Salem, at last!

I traveled 1000 miles to the Northeast and spent my 37th birthday in Salem, MA. I have wanted to go to Salem ever since I saw the Bewitched episode when Samantha, Dum Dum, and Endora went; that bed warmer that followed Samantha because it was really a warlock under a spell -cast by Serena of course, really stuck in my head.

The desire was cemented when Hocus Pocus came out in 1993. I just knew Salem would seem to be tailor made for little ol' me, if I could ever just get there! In my fertile imagination, I have made up alternative identities for myself in which I live in Salem, have a shop selling my magickal crafty wares and live above the shop. I have decorated the shop and my loft above it in my head many many times. I actually found the EXACT place I had been imagining while I was there. It carried a different name than the one in my head, but there it was!

It was very important to me to take this trip all by myself. I just wanted to be ME for those 5 days. Yes, I talked and texted those I love, but my time was my own. I slept when I wanted, ate when and what I wanted, strolled where I wanted and sat on park benches in the Salem Common listening to my iPod and stitching on a Celtic Knot when I wanted. It was absolute bliss.

I dream about my Granny and her house all the time

My Granny was my world when I was little. My mama and my daddy were my security, but Granny was...something else. She was my giggle, and I don't know that anyone else ever saw that part of her. She was ignorant, yet wise; nothing special to look at, but completely beautiful. She was soft enough to drink her coffee with Sweet and Low and drink "Doc" (Diet Dr. Pepper, because she was diabetic) and hard enough to fix cars with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and build pens for her goats. Hard enough to figure out what was wrong with her tiller when it was time to plant the garden and the tiller wouldn't crank. She was mean enough to say ugly things to her daughters, who did everything right, and weak enough to bail her sons out of jail. She was strong enough to face her sons and talk them down when they were drunk enough to come after her with a machete (I witnessed this) and weak enough to resent her daughters when everything seemed to be going well with them.

The first 8 years of my life were spent in a little green house at 508 Sloss Street in Hartselle, Alabama. I'm not sure the exact year that Granny and Mama and Aunt Marty moved into that house, but I know that Mama and Aunt Marty lived there while they were in High School. Once Mama and Daddy got married, they bought granny a trailer to put on a lot just down the briar covered hill. Once I was born, there was a trail worn by my feet between the little green house and Granny's trailer. This was just in front of Shit Creek, which is what my ever eloquent Granny called that body of water that was just in front of the train tracks in the woods.

I dream about her and/or that house about once a month. Sometimes she's there and happy to see me. Sometimes she's sick and doesn't know who I am, but appreciates my company. Sometimes she is just watching soap operas and smoking cigarettes. Sometimes she is frying eggs and sometimes she is dancing.

She danced with me all the time when I was little. She would put on a Statler Brothers or Freddy Fender or Loretta Lynn album and sing along while she did a little finger snap and foot shuffle. I don't know that anyone but I ever saw her dance.