Happy almost-Halloween! Every time we walk into our CVS, my daughter asks me about the decorative witches lined up on their Halloween shelves (which have audaciously been there since late July). Every time, she asks me some version of “why do they look like like that?” Every time, the question makes me freeze up a little. There’s a lot to unpack. How to I explain this mythical figure without mentioning centuries of ageism and misogyny?
But then I think about my own exposure to witches, like the 90’s cult classic (and one of my favorite Halloween movies), Practical Magic. A flop according to critics, but formative to so many of us teens and tweens at the time. I mean, the flawlessly-executed 90’s fashion! The cool aunts who throw dance parties at midnight! That stunning Victorian home! The sisterhood!! I also think of the beloved Stregga Nonna, the Italian children’s story of “grandma witch” who looks after everyone in town with spells and potions, who finds them love and cures their ailments. My mom read it to me. I now read it to my daughter.
I think of the good witches. I even think of the “weird sisters” in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Yes, they represent a classic stereotype in England at that time: the older woman whose knowledge and outspokenness makes her dangerous, unknowable, someone to be cast out of society. But they were also powerful prophets, offering a glimpse into the future of the kingdom, using their knowledge to guide destiny rather than interfere with it.
What I’m saying, I guess, is that I found an upside. Witches were created by patriarchy, but the good ones can be figures of protest against it: women who have traded their place in society for a life true to themselves, tuned into the earth and the divine. They can be keepers of important knowledge and reminders that we all have inherent wisdom, if we choose to listen.
My daughter pulls me to the Halloween aisle at CVS. She points to the bottom shelf: a line of witches, each standing three feet tall, their battery-enabled sound boxes cackling as we walk past. “Mommy, why are they like that?” A mixture of curiosity and caution in her voice. I pause. I want to tell her that the wrinkles on their synthetic rubber faces run deeper than we can see. That witches learn all the peaks and valleys of this earth simply by running their thin-skinned fingertips over their foreheads, down their cheeks. That their weathered hands know human nature better than humans themselves—a knowledge criminalized and locked up by centuries of misogyny. That they aren’t dead-eyed, but tired. Tired of living, but afraid their magic will die with them. I want to tell her that I’m drawn to them too. My skin hasn’t mapped the earth, not yet. But my body follows the tides. And I too have learned to make my wisdom a secret, to seek it in solitude. It calls to me always, though. Faint but persistent. “Trust,” I explain to my daughter, thinking again about their wrinkles, their unruly gray hair, their knowing laughter. “They’re showing us it’s okay to trust ourselves.”
