Spell

This year I have felt like I was under a spell—a spell of fatigue, grief, and anger.  Feeling this way has got me thinking about other kinds of spells, in the fairytale sense.  Young women unwittingly find danger, with poisoned apples, enchanted spinning needles, and devious witches disrupting their lives and punishing them for their daring hope.

Rapunzel lived in a tower until the age of twelve, when a prince came to rescue and marry her.  She could nearly taste her freedom, but she was found out and banished to live “in a place of misery and want,” while her intended was struck blind.

As a child, Snow White evoked the envy of the “godless” queen.  After numerous foiled attempts, the queen finally tricked Snow White into eating the poisoned apple, after which she fell dead while remaining flawless and cold in her glass coffin.

At birth, Princess Rosamond was cursed to prick her finger and sleep for a century.  Through she grew up lucky and adored, at fifteen she wandered through the castle and fell upon a sewing spindle, collapsing into a deep sleep that “fell upon the whole castle.” 

What lesson do we learn from these parables— that that the reward for youth and hope is trickery and suffering?  In 2013, girls don’t aren’t hurt by spinning needles or jealous witches, but what are anxiety, depression, grief, and abuse if not spells, bewitching forces that render us trapped, silent, and still.

After years of wandering, Rapunzel’s blinded husband found her.  Her tears healed him, and he saved her from a life of misery and suffering.

A prince barters with Snow White’s dwarves to take her coffin away on his carriage, and the ride jolts her, so that the apple dislodges and she awakes to his proposal.

Another prince finally makes it alive through the tangle of briars to kiss Princess Rosamond, breaking the spell and awaking her from her sleep.

But what if a man doesn’t break the spell?  What if the prince is there, and very kind, but the fog remains, stubbornly shading you from happiness and well-being?

It helps knowing who the enemy is.  It isn’t the patient man at your side, it isn’t the girl you miss like a second heartbeat, and it isn’t the people who want so much to help you.  It is something other, something outside yet deep within that you don’t own, but has been done to you.

One night I tried to wrap words around it. “I’m tired of feeling so angry.”  The fog thinned slightly lifted with a simple admission.  That night we went to a show, and the music jolted the apple slightly. 

Relief isn’t a grand moment of awakening, the spell breaking in one deft crack.  It takes a thousand tiny steps of honesty, song, tears, pages, hope, faith, running away, waking up, and coming back to save yourself.