"Witch"

I hummed to my plants while tending my garden and Bro2 said I was "witch compatible".  This was before I knew anything about Wiccans and I took offense.  Aside from Glinda the Good Witch, witches were ugly and evil.  I looked up Wiccans and decided I agreed with them about gardening.  In fact, they're probably better at it because they pay attention to moon phases though Dad paid attention to that too and I'm pretty sure he wasn't a witch.  He just studied the Farmer's Almanac.

As I'm wont to do, a little research ended up in quite of it before I decided I'm definitely not a witch, and I'm not going to be one.  Live and let live, let's talk about the healing properties of herbs.  Tip: lemon balm and fennel makes a great tea for a stuffed up head.

I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud that I could probably win a Harry Potter trivia contest.  The books soothe me when life is stressful.  Children having adventures in a magic castle is a much better world than one with politically craziness and violence.  I think we'd be better off if our schools had herbology classes too.  Maybe without the biting plants.

The other day I thought about Professor McGonagall.  She's stern and can be forbidding, but she's also dependable and capable.  She got the rules bent for Harry to play quidditch in his first year, but docked him a tremendous amount of points through his school years.  We'd all be better off with a lot more McGonagalls.  Rules, consequences, encouragement, discipline, what more do you want from a teacher?

None of us wants to admit we want these qualities enforced upon us, but we do.  Life is easier when we know what's expected of us.  This is true between student to teacher, child to parent, employee to employer, and between friends and lovers.  Set the rules and stick to them.  If a rule is bent, have a good reason for it instead of just taking the easy path because the short-term easy path becomes the harder road in the long run.

I was with a woman and her young boys in a store.  The boys screamed bloody murder for toys they wanted.  The mom gave in.  I said she'd just guaranteed her boys would scream every time they were in a store.  It would be easier to just say no and stick to it.

This is, of course, much harder to practice in reality than in theory, especially since adults have more wiles than screaming toddlers.  I could give you many examples of times I failed at it miserably.  It's at the root of my failed relationships of different kinds.  I tell someone here's my boundary.  The person steps over the imaginary line.  I feel resentful.  The person looks for more boundaries to step over.  I enforce my boundaries while feeling more resentment until the inevitable explosion.  I bet Professor McGonagall never has to deal with these problems.

It's easier to blame trespassers of my boundaries than to look at my own failed defenses.  I can't do anything about other people, but I can study better methods.  Professor McGonagall is a good example even if she's a witch in a children's book.

Happy Halloween everybody!