Q and I carted his mattress to the curb on Thursday evening and crossed a threshold from long-distance relationship (8.5 miles, but with Boston traffic, the time it takes can feel far) into living together.

It’s a big milestone for both of us and the universe must have known.

When I got into work on Friday morning, I tore off the next sheet of my desk calendar and the following message winked at me from page:

IT’S TIME TO MAKE A MOVE!

3, 2, 1

You push off again between the next two towering wooden platforms. Your scream is a cocktail of unadulterated joy and unbridled fear.

When I say you, I mean me because that was me screeching through the trees on a trip with Send It the winter I turned 31. I feel like it’s okay to brag about how amazing the trip was because in order to join this experience of a lifetime, you had to have cancer. We ate delicious meals, braved white water rapids, practiced yoga in a dream tree house, danced on a catamaran, hiked to a waterfall, surfed in the ocean and as I was saying before, cruised above the trees hooked into a crisscross of ziplines high in the sky. I almost can’t believe my luck to have had such a dreamy experience and then I remember, what qualified me for entrance into the worst club with the best members.

As our guide quipped with us and his fingers deftly clipped us in, he casually asked who we were. He wanted to know what our group was doing in Costa Rica, where we were from, what brought us together. I remember hearing someone else from the group say that we were on a retreat, which was true, but not the full picture. When it was my turn to launch off the next platform, I filled in the story a bit more and shared with our guide that we were a group of young people impacted by cancer.

He looked at me and tugged at the collar of his shirt to reveal a small scar. “I’m part of your club” he said as he pointed to his own port scar, a mark that many of us on the trip shared as a visible reminder of where our treatments had entered our veins. The jokes slid away momentarily as we realized how rooted in connection our stories were from our perch way up in the trees.

On the plane back, I was reading Practicando el Poder del Ahora by Eckhart Tolle. I vaguely remember coming across this Spanish copy of The Power of Now in a laundromat but can’t be sure. Memory is vexing sometimes. Luckily, thanks to my anal-retentive tendencies, I maintain a spreadsheet (these days, I also keep track on Goodreads in addition to my spreadsheet, which I recognize further proves the previously mentioned point about my personality), so I know that it was the Spanish version and not the English because I read the copy in my native language two years prior. Unfortunately, the Spanish language does not do much to improve the book. It still reads as mostly gibberish, but nevertheless, I am guilty of reading it twice and will admit that Eckhart does surprise you with astute gems of wisdom when you least expect it. At least the second time, I practiced my Spanish.

I didn’t realize that I had left the book in the seat pocket in front of me until I had already deboarded the plane. It wasn’t the book I was worried about; it was the makeshift bookmark lodged in its pages. I had penned a postcard to my friend S who had lived with me in Madrid and had by that point made her way back to the States. I had written the note and her address on the postcard but hadn’t yet placed the stamp in its right-hand corner. I remember waiting anxiously near the gate while the cleaning crew finished up their work, maintaining hope that maybe my book and its bookmark would make its way back to my hands, but no luck. I figured the spiritual scavenger hunt of a book and the words I wanted to mail to S were lost. I could be comforted only by the thought that maybe there was some lesson hidden here. I was practicando accepting the Now.

Months later, though, I received a text from S. She relayed that I had made her day!

When I saw her message and the photos attached, I responded, that no, it was her that had made my day!

The postcard I had intended to send to her, had found itself in some kind soul’s hands.

They had purchased a stamp and placed the note in the mail at some point, somewhere for my friend in NYC to receive it.

While it may not be fully Witchy, I judge that to be incredibly kind.

Last fall, Q went to Brooklyn for a long weekend to celebrate a friend’s birthday. When he was there, he sent a text to say that he had some “random witchy moments this morning getting coffee and breakfast.” Just as I have absorbed the soccer discourse, he has soaked in the concept of Witchy Moments. He then went on to share photos of Fancy Free, an Arsenal bar down the street where his friend, R, lives in BK. R “Lives near an arsenal fan bar!” For me, this news may not have risen to the level of meriting an exclamation mark, but for Q, this was great! Although, in my opinion, maybe not Witchy…yet.

About 12 hours later, in the evening on his way for the birthday celebration dinner, I received another text: “I think i randomly saw S and J at the Arsenal fan bar.” S being my friend from college and J her husband. Now that, I would deem Witchy. In a city of 8.58 million people and thousands of bars, for my boyfriend to text me about one specific bar in the morning and then for my friend from college to be seated at that exact bar that night and for them to overlap, seems to be unlikely if not Witchy. I confirmed later with S who said “Yes!!! Omg! I thought that was him! I was like nah can’t be so I wrote it off.” It’s a small world out there.

Speaking of Witchy Moments and soccer, this photo of Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal circulating on the internet rises to epic proportions of Witchiness. The snapshot depicts 20-year-old rising Barça superstar at the beginning of his astronomically successful career, bathing a 5-month-old baby Yamal for a charity calendar. About 19 years later, these two men faced each other in the World Cup final game of Spain vs. Argentina today. What are the chances?

You are here with me.

You show me the way.

You welcome me into spaces and connect me to people.

You make me feel at home, you offer me a resting place, you sparkle in the early light, you adorn gifts from those I adore, you reassure me in forlorn places.

You represent resilience, you are beauty.

Erin French and her Lost Kitchen have been part of our family zeitgeist for long enough for me to have forgotten when they entered it. We’ve never been to her cult famous restaurant in Freedom, Maine but not for lack of trying. Reservations are accepted by postcard. Why postcards? Quick aside because the website mentions magic in its explanation:

“The Lost Kitchen is small. That’s part of its magic. And we want to keep it that way. So when your card is pulled, you become our focus. We want you to be excited every step of the way. From the moment we first speak on the phone to the moment you walk across the bridge and into our dining room, we want you to feel like you’re coming home. This is our greatest joy. ​​And if your card isn’t pulled, a piece of you stays with us.​”

I have sent a postcard but have not snagged a reservation. I now feel reassured that a piece of me is with them regardless. Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals about approaching the pursuit of reading like dipping into a current of water. The deluge of material one could possibly read surpasses the amount of text one can actually consume. Even my friends who are Readers with a capital R, can’t read it all. Striving to stay ahead of the current can feel like drowning. Instead of trying, Mr. Burkeman suggests allowing the river of books, articles, etc. to pass. Instead, he suggests reaching into the river momentarily to read what goes by knowing that the whole river can’t be read.

I like this philosophy and have modified it to largely read books suggested by friends, family or clients because it feels like a point of connection and a portal into another person’s view of the world. It also narrows the scope of all that could be read. So, when my dad recommended reading Erin French’s memoir, Finding Freedom, of course I read it. Her story opened up conversations about food, family and addiction as he had read the book as well. If reading bridges the space between us cerebrally, food connects us physically and emotionally. And then there’s rhubarb spoon cake, which unites us spiritually.

Rhubarb has always tasted like spring to me on the cusp of summer. It also tastes like home. Having grown up in Vermont, I salivate just thinking about the weed and how its bitter crunch is alchemized into tangy, sweet, deliciousness when mixed in with sugar and better yet, with juicy strawberries. During my last visit home, my dad and I geeked out about his recipe collection and plucked out a rhubarb pudding cake from Ruth Reichl’s Gourmet Today. We liked it (what’s not to like?) but agreed it wasn’t quite as complex or impressive aesthetically as the tried and true spoon cake recipe from The Lost Kitchen.

Q and I were lucky enough to get a bite of the beloved spoon cake last weekend after a gypsy jazz concert in Northampton. My dad had tucked the cast iron skillet it in which the cake had been baked into the backseat of his car to be enjoyed post performance. Paper plates, plastic spoons and the trunk of his car provided all that we needed for a parking garage tailgate. The cake was divine, but as Sam Sifton, former restaurant critic for the New York Times, wrote in his final column in the role back in 2011, it’s really all about the people around the table, or in this case, the trunk of a car. As he concluded his piece,

“Nothing was wrong. Everything was right. It would have been nice if it could have gone on forever.”

The very next day, my dad sends me an email. It’s Erin French’s newsletter and which recipe did she happen to showcase? The Rhubarb Spoon Cake.

Rhubarb Spoon Cake – The Lost Kitchen

A few weeks ago, I made the 30 minute trek west to the Natick Spiritual Center for Spirit Drum. I had been to this drum circle once before and it has rented space in my mind since. It was just as woo as it sounds and I loved getting in touch with my inner drum. Attending the circle was not originally on my calendar, but when the timing aligned for me to go, I didn’t miss a beat.

It had already been a full day. It started off with putzing around at home with a candle burning for a touch of hygge and an impromptu chat with my neighbor about a variety of topics including Q’s upcoming move to Roslindale. In the context of our conversation, I remember expressing my excitement and saying that I wanted him to “come here”, which I only remembered afterwards because I spent time ruminating on the phrasing I had chosen.

That conversation preceded a date with two friends at a new Yemeni cafe in Brookline. The three of us caught up on life updates over coffee. I shared that I was #1. proud of mowing the lawn for the first time in my life and #2. looking forward to celebrating 2 years with Q that long weekend. Q and I had planned a scavenger hunt to celebrate and I told my friends about the list of activities on deck inspired by how we spent the day 2 years ago when we decided to officially date including the most romantic gesture of all: installing window AC units. The scavenger hunt centered around this activity at the heart of our love story.

We had met in the morning because I already had plans lined up with another friend, J, to watch Eurovision, which has now become an annual tradition. J and I love the absurd pomp and circumstance of it all and this year’s did not disappoint. We wrapped up our watch party a little earlier than anticipated hence why attending the drum circle emerged as an option to round out my admittedly eclectic day.

When I returned to my car to drive home after what had been a cathartic drum circle experience, I opened up Spotify for music to keep me company on the way home and chose my Liked Songs playlist on shuffle for the job. The first song that came on was “Inner Drum” by 2fox featuring Afronaut Zu & AMO, which was Witchy considering I was pulling away from participating in the drumming circle.

When that song wrapped up, a Eurovision song from 2024 started up next:

“la noia” by Angelina Mango

Sure, it was not a song from this year’s Eurovison, but still. At this point, my curiosity was piqued. What was the next element from the day that would be represented in this mishmash of music? There it was, more hidden, but still there: a nod to the coffee we’d consumed in the song:

“Hello Hello Hello” by Remi Wolf

“She's starflower and coffee
You can put her in your pocket
And take her across the country”

Now I was straight up laughing. My ears pricked for the next Witchy nod to the day. Buried in the song “Love Me Not” by Ravyn Lenae, were the words that came out of my mouth earlier in conversation with my neighbor:

“Oh, no, I don't need you, but I miss you, come here
And, oh, it's hard to see you, but I wish you were right here”

So far, most of the activities of the day had been covered in the songs, but a few more guiños were left. The scented candle I had lit while enjoying the solitary morning hours had it’s time in the limelight with “Candle Flame” by Jungle featuring Erick the Architect:

As I was pulling into my neighborhood, thoroughly tickled by the Witchiness, one last song came on to round things out. The procession of songs ended with “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. The sappy classic ushered me into the anniversary part of the weekend when Q and I would spend time together the next day into the next.

Fast forward to a year later and I am representing my private practice, Sage Therapies, at an event showcasing businesses offering wellness services. Even having a table at the Wellness Fair was slightly Witchy given that I had not originally planned to attend. A friend was supposed to visit that weekend and tabling was not in the cards; however, when our plans changed last minute, I reached out to the organizers to see if there was space in the event that was to take place days later. A few emails later, I was locked in to have a table for Sage Therapies where I hoped to make connections that would help the practice grow. All that aside, it felt kismet to run into S given that she was one of the first people I spoke to about the private practice concept and her generosity of knowledge helped me to lay the groundwork for staring the practice.

S and I shared in the delight of running into each other a year post our meet up in this particular context. When we were asked to enter the raffle, I half joked that it wasn’t a bad idea since the lurking fear that my laptop could bite the dust had been gnawing at me and well, that would not bode well for my private practice that I run from my laptop. S knowingly said she had a good feeling that I was going to win. I laughed and hoped she was right. I jotted down my name and wandered back to by booth to continue greeting folks passing by. Later on, S and her girlfriend stopped by my table; they hadn’t seen it or me on entry and I hadn’t seen them either. We circled back around to how fortuitous it was that we had run into each other here in this setting. As we talked, we heard over the loudspeaker the announcement of the raffle winners. Low and behold, S’s feeling was not misguided. My name was announced as the winner of a laptop. I was shocked but not surprised. It was textbook Witchy.

When I write my musings and send them into the abyss, I can now expect a trickle of responses in return. I can consistently count on readership from friends…or their dads. My own dad was one of the first to follow; then my friend C’s (whom I wrote about here and here); When I attended my friend J’s wedding (that I wrote about here) a friend of hers came up to me and asked about my writing. Who told her about it? My friend J’s dad! Apparently, he’d been reading. After that, I realized dads were my demographic and unabashedly sent the link to another friend to share it with her husband’s dad who had been initiated into the cult of Witchy Moments through the speech I gave at their wedding and now will report on his own Witchy Moments from time to time.

This is all to tee up this week’s Substack that is actually a Witchy Moment shared with me by my dad. Much to my delight, he has latched on to the concept and we’ve bonded over more than a few Witchy Moments that have come to fruition since we first discussed the concept in the hills of Vermont. Moreover, I learned he has been proselytizing the concept of Witchy Moments to other dads (or at least, one other dad that I know of as evidenced here). With his permission, I will share the message I received from him a few weeks ago after he travelled to San Francisco and saw an old friend from medical school. Here is the photo referenced and the text in italics is my dad’s text to his friend:

Yes, I think you had sent that to me before, but thanks for sending it again! In fact, I was just thinking about this on the way home today. I was listening to the podcast Good Food from KCRW. Evan Kleiman was interviewing a woman who wrote a book about why children are now picky eaters.

This picture was taken at an Afghan restaurant (if I remember correctly) and Tegan was enjoying spicy Afghan dumplings.

It’s a foundational family story about how Tegan has always had an adventurous palate, and proving the point that children can still be adventurous eaters!

What’s more, Tegan is writing a Substack column now about “Witchy Moments.” Coincidences that make you raise your eyebrow…. How could that happen?

This actually defines a witchy moment. I visit my friend from medical school in San Francisco, and while driving home I am listening to a podcast from San Francisco interviewing a woman who wrote a book about why modern children have become such picky eaters, which reminds me of the fact that my daughter was (actually) NOT a picky eater because she really loved to eat spicy Afghan dumplings. By coincidence, you are looking for your social security card the same day and come across the picture of us (and Tegan) eating dumplings at the Afghan restaurant.

Although I don’t think there’s some force in the cosmos that made this happen, it is definitely a witchy moment…

That was definitely yung pueblo

to

That couldn’t have been yung pueblo

Why was my favorite poet jogging at my favorite pond? I was enroute to an outdoor yoga class, but my shyness swallowed me whole and I said nothing. yung pueblo and I are friends only in the parasocial sense. While he doesn’t know me from the next faithful Instagram follower, I whizzed through his trilogy: Inward, Clarity and Connection and The Way Forward in a span of three months and read his book Lighter in that same time frame. When he released his newest book How to Love Better, you better believe Q and I were on a wooden pew at the First Parish Church when his book tour made a stop in Cambridge.

My introduction infatuation with yung pueblo’s work started with a friend’s mom lending giving me his slim book of poetry Clarity and Connection during a visit to California. For me, reading yung pueblo’s poetry feels like being understood by a long lost friend. The way he arranges words on the page and their profound simplicity holds up a mirror to my own thoughts and feelings and reveals a deep, intuitive knowing.

give like earth

be flexible like water

protect yourself like fire

be boundless like air

-yung pueblo

No notes.

While my introversion prevented me from saying something, anything to yung pueblo in the moment, it did not stop me from gushing to Q:

“Oh my gosh I am convinced I just saw yung pueblo running at the pond”

He responded once the yoga class had begun and my phone was tucked away with:

“Haha you should have said hello or straight up asked if it was him.”

After I’d rolled my yoga mat back up, I responded to his text with:

“I knowwww biggest regret of the day lol”

By that point, the sun was shining strongly as I retraced my steps back around the pond’s perimeter. It seemed unlikely with the heat that yung pueblo would still be running as more than an hour had elapsed, yet I wistfully sent out a Hail Mary into the ether in the hopes of a second take at greeting this modern day prophet.

When he came around the corner, the doubt that had held me back before was erased. I had been staring at his face on the back cover of his books and religiously following his IG content. Even though I knew it was him, I waved at him and asked him if he was yung pueblo. He confirmed that yes, he was yung pueblo (his pen name). He was even more gracious than I could have imagined and listened humbly as I fangirled over how his writing had become a compass for me, guiding me ever since I cracked open Clarity and Connection. I even told him that Q and I had read How to Love Better for our mini book club (by mini I mean just the two of us) and how his posts on Instagram had become a shared language for us. If it sounds corny, I don’t care because it’s true.

In response, he expressed gratitude and told me that he had clocked my shirt and chuckled earlier when he ran by me. As it turns out, he was in town visiting his mother who lives in Roslindale (my shirt read: “London, Paris, Tokyo, Roslindale) and he had come to jog at one of his old haunts having grown up in JP. It was a brief mirage of an exchange, but there was time enough for him to encourage me to consider vipassana meditation retreat and to wish Q and I well in our relationship together. I walked away in awe. We had yung pueblo’s blessing and now I know there is a vipassana retreat in my future.

What do you do for play/fun?

That was the gist of the questions we were asked to answer as we sat in a circle on the hardwood floor of Frog Lotus Yoga in North Adams, Massachusetts. There we were, a group of about 20 of us, sitting around in this introductory circle of the Yoga Teacher Training (YTT). Little did I know, I would make friendships that would long outlive the Sanskrit words I would try to commit to memory.

We went around, one by one, answering the questions posed to us and meeting the faces around the room. When my turn came, I said something like: “For school, I just graduated from college this spring and for work, I’ll be moving to Madrid, Spain to teach English next month.” I don’t remember what I said for play/fun at that time, so we’ll assume I said something original like “yoga”. I abdicated my turn and looked over at the girl to my right. J was cooler than me. I knew it by her turquoise yoga mat, her sunshine confidence and the lotus flower tattooed in white ink on her arm.

It was her turn to answer the questions. She started with something like: “For school, I just graduated from college this spring” and finished with “and for work, I’ll be moving to Madrid, Spain to teach English next month.” Here we were, me having haphazardly joined this YTT after a hungry yet brief foray into a yoga practice and J, having traveled all the way from Florida to enroll sight unseen in this training. We happened to plop down next to each other to form this circle, a formative stop on our path enroute to a gig across the Atlantic. If this was not a Witchy Moment, I don’t know what is.

Our paths intertwined in that circle nearly 12 years ago. This weekend, we are celebrating J’s wedding to M in Miami. At the end of the training, our teacher had jokingly cautioned J not to be a bad influence on me. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one aware that J was the cooler of the two. We’ve since joked that it’s now not so clear who was the bad influence on whom. To wax poetic briefly on our friendship, I will recall our ritual of lunch in El Retiro on Wednesdays after work, silly nights of beer and dancing, one hug in particular that consoled my first heartbreak, yoga classes (and more yoga classes) in studios across Madrid, Berlin, Boston, Miami and Zoom, games of phone tag that inevitably result in ruminations on life, growth, family and fear, not to mention our shared love for cachonda accessories.

I have come to liken the spiritual give-and-take of our friendship to Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumb path. J has been patiently preparing a trail for me for years. She tells me about some new experience she’s had or book she’s read. I express curiosity mixed with caution and then multiple years later, I follow in her footsteps trying that experience or reading that book. I wish there were a word to capture the feeling of gratitude to a previous version of ourselves for becoming friends. She is sage beyond her years. Her soul sparkles. She is a North Star.

I heard about M for years before we met. When we finally did, I was moved to tears by his gentle presence and the kind words he offered as a blessing before we we shared a meal together. I began to cry, which is maybe not that surprising, because I cry often and easily, but there was something beautiful about this man expressing himself alongside my friend. I felt overwhelmed by happiness for J to have a partner in M and immense reverence for the friendship that has spanned miles and años. May you bring each other as much joy, growth and abundance that J has shown me over the years.

¡Os quiero mucho!

T: Z, tell me about your Witchy [travel] Moment?

Z: I was on a flight with J after the holidays—Boston to Denver—and it was a Southwest flight, which means you get to choose, or RIP, you got to choose your seat. J and I sat down next to this nice man, had a small conversation at the beginning of the flight, went through the whole flight. We were delayed in deplaning, all ready to go and struck up another conversation with this guy sitting next to me. One of the things we chatted about was how he loved exploring the coast of Oregon. He was considering settling down somewhere there. I was talking about how I went on this amazing trip in Oregon and I loved the state parks, it was really wonderful biking and it was such a beautiful spot in an unexpected way.

As I was talking about this trip to Oregon, the person directly in front of us stood up and said:

“Z[my name] O[last name]!?”

“It’s B[his name] B[last name]!”

B was my Overland co-leader who I led the biking trip with along the coast of Oregon. I was literally talking about an experience with this person that I had eight years ago and he’s in the row in the plane that has open seating. He could have sat anywhere on the plane and he sits right next to me! In the deplaning process, we could have just deplaned and if he hadn’t heard my voice, we would have never known that we were sitting next to each other on this flight!

The fact that the plane was a little bit delayed in deplaning, the fact that we were sitting one row from each other and then, the fact that I was talking about Oregon and he was on that trip with me all made it extra Witchy.

T: That is really Witchy! You said it was 8 years ago that you were on the trip?

Z: Yeah, we were on the trip in summer of 2017.

T: Have you stayed in contact?

Z: He visited on a trip through Colorado in 2018 and we sent a text a year ago, so we stayed in contact but not close contact. He was enroute to Albuquerque, so final destination wasn’t Denver.

T: What brought you the most delight about that experience?

Z: I think when you’re talking about someone indirectly and that person appears was really funny, but I think another delight was seeing someone who you haven’t seen in so long and so much life has happened to both of you. It’s fun catching up in a condensed ten minutes (he had a layover) tell-me-everything-about-your-life and it’s also funny to give a hug to someone on the other side of your plane seat! We accidentally caught the attention of everyone around us.

T: How did other people respond?

Z: I didn’t totally pay attention to other peoples’ responses, but I’m sometimes an overly enthusiastic person, so it was definitely clear to some people that there was some sort of reunion happening on the plane.

T: How did B react?

Z: He’s a similarly enthusiastic person, so he was also super excited to see me and said, “Wait, this is crazy!” Being detected based on my voice, was a particular skill and that it didn’t come up throughout the flight. It was also cool for him to get to meet J.

T: That’s so special. It makes me wonder how often things like this happen and we don’t even know.

Z: Yes! I think that’s such a Witchy part of it. The likelihood of knowing someone on your plane, sitting next to them and especially going to a location that neither of us live in Boston and he doesn’t live in Denver, so the chances of being on that plane a few seats behind.

Now, the question is: with the end of open seating on Southwest, will there be fewer or more Witchy Moments?

It’s safe to say that all of what I learned in that training has softened into a blur with one exception: the mesmerizing sound of Jhene Aiko’s Trigger Protection Mantra. The workshop facilitator had shared this song as one of her fail proof methods of helping clients to center themselves and I’ve used it with my clients and on myself countless times since. Try it out for yourself: Jhené Aiko - Trigger Protection Mantra.

Despite flirting with the idea, I never looked into how to apply or thought much about what I would teach. Cue the email from Boston College Continuing Education. An intuitive force compelled me to hit reply and possessed me to inquire about applying to teach a workshop and even a topic crystallized. My fingers typed out a proposal to focus on the topic of providing support to individuals with cancer utilizing a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) approach. Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity comes to mind: “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” It felt like I had found one.

Less than 10 minutes later, I received a reply. “We are currently accepting proposals for workshops. Please find details below. The deadline was today, but I can extend the deadline to Tuesday morning (2/17) for you to be considered.” The sheer Witchiness of the timing of my e-mail inquiry coinciding with the deadline practically yelled at me to apply. I submitted my proposal the same day, there was no need to extend and no need to feel nervous about the outcome. In her song, Jhene Aiko’s sings:

You are protected
You are protected
Slow down
Calm down your energy

The workshop will be called Both/And: DBT Strategies for Cancer and the content will introduce a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)-informed framework for supporting patients and families across the cancer care continuum, from diagnosis through survivorship or end-of-life care. The proposal idea was accepted and my workshop scheduled. I am pleased to share that it will be coming to your kitchen table via Zoom this June.

Second, there was the Great North American Eclipse. Was it a sign that our nascent relationship was planetarily aligned? Unclear how the two are related, but the next fully visibly solar eclipse in the continental United States will not occur for another two decades, so there’s that. Q and I joked that it must be auspicious to begin a relationship at the same time as such a rare astronomical event. Good things come in threes so we agreed that we needed to look out for another sign. And then…

Third, I went for a run around the pond on the Emerald Necklace, my stomping ground for movement meditation. As I rounded the curve to the pond’s gazebo, my thoughts drifted to Q and the handful of recently christened QT (pronounced: “cutie”) adventures we’d had so far. I clocked the cautious optimism of a budding of a relationship. My mind in the clouds, my legs moving, my eyes caught the letters draped on the gazebo’s brick wall. I had seen other words scrolled there before, but these were new. Scribed out of moss they read: “You are growing on me!” Could there be a more cheesy yet perfect sign? As I took out my phone and aimed the camera at the words capturing my sentiments towards Q, he messaged me at EXACTLY the same time. In fact, there could be.

Dr. A sending me a text during the same segment of time that I happened to recount the story of connection with his daughter practically defines the Witchy Moment. I felt the tug of yet another invisible thread seemingly sewing me to Christine (and her family). Our itinerary in Maine did not allow me to respond to Dr. A until I had returned home and had a night’s rest. The plans for the day were sweet: we went shopping and spent time with C’s sister who was pregnant at the time and visited one of their friend’s who had recently given birth. As I held the friend’s infant, I could barely fight back tears as the thought of my surgery scheduled for the next month to preventatively remove my ovaries was brought into stark relief.

The levies burst when C and I got in the car to return home. As we sped down the highway, my hands gripped the steering wheel and tears streamed down my face for miles. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy names a concept that emotions can be valid while the intensity of the emotions may not fit the facts of the situation. I am not denying that my emotions were valid, my therapist and I agreed they were, but the magnitude of grief washing over me as I drove, transcended the sadness around my upcoming oophorectomy that had been dredged up by the afternoon with C’s pregnant sister and her friend’s baby.

It was not until the next day that the intensity of grief I felt on I-95 made sense. In the softness of morning light, I felt able to respond to Dr. A despite my emotional hangover from crying so thoroughly the night before. Mere minutes later, he responded with the news that his wife, F, had “joined Christine in Heaven last night.” Of course, I will never know if this is true, but I felt it in my bones that I had known. He wrote “she is at peace and no longer suffering physically, or emotionally, or spiritually." No doubt my highway tears were prompted by the mess of emotions mixed into the theme of fertility, but Dr. A’s words filtered the emotional waters in which I had been floundering. I was grieving my own losses but also those of Christine’s family. Once again, I felt a cosmic connection and even if it’s a made up constellation in my mind, I’d still like to believe it’s true.

January 2022: It was one of those days where the minutia of the day goes awry at the start and just doesn’t stop. There were mishaps with scheduling clients and e-mail mix-ups where I sent the wrong information to the wrong people. My wires were tangled and I created more work for myself with every mistake I made. 5 o’clock arrived and I closed my laptop. There was no point in continuing to fumble through any more work. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it something was off.

Shortly thereafter, I received a call from my dear friend C. We had been texting in the days prior about our shared friend Christine. All three of us had met in the trenches of our virtual cancer support group and Christine had gone radio silent on WhatsApp. Christine had been hospitalized at the tail end of her treatment; she was inpatient and isolated as this was not only when the three of us had cancer, but it was also still the pandemic. C was worried. I responded with messages of reassurance. C had support, a strong medical team, love. C was on the line with the news that Christine had passed. She was 32. She had just finished med school. She was about to start her residency. She was too young to die.

Despite never having met Christine outside of a Zoom rectangle—she had joined the virtual support group from her home in Virginia—I had felt a particular gravitation towards her. She and I shared a deep-rooted love for the Ginkgo tree—the ancient, resilient tree my mom favored and since my mom’s passing, has become representative of my family’s connection to and reverence for her. One of Christine’s last posts on Instagram, captured a gorgeously large Ginkgo with vibrant gold leaves weighing down it’s branches with the caption: Mother Ginkgo, you are prefect.

That call created a link that locked C and I together. We were and forever will be connected, tethered to that moment in space and time. It goes without saying that I was shaken. I also couldn’t shake the feeling that, on some level, I had known. My prefrontal cortex had been offline all day and it wasn’t until C’s voice broke the news that the why of the murky feeling that things were off came into focus. We are all connected.

The negative space left on the tree after 2009 marks my mom’s passing. If I could bring to mind anything from those initial Christmases without her, I would, but grief makes mush out of memories. I do remember that in the months prior to the 2018 holiday, an Etsy search and a credit card made it possible for me to bring back the tradition when I came home from grad school for the holidays. I tucked the wrapped ornament I had ordered under the tree and waited with anticipatory delight for my dad and sister, Z, to unwrap the small yet symbolically large gift.

Before they had the chance to open the package, Z handed me one to open first. As my hands unwrapped the paper hugging a wooden frame, my mind connected the dots of what had happened. Both Z and I had arrived at the same idea, 8.5 years after my mom’s death. In alternating red and green thread, my sister (yes! she actually made hers!) had needlepointed: “How much charge do we have?” What was first anticipatory delight, morphed into awe. She had chosen a phrase now well established in our family’s nomenclature since my dad had purchased his fully electric car and familiar to anyone who has known what it is to experience charge anxiety. Her hand-crafted ornament nodded to our dad’s move to electrify.

Knowing what was scrolled across the circular ornament waiting to be opened, I handed her the gift I had then proudly (and now bashfully) had merely ordered. It was her eyes’ turn to sparkle when she saw what was inside. Not only had we both decided to bring back our mom’s beloved tradition in the same year, but we had received the same message through sister telepathy as to what to memorialize in thread. Her eyes rested on the words “Give Green A Chance” that had been stitched on an olive background. My Etsy-ordered ornament also gestured to our dad’s step towards sustainability. The three of exchanged looks that ping-ponged back and forth as we felt the touch of our mom’s presence in this exchange of presents.

L was grieving during that time. Her friend and another former client of mine, C, had abruptly passed away in late November. C’s passing had devastated L; she was racked by guilty thoughts, berating herself for not doing enough to write a different story for her friend. My heart was broken too. As a therapist, you’re not supposed to have favorites, but we do and C was mine. Seeing L was both a reminder of the pain we felt and also a recognition of our shared connection to the deceased. Months later, when the weather was warm again, L took me outside to show me a small rock garden planted near one of the hospital’s paved parking lots. L had placed a stone she made for C, her initials simply painted on it’s smooth grey surface. I think of her when I pass by this humble offering. I also think of C when I see the moon, which was the object of one of her obsessions and to say, every night.

Eerily, almost exactly 1 year later, I received news that L had passed. Also, suddenly and again, my questions remain unanswered. I do not know how or when or why. I just know what is. I had forgotten that Elpheba and L shared a common sparkle. It was not until Q and I returned to the theater to watch Wicked: For Good (the same week I learned of L’s passing), that I once again saw L in the small gap between the teeth of Elpheba’s smile. As we sat, gazing at the big screen, I spent 2 hours and 17 minutes with my client.

L, keep smiling.

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December 21

Today, I am starting something new. December 21st has become somewhat of a personal holiday over the past 5 years. This day of the longest night marks both the winter solstice, beginning astronomical winter, and my own personal winter solstice as it was the day I was diagnosed with cancer at 27 years old. Out of the darkness, comes light; each day following the winter solstice contains more light than the last. It has now been 5 years since my diagnosis and I’ve experienced multiple cycles of darkness and light, lightness and dark.

For the last two years, I have embarked on a year-long project to mark this day and move toward light over the course of the year. First, it was a project of dancing everyday. The dance became a journal chronicling my moods, the people in my orbit and the adventures that unfolded along the calendar year. Last year, the project morphed into monthly gatherings that pushed me to the edges of my comfort zone of introversion. I have come to crave the challenge of an annual project, the routine it provides and the sense of satisfaction upon its completion.

Witchy

My project for this year will take the form of a bimonthly newsletter chronicling what my friends and family (some more enthusiastically than others) refer to as Witchy Moments. A Witchy Moment is when the universe aligns in a way that feels magical, when something you’ve just talked about or thought about suddenly appears, or unfolds, with uncanny timing. It’s not just coincidence. It’s synchronicity. A nudge from the universe that something special is at play. Witchy Moments can range from the mundane to the existential. They bring me delight and they provide a lens for spiritual introspection.

Threads in a Tapestry

When I experience a Witchy Moment, I have the tingling sensation that I am glimpsing the threads of life’s tapestry. Witchy Moments feel like peaking into the fabric that connects us all and folds time onto itself. My desire to write about Witchy Moments is rooted in a wish to spend extra time dwelling in and celebrating these glitches in the matrix. I can’t help but feel curious about what patterns will emerge through writing about them. I also hope that through writing about them, I can bring sparks of joy to anyone who may read this newsletter. I would love to hear and share Witchy Moments from friends, family and strangers alike. Through sharing, maybe we will feel that much more connected to one another and also the transcendent.

The Initiation

In my experience, Witchy Moments glitter everywhere and anywhere as long as your eyes are open to them. Sometimes, I experience a drought of Witchy Moments and other times, I feel like a magnet for them. I suspect there will be ample Witchy Moments to write about twice a month and if there are not, I invite the exercise of reflecting on ones from the past. I hope to draw friends and family into the fold. So, if your curiosity is piqued, please share your Witchy Moments with me and welcome into the coven…

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