After checking out the Charter Street Cemetery the day took on the vibe of a sugar-addled squirrel. In all honesty I don’t know where we ended up but it was a lot of places! I was just having fun releasing my travel companion on the streets to indulge his ADD. Traveling with others always allows this sort of delightful shift in perspectives. Of course my own focus may have been considerably off as I had been just ahead of a migraine all day and by the time we were halfway through it had finally landed and I was just barely able to hold a single thought in my head.
Funny enough the day started after we parked and basically beelined to the nearest bathroom after being stuck in traffic for way too long. I wouldn’t even bother mentioning this except the graffiti in the stalls amused me so much. Now I’ve seen phone numbers and course language with the odd comic or cartoon but never have I used a restroom covered in inspirational Sharpie messages. One read, “Stop slut shaming!” another “Happy Pride!” It was a little weird but I appreciated it. Salem is a delightfully inclusive place.
In fact besides being a Mecca for witches Salem also has an increasing population of Satanists who are elbowing their way into the scene with their own church, political functions, and now walking tours! This I learned from their pamphlet which reads, “Join us for an illuminating walking tour of Salem, free of superstition and supernatural influences!” I mean, this makes it sound dry and boring but I won’t argue with whomever is doing their advertising. Satanists after all aren’t the baby eaters frantic middle-aged moms like to envision. They’re more likely to be pragmatic legally-minded trolls – specifically ruffling the feathers of Christians. It takes all sorts to make this world go round.
That’s the wonderful thing about Salem – all the delightful misfits all meshing with each other. You’ll notice just about every shop here has at least one table set up for Tarot readings. Maybe one of these days I’ll sit at one and satiate curiosity. This time around I only aroused the suspicion of one of the readers who was wandering around Omens when she looked at me coming in the door, “Emily! Are you Emily?” “No,” I laughed. “I am not Emily.” “Thank you for your honesty!” She was looking for a client who as luck would have it was looking for parking. She’d arrive twenty minutes later as my travel companion was poking at some sort of talisman.
The witch shops around here have everything from sage smudges and pendulums to hundreds of little statues of Baphomet, Pan, Goddess figurines, Krampus, fertility statues, the odd haunted doll, and black cats EVERYWHERE. Then there are the more specific objects which can lead someone like me to be curious and mystified. One such thing was a row of rather intimidating crystal dildos. I mean… I guess some people think sex magic is a thing so maybe that’s what they were for? Who knows. I gave that one a hard pass, har-har.
And we continued to stray in more educational establishments – everything from the wax museum where I learned Giles Corey was perhaps less of innocent victim and more a petty criminal the town felt need to rid themselves of, to the witch village which described the history of witches in general, to an adorable history of Halloween which had everything painted in Dayglow colors and handed out 3-D glasses to make it even more disorienting! Of course we had to go through a haunted house… which did almost startle my companion at one point. I just laughed because it was all so silly.
Food was great too! I had the freshest haddock I have ever had – so flakey that it did not hold together enough to function as the fish sandwich I ordered. It did give me enough energy to get back to the car after the few hours we spent here. Traffic and road construction would keep us from getting home for almost three hours as my migraine got worse. By the time we reached home base I flopped on the couch too dizzy, nauseous, and pained to move where I was handed a bag of popcorn and allowed to just be until I took my sorry ass to bed. It’d be two more days before I was free of aforementioned migraine – a time I mostly just slept – but that all being said it was still worth everything we did that day and I don’t regret a stitch of it.
