There's a game we play in Portland, and its rules, as I've learned, can be a bit brutal. It's called Musical Rent, and you never know when your number will come up! Whether the news comes via the dreaded pink slip or not (honestly, I'd rather meet Severus Snape in the hallway in his worst mood than come home to find one of those filthy little Umbridge-hued notices on a place I'm trying to feel secure living in), the music stops and you look down to find yourself on unstable ground, packing boxes once more. It puts a distinct damper on any ongoing projects or ways of life you may entertain. Including potistry. Even other, less-intensively prop-oriented passions of mine, such as art and writing, suffer when you don't know where next you'll be able to lay your dunderheaded noggin to sleep.
But I've learned even more pernicious than relocation are the vibes from people, such as live-in landlords or housemates, one may have to wrestle with in a space. My last home on Ainsworth Street, a dear old place built in 1895, was a great space, and who can beat antique blue linoleum with a pattern of stars in my room? But the people were awful: so repressed, their posteriors were drawn tighter than Snape's neck muscles during a row with a certain Potter. I got a book written, but I barely got one dram of brewing done, and needless to say I'm glad to be out of there.
I've since found a beautiful little attic loft, yes, another attic! But this house has incredibly good, spiritually empowering, loving energy. I can feel my mojo rising once again by the day, and am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to dwell in this healing space.
I guess I'm more of an empath than I realized, subject to resonances from other people: I call myself a "mirror empath", in fact, because my tendency seems to be to reflect back to others precisely the energy the send at me, just by virtue of my Gibralter-esque, Taurus stubbornness. A lot of folks apparently cannot handle a real personality, any more than they can handle their own shadow fired back at them. But I've learned I can only be who I am . . . and why be anything else? Bullies, insecure types, and passive-aggressives be damned, I am sick of bending myself to fit useless molds of expectation. Even small frictions have gotten very wearying at times, and I pine for my own home. My own lab? Now there's the real dream.
A few weeks ago, I met a rather cool new friend, who like me has a masculine soul; so much, in fact, that this biological female identifies as "nonbinary" or non-gendered. It's a state I felt deeply during my former Snape years, and considered entering again, even before I met Spider, who shares an eerie number of my loves and hobbies: Potions. Making our own wands. Cat's cradle. Spinning yarn with drop spindles, for Merlin's sake! Also like me, Spi is a hardcore Snape lover and "channeler", who once even got called Lady Snape by children during a photoshoot. I've never been a hardcore Potterhead, and in recent years have let off even further due to the franchise's sheer size and seeming presumption at ruling everything to do with magic, but I never stopped being a devotee of Severus, even to the point of reciting litanies to invoke his power and spirit.
Meeting this new friend, coupled with my cozy new wizard's nest of a home, has rekindled what already lurked barely veiled beneath the surface into a dark flame of enthusiasm, including an interest in magic techniques, ancient alchemy, potions . . . and active channeling of Severus Snape, the only character not of my own origin who ever drew me with such depth, intrigue and inspiration.
No, it hasn't always been an easy path I've trodden these past few years. Now and then, several of Portland's twelve bridges caught my eye as the easy way to a dead end, though I'd never actually jump: Not only would I never want to cause my father such pain, but my characters, many of them in possession of Snape's sharp tongue, would haunt if not kill me. To feel my power returning, witch-wise and otherwise, is a rush of purest joy.
Despite the overriding urge to get down and greasy, and let my Magisterial nature rampage back up into the realm of the seriously serious, I won't be posting any Snape channeling photos or cosplay shots just yet. I'll be home for Christmas . . . and so will my 88-year-old grandmother, Dixie, who loves my thick hair in its semi-blonde state, as reminiscent of my mother's hair. Oh, how she hated my hair "that awful goth black"! So I promised myself I'll hold out til after the holiday is over and done. But my potions logbook is coming home with me, and Sev? He's one patient bastard.
Look out, world (and especially country, currently under the mis-rule of the hopelessly incompetent -- or, to reference the similar "god with clay feet" personality Gilderoy Lockhart, incurably inept -- Donald Trump), here comes the 13th Witches' Battalion, riding tricked-out Garden Weasel broomsticks and rocking leather ammunition belts loaded with vials of foul concoctions . . .
Funky Sev's back.
My favourite animus . . . or one of them.
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