Bruja

“Don’t tell anyone, or they will call her a Bruja,” said my mother.  The Bruja, to which my mother referred, was my Aunt. She has The Gift. If you didn’t know, bruja is the Spanish word for witch.

I can only describe my family’s practice as a combination of Native American/folk religion and Catholicism with a dash of Santeria. More of a spiritualism. But if anyone asks, we’re Catholic, definitely NOT witches. 

It was common, where I grew up in Brooklyn, to have mixed practices. You go to Mass every Sunday, but then there is that other thing. That thing you just don’t talk about.

For example; the house across the street had the front yard blocked off for their… chickens. The delusion of them being pet chickens quickly dissolved after finding my first headless chicken in a trash can. Apparently, they were brujas too. 

Unlike our neighbors, we did not sacrifice chickens, nor did we have elaborately decorated alters. While they had statues of the “saints” with offerings of alcohol, flowers, chicken bones, and coins, we only hung a few crosses in our home. But that didn’t matter. It was our Faith that mattered.

I was taught that you have guardian angels, guides, and spirits around you, your “people”. Faith gives them strength to help guide you through your life. The only way I can describe it is like having really sharp instincts. They are the inclination that makes you turn left instead of right. They are the warning you feel in your guts when something really bad is about to happen. They are the omens.

You build a relationship with your guides through prayer. Prayer is energy. Blood rituals were forbidden. Blood binds you in life as well as in spirit. Blood is a powerful source of energy. It is life, but it is more difficult to use. Anyway, blood magic was for witches, and we’re Catholic, definitely NOT witches. 

As I got older, and learned more of the family craft, the line began between bruja and being spiritual began to waiver. I learned about faith as energy. That energy can be a propeller for protection and luck. I learned that everything requires sacrifice, and that sacrifice means a lot of things. Nothing is free.

I learned that spells and prayers are the same thing. I learned to be careful what I ask for and to balance myself. I also learned to never wish harm upon others because everything comes back to you, eventually.

I learned that every family craft was different. I learned that a bruja can be both good and terrible. I learned about a type of faith that you can only grow up with, and never really understand as an outsider. But, just in case anyone asks, we’re Catholic, definitely NOT witches.

Hok

I am told that, when I was a child, I could see spirits. Yes, I know how that sounds. Just to make things clear, I do not claim to see any spirits. In fact, I can say with 100% certainty, that to my memory I have never seen any spirits, ghosts, poltergeist, or anything of the sort.  But, this is what I was told.

For those who are spiritual, it is a common belief that children are more open to experiencing something of a supernatural nature. Hell, I actually do believe it.  Both children and animals. But to hear it about you is just very different than actually believing in it.

My mother tells this story from my childhood with hesitation. The kind of hesitation that tell me she remembers the fear she felt when it happened. She said it started when she noticed me reaching my arms up in the air, the way children do when they want to be picked up. I reached at nothing. She also noticed that sometimes I’d hide behind a chair, or even behind her legs, peeking my head out. I was afraid of something.

I am told that I stared at it, whatever “it” was, and followed it with my finger as it passed through the room. Most people would assume I was following a bug or some dust in the air but my mother, somewhat versed in the spiritual, asked me what I was looking at.

I said, “Hok.”

On night, my mother came to check on me in my bedroom. She says it was one of the most terrifying moments in her life. She said, “It was like someone grabbed you, and was slamming you around the room.” She said she ran to my side but was pushed against the wall, and had to use all her strength to get to me. She says that when she finally had me in her arms, she prayed over me all night. For all I know, I might have had a seizure. It was dark. Maybe I pushed her with seizure strength reflex. 

The next day she called a priest. I don’t know if it was a real priest or a witch doctor type. She had the house cleaned and blessed. To explain, when I say cleaned, I don’t mean with maid service, I mean like horror movie, “This house is clean,” kinda cleaned. A spiritual cleaning to remove negativity.

After the house blessing, I don't know how long after, my mother said I pointed to the window, and whisper in her ear…

“Hok is outside.”

Foot Note

Believe it or not, I get embarrassed when I write about my sexual experiences. It’s true. I was raised in a strict Spanish, Catholic home, and you didn't talk about sex. Sex was for marriage. Sex was private. Even now when I look back at what I’ve done, I shake my head and think, I can’t believe I did that. It was like some crazy movie, cheesy dialogue and all. Still, to talk about it, I’m embarrassed.

I was always told I was sexy. My sister was always beautiful and cute but me, sexy. I didn’t want to be the sexy one. I would have been happy with beautiful or cute. It was kind of ironic since I was a goth tomboy throughout college. I studied hard and didn’t pay much attention to what I wore, as long as it was black. I suppose being labeled sexy lead me to explore my sexuality despite my trauma from The Awful Kiss. 

When I was in graduate school I went to a foot interview. I answered this completely sketchy CraigsList ad that could have been some psycho-killer that wanted to keep my feet on a shelf in his refrigerator. But it was just some guy that wanted to check my feet out for some fetish work. I already knew I had nice feet. I previously dated a man that asked to see my feet. When I showed them to him, he was so happy he lifted me off the ground in a big hug. 

So I’m at the interview, an amazing loft with big pillows, intricately designed carpets, and a sofa area with flowing curtains like some exotic arabian movie. A chair was set up in the middle of a room, and this young, not-so-bad-looking guy has me sit down, and take my shoes off. So I can’t run away? The guy kneels next to me and holds my feet up to the light. He checks them in different angles, measures them, smells them. He did everything but lick them. Then the talk. What a foot fetish is, how they set up appointments. I knew it was a sexual thing, blah blah… kissing feet, blah, blah… massaging feet, blah blah. I passed the foot test! Yay! So, I leave and head into the subway to my at-the-time boyfriend David’s apartment. 

When I get to the apartment, Ring ring. The foot guy. Apparently, a German business man was in town looking for some foot loving. $250 bucks for 30 minutes. Plus a tip! You must always remember to tip your foot whore! I paused for a second with three thoughts; 1. $250 to get a foot massage, not so bad for 30 mins. 2. Possibly he wanted to keep my feet on a shelf in his refrigerator. I was about to say ok when into my head pops the image of an old, saggy, fat German man jizzing on himself, or even worse, MY FEET! Cringe. Shutter. Um, No Thank You.

That was the end of that. I chickened out. Good times. At least I still have my feet. 

The Awful Kiss

Before the age of 26, a sexual experience with another woman was pretty much a no-go. I mean, I‘m a good looking girl, I had offers. I guess I was more worried about the fall-out of being labeled a lesbian. After all, I was enrolled in Catholic school my whole life. However, It was my during time at an all-girls Catholic high school that there was just a little blip. 

To be honest, the first time I kissed a girl wasn’t sexy. There were no fireworks, there was no passion, it was just awful. I was fifteen when it happened, the awful kiss. At the time I had what I call whore’s lips. I recently discovered kissing and I was obsessed with it. I kissed as often as possible. At  the time, my kissing partner was my friend Sarah’s cousin, John. Sarah was WEIRD. And I don’t mean she was lesbian weird, she was just weird in general. She would get mad at me if I didn’t call her, even though I saw her at school everyday. I always just brushed her behavior off as nothing. A possessive friend. Sarah was the facilitator of the awful kiss. 

One day she convinces me to come over to her house using John as bait. I go. We talk. We play video games. I was playing Sonic the Hedgehog when John showed up. She strategically sits next to me and whispers, “Don’t freak out.” Don’t freak out?? What does that mean?? I glanced at her and  shrugged my shoulders, what?

“I want to weird him out,” she says. She sits on my lap and hooks her arm around my neck. I kept playing my game but in my head I’m like,  what the fuck??  “Don’t move,” she says. Don’t move? Then she kisses my cheek. A little kiss. I turn to look at her and I remember thinking she is going to kiss me. Like REALLY kiss me. I didn’t know what to do. Then there it was, the awful kiss. Smack on my mouth!  I was in shock from the kiss when her hand went down my shirt. I shot up, knocking her to the floor, and in a panic yelled out, “You made me lose my game!” 

For the next 12 years there were no sexual experiences with another woman. I think I was traumatized… 

There Was a Little Girl

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow