Bewitched by the Machine
TV Writing, Florence Welch, and everyday magic.
I spent 1996, my fifth year of vibing here on this Earth, in a hospital. Worse, a hospital in Cleveland. I was there for my Dadi, my grandma, who spent that year in a coma. My parents had to attend to the dreadful business of grieving while navigating the American healthcare system, so I was often left in the care of nurses. Sometimes they’d bring me around to read to patients in the ward. Most of the time, I’d be parked in front of the TV in their breakroom watching 3 hour blocks of old sitcoms on Nick at Nite. My favourite of the shows was Bewitched, a memory that was recently unlocked by this video from Matt Baume:
The central metaphor of Bewitched mirrored queer life and the cast was conscious of it, admitting “it was a neat message to get across to people at that time in a subtle way”. I don’t know if one of the people they thought they’d reach was a baby Pakistani lesbian in Ohio, smelling like hospital, but that’s the magic of television.
I spent most of that formative time alone, seeking comfort, escape, and recognition in music, magazines, and most of all, TV. Even back then I identified on some level with Samantha, the witch masquerading as a housewife, hiding her magic to fit in. Someone who yearns to be seen, and simultaneously fears it.
Resilience and bravery are positive qualities often attributed to survivors of trauma, but anytime someone has associated me with either I’ve been confused — because most of the time I feel really afraid. Even when things are good, there’s an undercurrent of fear that any security or joy found will be lost. If you relate to growing up without much consistency or stability, you may, too, be especially weird about controlling things: outcomes, perceptions, even people. As we’ve collectively experienced to vastly varying degrees during the pandemic, our safety and security are rarely in our own hands. I’ve despaired over the past year as the twin grinds of capitalism and exploitation didn’t stop, in fact they accelerated, even when so many aspects of our lives and systems were put on hold, if not destroyed.
A few months ago, my body declared it could no longer push through and be productive. The burnout wasn’t just fatigue, it was accumulated frustration, disillusionment, and anxiety that resulted in panic attacks. I asked for help, and in an act of grace, I was offered a chance at stability that not many people get: a fucking break. A real one, to take some time and figure my shit out. I divulged and reactivated a host of traumas with specialists, hoping they could tell me the specific way my brain is bad so I can make it better. When they unfurled their scroll to announce that I have Anxiety™ it felt anti-climactic. Who doesn’t? Have you seen The Hills: New Beginnings? All they talk about is how much anxiety they feel. Are Audrina Patridge and I experiencing the same thing?
My perception of anxiety was something I thought I could meditate or bubble bath my way out of. The crushing weight I’d been feeling as long as I could remember felt more insidious, like Dexter’s dark passenger or whatever. As I’ve been doing “the work” with my therapist I’ve realized how deep that goes, and that many traits I assumed were undiagnosed ADHD are linked to, you guessed it, anxiety.
Before I went on leave, I had taken on a project to educate my team about being our “authentic selves” at work. This research, which sought to bring empathy into corporate structures, contradicted the other readings I’d been doing at the time on separating labour from identity. It was also much easier said than done. Trying to be my “authentic self” didn’t mesh with my ingrained belief that I’m somehow always in the way, that what I’m interested in or good at is a distraction and this isn’t the time or place for it. From a young age I picked up that you needed to blend in, that sometimes Sailor Moon just needed to be Serena/Usagi, or Jem just needed to be Jerrica.
My therapist has been working with me on the process of integration. It’s like time travel, in the sense that it’s costly, seemingly impossible, and you can face your younger self. It’s no big a-ha moment that Serena and Sailor Moon are facets of the same person, but becoming that integrated person requires some serious unlearning. Inner child work is a bit of an eyeroll, but then I see little Soom struggling and I do want to encourage her to trust her instincts, reassure her she’s on the right path. It feels indulgent to focus on the self when there are so many fights worth fighting in the world, but it’s necessary to a certain extent. It’s hard to take on external battles when you’re busy fighting yourself. For so long I’ve denied myself, and others, my presence. I turn over the words from the Bewitched episode where Samantha has been repressing her magic and starts manifesting bicycles everywhere (cycle-ogical symptoms…get it?) and her doctor’s diagnosis is this: “You must stop feeling guilty for doing witchcraft”.
During my break, I got a life-changing opportunity to shadow my dream job: a TV writer’s room. My first thoughts - Am I ready for this? Am I allowed to do this? Aren’t I supposed to be “working on myself”? Then, When else would I have the time and energy to commit to this fully? I traded in a corporate Zoom room for a comedy writing one, and began to gradually thaw into a goofier, more recognizable self. I tried to keep trusting my instincts, and the shadowing job turned into a writing one - the reality of which is still sinking in. Marinating. After spending seemingly every waking moment of my life worrying about security, I joined the Writer’s Guild and resigned from my office job. I’ve been quietly achieving my dream and nervous to put anything out there because of that ol’ 1-2-punch of clinical anxiety and the fear of the evil eye instilled into me. You can’t convince me the two are unrelated.
I’m sentimental about leaving the sports industry, though I do mine sentiment out of everything. At the end of our year in Cleveland, my dad came home with a Vancouver Grizzlies foam finger and announced that we’re moving to Canada. Then he decided Vancouver wasn’t a “city city”— CUT TO: me wearing a Toronto Raptors foam head on the way home from my first game at the ACC. I experienced a full circle moment years later when I took my Dad to a playoff game during the championship run. The perks of the job were plentiful, but I am forever grateful for the one that changed my life - the holy grail of corporate benefits: paid time off.
I’m writing this on the eve of my 30th birthday, though quarantine birthdays don’t count so I still feel 28. I spent the eve of my 28th birthday watching a stream of the Raptors clinching their historic spot in the NBA Finals, surrounded by friends and every piece of basketball decor Party City could provide. It rained all night, and we danced on the balcony as people celebrated in the foggy streets. The next day, the sky felt the bluest it could ever be. Blaire and I sat facing each other, straddling the same side of a picnic bench, sipping giant cocktails and waiting for the gates to open at Budweiser Stage — an ideal summer evening. Blaire asked me what I wished for in this, my 28th year. After a year already full of peak experiences, what I wished for was peace. Not in a world peace kind of way, though that wouldn’t be the worst idea, but more in a personal peace and quiet kind of way. I thought of what I really wanted… to be in a cozy apartment with Blaire, just a space to call our own, and for everything to slow down for a bit (Sorry if this whole pandemic thing was a monkey’s paw situation because we’ve clearly been living the dream ever since).
We were there to see Florence and the Machine that night. I’d seen her once before, at the Kool Haus when I was a teen, Smirnoff Ice sloshing around in my plastic cup. Florence and I had both grown up a lot since then, more still and seemingly reserved, but when she declared to the Amphitheatre that the Dog Days were in fact OVER we jumped around like the psychic weight of the past ten years had been lifted. Towards the end of the night she sang the subdued ballad “No Choir”, and it felt like a deep collective breath.
And it’s hard to write about being happy 'Cause the older I get I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject ... And there would be no grand choirs to sing No chorus could come in About two people sitting doing nothing ... And if tomorrow it's all over At least we had it for a moment Oh, darling, things seem so unstable But for a moment we were able to be still
Everything really was still, except for the breeze off the lake and the tears on my cheeks and I remember thinking this is the feeling of being present, settled, here, if only for a moment. I wanted to feel that way more often, to depend on myself if nothing else.
Tomorrow I turn 30, and I’ll hear my first episode of TV read out loud. Things may always feel unstable, but for once I’m looking forward to it.