Familiar
Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft?
November and I are in a feud.
Have been for the entirety of my life.
This feud has everything — illness, family tension, death, weddings, and a grudge so strong I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving anymore.
However, in the recent years my hostility to the darkest season has turned into a deep and seething hatred for turkeys.
The ones in Oakland are particularly vicious. They block traffic, bullrush children, and while I cannot confirm they have TECHNICALLY robbed anyone, I wouldn’t put it past them.
There’s an intimacy to a chosen enemy. As much as friendship. You have to know them, but also not know them, because if you empathize too closely, you’ll have to face the parts of you that live in them. I don’t know what the opposite of a familiar is. A rogue, chaotic element that is not interested in your bidding or even your contentment, but that’s me and turkeys.
November 2021, I was standing in front of the jail with socks, some jackets, hot coffee, and a charged cell phone to get people rides when they’d been discharged. The jail releases people into the cold with half their clothes, often no shoes, and dead cellphones if they get a phone back at all. It’s nowhere near public transit. But the lawn is still green because there’s sprinklers, that spray extravagantly into the dark and frigid Northern California night. They run so often that water pools near the sidewalk. We’re in a draught; we’re always in a draught. The lawn of the prison is so green, it’s marsh land.
The wild turkeys love it and I hated them for it. I saw them every time I did jail support. A giant Tom clumsily prancing with his cluster of unassuming hens. I saw them and they saw me and neither one of us wanted to adjust to one other. I whispered threats under my breath whenever they get close. They insisted on getting close.
When the police officers started trickling out for a shift change, I stiffened. So did the turkeys. The officers didn’t look at me, they wove on the sidewalk away from me like they always did on these shifts, and I went back to pacing on cement to try to keep warm. The nights of California are wet and slice through even the puffiest jacket.
That’s when the Tom got vicious. He puffed up in aggression, squaring up to the cops, plumage skyward and broad. He looked hideous but menacing, and he started to squawk and gain pace at the cops. The cops started to walk faster and faster until the Tom went for the ankle and the officer shouted at him.
After that, the turkeys and I just passed by each other and said nothing. I stopped whispering threats. They stopped getting closer.
The thing about a chosen enemy, is that you someday have to realize they are more like you that you thought.
I started finding turkey feathers on the sidewalk, and carrying them whenever I went to the jail. Then started keeping them in my glove box to deter tickets and getting pulled over.
I am still in a feud with November. But turkeys and I begrudgingly belong to each other. We know each other more intimately than either one of use would like.
You might even say we’re familiar.
If you like this newsletter you’re going to love Spells for Success! She arrives in the world January 21st.
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Find me by sending a crow to the only streetlight in the smallest town you've ever heard of.
Or by checking out my website laureneparker.com