A Pandemic Era Wicked Twig Spell
A mystery of twigs and sand right outside my window!
Hi, it’s me.
How’s your summer going so far? Here in Seattle we’re still in the very NON-summery season of June-uary, as we call it. We experience pockets of sunshine here and there, but I’m still wearing wool socks to bed.
June and July are shaping up to be super busy for me at work. I’m spending long hours at my desk—eyes strained on my giant monitor, hips and knees stiff from sitting, forgetting to eat or take my daily walk. I’m using all of my brains to manage the workload, and by the time I log off, I feel like the emoji with the swirlies for eyes 😵💫 — I can’t think, my eyes hurt, and I need to move my body.
The last thing I want to do in the margins of my week is to sit at my desk again and look at my screen. I should probably take an official break from writing to you. I’ve done it before—usually in the space between Christmas and New Year, or that time Bryan had surgery to remove 10” of his colon. Last year I took the month of July off by scheduling posts ahead of time.
Pausing to note there are two hummingbirds fighting over the feeder outside my window, and there’s a cat sleeping on my arm while I use my thumbs to type this intro on my phone.
Here, let me carefully turn the phone sideways to capture a selfie:
All this to say, my weekly emails to you might be sporadic in the coming weeks. I have many story drafts started, but if my brain is too full to finish them, I will choose rest.
I trust you understand.
Back in April of 2020 at the very start of the Pandemic Isolation Period (PIP), I was sitting at the dining room table looking out the front window to the cemetery across the street. Our house is flanked on either side by fifteen foot tall laurel hedges, framing my view like a picture we can jump into, Mary Poppins style.
My perch at the table offers many distractions to get lost in as needed to stay focused. Sounds contradictory, but the brain can concentrate for only so long. Watching storybook characters cross through the picture frame gives my brain a rest from its deep work.
The usual characters are dog walkers, visitors sitting in lawn chairs next to a gravestone, moms and dads pushing strollers down the street, a pack of middle school boys walking home every weekday afternoon at 4:10, and one time as the sun was coming up, a coyote who steadily trotted by on his way back to the ravine half a mile to the north.
During the pandemic, new characters walked through my picture-frame view—joggers who could no longer work out at the gym, families riding bikes after a full day working and schooling online, neighbors on my street that I’d never met, and a bird watcher trying a new walking route.
One day, a new character within my picture frame was a man I’d never seen before standing next to his white pickup truck at the edge of the cemetery. He bent over and fiddled with something on the ground. Was he scratching in the gravel? Picking up stones? Digging for worms? He stood up again, put a small blue and white cooler into the bed of his truck, and drove away. Curious, I ran out the front door, down our long driveway, and across the street to see what he was messing with on the side of the road.
Friend, the hair on my arms fluffed out like a startled cat’s tail when I saw what was on the ground. The man had arranged sticks and beach sand into several sideways y symbols all in a row in front of the graveyard fence.
The thrill of it! Was I terrified or lusting after the mystery? Who knows! Either way, Pandemic Rules dictated that I drop everything reality-based to pursue what in the witchcraft these twigs were about.
I Googled “sideways y symbol” and got nothing useful. I tried Google image search and got more pictures of grass. I posted the pictures to Facebook and started a conspiracy thread about what it might mean. A spy dead drop? A message to local drug lords? A graveyard curse?! My Facebook friends, who seemed equally as eager to focus on something other than a search for toilet paper on empty grocery store shelves, added theories related to The Blair Witch Project or True Detective.
For several days I theorized to Bryan about what the symbols might mean. WHO DOES THAT?! I would say randomly as we ate breakfast. Hmmm? He would reply. Do what? I didn’t understand how this Very Important Issue took up so little space in his brain.
When the man returned two days later to continue forming his Wicked Twig Spell, Bryan did the unthinkable: He TALKED to him! In Seattle! During a pandemic! How mortifying!
Bryan walked out the door, down our long driveway, and into my picture frame to meet one of the storybook characters. After a brief conversation, he came back in to report his findings to me and the Facebook conspiracy thread:
“He said the sand is leftover from his daily beachcombing. He puts it by the graveyard to gift the folks buried there with a day at the beach. He said the symbol is a kind of prayer and that it’s intended to allude to elk running free.”
“If I was a serial killer leaving signs at my victim’s graves, this is the cover story I'd use too!” my friend Andy wrote back.
After a while we forgot about Witchcraft Guy and got back to the business of cleaning our mail and sewing masks out of old t-shirts.
What do you think the symbols mean?!
Until next time,
Jen
News + Notes 🌼
Small moments from May using my 1SecondEveryDay app:
🌼 🌼 🌼
Shows Bryan and I are currently watching:
LOOT - Season 2 (AppleTV+)
Elsbeth - Season 1 (YouTubeTV/Paramount+)
Hacks - Season 3 (HBO Max, or whatever it’s called)
Big Door Prize - Season 2 (AppleTV+)
Bodkin (Netflix)
And I’m rewatching The Mentalist (Hulu) to unwind before falling asleep.
What are you watching these days?1
🌼 🌼 🌼
What I’m reading:
I’m three chapters in to
’ new book, The Ted Lasso Relationship Guide (Amazon link), and I already love it. I’ll have more to say when I finish it, but so far I highly recommend. You can buy it here or read more about it on Alise’s Substack:
Firstly: 'June-uary' - LOL!
Secondly: *wipes tears from eyes* THAT IS BEAUTIFUL, to gift a day at the beach to the people in the graveyard.
I remember when I was a child I read a book about signs, and the art of leaving a 'patteran' at every junction so those following you (assuming you want them to be following you, of course!) can see which way you went. Pebbles or sticks in certain configurations. I tried it with my cousins, and to this day I wonder if our actions that day are responsible for my getting lost literally anywhere.... 😉
Your posts always make me laugh. This has been a true Juneuary day down here in Centralia. My sister says it needed to be on meds (rainsunrainsunrainsun). Now rest from these posts; we'll be right here when things calm down and you return.