Of Wands and Witchlings.. #NaBloPoMo

 

A wand..my friend had a wand. I was a witch, and she had a wand. True, it was part of a fairy princess Halloween costume, but seriously. A wand is a wand. Atop her magickal blue wand sat a shining gold star. And did I mention she had lovely blonde hair and looked every bit the fairy princess when she wore the costume to school? My costume was handmade. My father was a teacher, her father a dentist, as my mother would remind. Income inequality nearly ruined Halloween and almost broke my little six year old witchling heart. I wanted so much to go as myself on Halloween; instead, I was a ghost. I was adorable and the wand quickly forgotten as I won the coolest cake ever during the musical chairs portion of the class party. It had bats! BATS!! I’m not sure I even had a piece of it. I just wanted the bats.

And yes, my friend’s dad was also my dentist and a wonderful man. I lived in a small town in Alaska with around 100 inhabitants if you didn’t count moose and sled dogs. Everyone knew everyone else. My friend’s mother was our Blue Bird leader, and she was terrific! Younger Camp Fire Girls were known as Blue Birds. Back then, Camp Fire was reserved for girls only, with the ultimate prize earned somewhere around the eighth grade, a leather piece full of beads and patches from future accomplishments and service projects I would perform. It was so much fun!

There were week-long summer camps over the years after moving to Oregon which I found horrifying, but I hung in there. I wasn’t allowed a knife to take along to camp, my mother fearing the worst, so I couldn’t carve cool rings from branches that all the girls were wearing. Devastated at the time, I would later go on to prove my mother right after she relented and let me take a knife on a weekend trip with my group. One of the moms was a nurse, and at least I didn’t need stitches. I hated when my mother was right.

The group I was attending during eighth grade was full of seventh grade girls with potty mouths so vulgar that my mother had barely gotten home after dropping me off for our monthly meeting before I was calling her, demanding that she come back immediately to get me out of there. She was less than thrilled. My mother had a way of looking at people when she felt that way, as my Camp Fire leader soon discovered.

Our dear leader could have learned much from my Blue Bird leader. Instead of organizing projects with us, she typically spent her time upstairs watching television, while her daughter honed her skills as leader of the potty mouth gang. I watched in both horror and admiration as that poor woman apologized first to my mother, and then to me before we left for home, never to return. My mother never uttered a word.

But I learned well, and I can curse like a sailor with the best of them.

It began with a wand, and ended with a lifetime of lessons learned. Even by potty mouthed seventh grade girls. And as for wands..a witch should always make her own. Which I do.

And Mom..thanks. I love you to the moon and back.

~Blessings to bloggers everywhere as we take this #NaBloPoMo journey together!