Essays from McGee - Pt. I: Waking the Witch

Flow tide almost covering the breakwater at McGee

As those of you who follow me on social media know, I have recently returned from a retreat for women writers, The Salty Quill. This retreat is held twice a year in May and September on an island in the Gulf of Maine, and it has become my personal Avalon.

Last year, I spent my time conducting extensive research for a book that is still in its infancy (more on that down the road), but this year...this year was very different. The first half of 2025 has been traumatic, transitional, and transformative. Less than a week before my departure for Maine, I went through yet another huge transition, and spent most of that week processing - not knowing how to cope or grapple with unexpected feelings. So when I finally arrived on McGee, I allowed myself grief at last.

I wasn't expecting to write anything from the heart. I had the idea that I'd continue a first draft of my infant book. Instead, I found that being there was like turning on a faucet - poetry and prose began to flow in a way I hadn't experienced in years. Three essays materialized from my personal experiences and subsequent journal entries, and I want to share them with you here. They will not be shared concurrently - I have so many other things to say too! So without further ado, here is the first installment of Essays from McGee. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

WAKING THE WITCH

This morning, I woke about two hours after low tide had peaked. The tide was in flow, but the water was still low enough to brave a wade, perhaps even a swim. I donned my bathing suit and a warm flannel over that. The bathing suit was tighter on my body than it was last year, and without my top curves, my belly is far more pronounced in everything I own. The flannel was as much for warmth as for me not wanting to see my upside-down body anymore.

Nevertheless, I made it to the water, took a deep breath, removed the flannel (refusing to look down so that I might not lose this sudden burst of courage), and took my first tentative steps in. It was so, so cold, at least until the inevitable numbing happened. With each step forward, each breath was a little sharper. Willing my body to acclimate, begging it not to betray me in such an important moment. The flow tide created ripples around me as I ventured in deeper, further out toward the breakwater – a formation that almost disappears at high tide.

As I walked, I was gently pushed by the water, and I felt a great weight begin to lift from my soul. It didn’t matter in the water. My body is not upside down. I am streamlined like any other sea dwelling mammal. I have a slick, smooth underside now, perfectly formed for cutting a path through the ocean. I smiled at that. Then laughed. I splashed and twirled around in circles, fingers trailing in the water, the ripples extending out and out and out again, the ocean laughing with me.

My body, however, is not made for sea dwelling, like a true ocean-going mammal. It is still irreparably broken in some spots, aged beyond its years by a life hard lived, and after a while in the frigid water, I had to listen to it. Although my legs were numb, they were dangerously red, and my toes were a perfect picture of agony.

I turned around from the breakwater, working against the flow tide now, and was surprised at just how far I’d come. The shore seemed too far away, the tide was rising, and the flow was resisting my attempts to return. “Please,” I said to the water, “I don’t want to have to swim this.” I knew that if I had to submerge my arms to swim, they would seize up from the cold – my hands were already involuntarily curling into claws, frozen to their bones. At that quiet entreaty, it felt like the tide relented just enough to let me pass and, here and there, even gave me gentle nudges in the right direction. It was as if it knew that I didn’t want to get out; that I really wanted to swim, but this body that I inhabit simply couldn’t. The ocean knows that I am aging and breaking down in ways that I wasn’t last year or the year before or…

We both know, the sea and I, that one day I shall return to it for good, a pound of ashes scattered to wind and wave. Our relationship will be very different then. I will have been absorbed by the sea completely, no more than a diluted mineral aspect in the great tidal flow. It is, however, a comforting thought, and I wonder if our own ancestors ride those tides too, delighted to play with their descendants, and to deposit gifts for them upon the shore, happy to see the living find their own joy and healing in sand and surf.

Today was the first day that I really gave thought to that scenario, of one day being so many ashes cast to sea, and so I said, out loud to the ocean, “One day, I shall return to you and never leave again.” The water stopped pushing and I stopped moving as we, the ocean and me, contemplated what those words really meant. And in unison, we said, “But that day is not today.” I laughed out loud once more, twirled again like a child at play, and remembered what being a sea witch really means.