In flailing around, trying to determine what this year’s writing project will be, I’m digging through essays that haven’t ever seen the light of day. This one is far removed from my typical work, and still makes my stomach ache.
I don’t want to write another children’s book this year. I want to write something with a plot, which is not what I do. I want to write something with some gravity, which is what I do. I give you a piece that has little to do with agriculture, public lands, wolves, or legislation.
Voo Doo Queens
My grandmother, who was a daughter of the bayous, called them the voodoo queens. She would speak of them in a hushed voice, these queens I once thought must come in open windows to steal children from their beds. She would freshen her drink, wrapping tightly a napkin around the base of the sweating tumbler, and murmur how sometimes, you just can’t keep the voodoo queens at bay.
As a grown woman, I’ve heard the voodoo queens calling my name and understood they don’t come for children. They are the truths that would be brushed aside in strong times, but in moments of weakness, the words wash over you like good bourbon, and sting until the words make sense. You can hear the ice cubes clinking in their glasses when they come for you, their perfume loosening your grip on time and geography.
The voodoo queens came for my friend, and she never did look back. They had whispered for me then, too, but I hadn’t known the feel of the chair’s edge on the bottoms of my bare feet. Her service was made all the more beautiful by flowers sent to push away the truth by saying things like, “I don’t want to remember her that way.”
The voodoo queens, make no mistake, are lovely. They’re glamorous in linen shirts and lipstick, perpetually at home in Cadillacs that smell faintly of cigarette smoke and minty gum.
They murmur every misstep you’ve made. The voodoo queens are every doubt ever felt. They repeat the heavy, stinging words slung in your face, every “you’re worthless” and “you think you’re so smart” and “she’s crazy”. They swirl ice in an expensive glass and remind you, “he has to do the thinking for both of you.”
They’re made of every time you’ve not measured up, not been included, not been invited, and every time you’ve been ignored and disappointed. They’re every backhanded slap and every calloused hand around your throat and every “you deserved that.” They are the feeling in the pit of your stomach you felt when you saw the photo, heard the whispered rumor, or realized it was no hunch.
When they find you and pull you in with their charm, you must find solid footing because the swampy ground will pull you down. They can be resisted, and I know this to be true because I’ve smelled their perfume on the dry wind and heard their ice cubes rattling in crystal glasses.
