that he wears shoe. He likes archery and the out of doors, yet is surprisingly good with computers. At cocktail parties, which probably aren’t called “cocktail parties” but something ridiculous like “spirit frolics” and happen “under the stars”, he likes to mention how he’s dabbled in sex magick. He then makes clear he’s spelling magick with a “CK” on the end. He doesn’t like Myspace because it doesn’t let him identify as polyamorous, pansexual or both. He loves fantasy erotica and used to be really into anime but now makes fun of how lame that was. Most likely, he works at a food co-op, near the apartment he rents month to month with cash somewhere in upstate New York or western Massachusetts.
Now, most of these things are wrong (maybe), but they make my blood boil nonetheless. Like role playing games, I like to make fun of Wicca as often as humanly possible. Maybe it’s like shooting fish in the barrel, but the reason people like shooting fish in barrels is because a) it’s fun, and 2) the fish are cape-wearing d-bags.
My world was turned upside down last month, though, when I was telling stories onstage at a show, and I suddenly remembered how I’d been Wiccan for like 2 months in fifth grade. This was not typical; I hung out with “cool kids” and got by being funny and loud and really good at finding new ways to call kids gay.
But this was out in the open. I’d completely repressed the memory of how my best friend Neil Taylor seduced me into this hazy world of crystals and desire. Though I was too awkward to do karate myself, after sleepovers I’d sometimes go with Neil to his karate dojo, which was around the corner from some kinda crazy magic shop. (That’s a warning, Gabe: karate is the gateway to mysticism.) Anyway, it’s a long story, but Neil’s mom was a massage therapist and we had a half Japanese friend, so before you knew it, we were saving up for incense and mojo bags, which are tiny leather purses where maybe you put someone’s pubic hair, a crystal, and your dignity before casting love spells on them. How was a fifth grader supposed to get Ashley REDACTED’s pubic hair? Did she even have pubic hair? Also, me telling my parents “I know I have an allowance, but I need more money for a better crystal” must have sounded like the most junkie thing ever. Though, to be fair, my dad already called me a “Mary” when I let my hair grow longer than this, so I’m pretty sure he would have preferred his son be a good, old-fashioned speed freak than a warlock who worshipped a lady god.
I also remembered that I was like really good at Wicca. We mostly just sat around next to the soccer field and talked about what we could do with our newfound powers, (we’d finger girls) and as I’d read like two books from the library and had a good memory, I was the grandmaster. I knew that shit top to bottom. Is that weird that I’m proud that I was a stud at Wicca? The answer is a resolute yes. It’s kind of like when I got interested in the idea of playing role playing games in eighth grade, but my lacrosse-playing friends would never play, so instead I just made up characters for the games I could never use. I have to say that’s tragic, and much sadder than getting together with other role-playing friends doing whatever it is they do: wearing special hats and pretending to be in dungeons.
But I got over all that quickly, and realized that I totally really liked cool stuff. Then I repressed those memories. But I’ve got to wonder if I’m actually cured. Are we born Wiccan, or is it a choice? Am I headed towards another lapse? I sort of feel like disgraced Evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who was caught gaying it up then went to therapy and is now all better. Totally all better. Like him, maybe my anger and revulsion towards Wicca was all me being scared that I might just be a witch. Maybe I am to Wicca as he is to all that gaybusiness, except that I don’t have to take 4 Ambien before I go to bed just so I don’t dream about blowing rails and casting some really hot young spells.
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