Bad Juju

Last Monday, I got home to find my back door hanging open, door frame shattered - someone had broken in, and I wasn’t sure if they were still there or not. Deep dread took root - I immediately returned to the sidewalk and called 911. The cops came, cleared the house, and took me on a quick tour to see what had been taken. And while very little was actually stolen - sorry folks, no Xbox or plasma TV in this family - they went through EVERYTHING. Every single drawer in our bedroom was dumped out; they went through our closets, took the cushions off the couch, pawed through our photographs. Ugh.

So all week, I’ve been feeling shaky, crazy, violated - there’s something really unique about trying to decide whether to pick your underwear up and put it away, wash it in hot water, or throw it out and start over. Last night, I was having a hard time getting to sleep, and my mind wandered to an odd summer 10 years ago. In college, I spent 18 months living in and running houses owned by the Brown Association for Cooperative Housing. This experience was amazing and inspiring - nearly 50 students responsible for everything from household maintenance (purchased a new boiler and new roof at age 19) to planning menus and cooking meals. But keeping the houses full in the summer was a critical part of the organizations’ financial solvency, and sometimes a challenge. One summer we had an interesting house mate: a Trinidadian steel drum professor whose wife had kicked him out for running around on her. He was desperate for housing, we were desperate for a rent check, and a match was made.

This gentleman had major physical limitations due to childhood polio, and once he latched on to me as the “landlady”, he was constantly calling me to help him put up curtains, move furniture, etc. Always generous, he would try to pay me for my time with joints - he smoked more pot than any college student I’ve seen before or since, and we had some serious hippies in the house. But he also taught me the secret of using blueing crystals to wash out the bad spirits from a space that’s being moved into, or that’s been tainted with bad juju. You put just enough blueing in to turn the water pail blue, then scrub out each corner of each room with this purifying water, to bring peace to any tormented spirits and to the home. I’ve had a square of blueing tucked into my stuff, moving around with it for 10 years, but never using it. Maybe it’s the secret I need to clear my head.