Love spells always work
But not often in the way you intend them to
My friend Bianca recently went on a trip to Bali and brought back a candle for me. The pearly white wax was shaped into anjali mudra - the gesture of two hands pressed together in prayer - and dotted with gold leaf around the base. It was a beautiful gift, and I knew it had to be lit with intentionality.
I sat on the window seat in my bedroom that overlooks the greenery of Aro Valley (hello tui! hello kākā!) and placed my heart-shaped rose quartz next to the candle. I thumbed my cheap gas station lighter into action, lit the wick, and prayed that I would fall in love.
At the time, I think I intended the phrase “fall in love” to mean “find a partner.” To be romantically intertwined with someone who slept next to me and kissed me in the mornings and made plans for the future that revolved around a shared sense of togetherness. But in that moment of lighting the candle I forgot one of the key rules of witchcraft - specificity. I did not pray for a partner; I prayed to fall in love. And that’s exactly what it delivered.
It might be a slightly dramatic way of framing it (me? dramatic?), but I’ve decided that there’s no other explanation for how I’ve been feeling the past few months. And in another classic witchcraft twist, my little wish was granted not by dropping some new cosmically-aligned answer into my lap, but by revealing that I simply needed to close my fingers around what was already in my grasp.
This is where Kat, Chelsea, and Lina enter the chat. In February, these three women were complete strangers to me when I moved into a new flat I’d found on Wellington’s queer housing network (it was the third flat I’d lived at within my first year in Aotearoa. Third time’s a charm I guess). Within a few short months they had become my chosen whānau, and more importantly, the recipients of the most boisterous, unabashed, and adoring love I’ve ever felt.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “in love” with a person. Does it mean we kiss them, have sex with them? Does it mean we meet each other’s families and go on romantic dates? Or does it mean we accept all parts of them, and choose to involve them in our lives no matter what?
There is a common (and problematic) myth that the Inuit people have 50 different words to describe snow. Even though this is false, I still think the idea of culturally-contextual language is helpful when thinking about the way we talk about love in Western countries. Right now, we only have the single word “love” to cover an immense breadth of experiences. Four little letters can’t do those experiences justice. Creating more words to capture the full spectrum of our relationships would help us describe our intimate interactions with more specificity and dismantle the hierarchy that creates the “affection pyramid” - platonic love at the bottom, familial love in the middle, and romantic love at the top.
But the lack of nuance we have when it comes to talking about love is directly correlated to living in a country built on colonization and white supremacy. Having a singular, clunky term for love serves to bolster the goals of capitalism by prioritizing nuclear family units to create more labourers, keep people dependent on consumerism instead of community to get their needs met, and discourage people from imagining alternative lifestyles outside of the grind. But I’ll leave my political manifesto to another day.
If we had more words to describe the feeling of being in love, I’d be able to better explain to you how I feel when I’m with Kat, Chelsea, and Lina. With these women, I am fully and completely seen. I don’t feel self-conscious about what I say or do in their presence. I know my vulnerability will be met with reciprocity. When I look at them, I cherish everything about who they are. I think they are the most wonderful, interesting, beautiful people in the world. The commitment and companionship and care they give me is beyond anything a romantic partner has ever offered. I want to protect them and support them and live alongside them forever and ever. Is that not what it means to be in love?
I think it is. I think I lit that prayer candle and asked to fall, and the universe simply turned my attention to what was right in front of me (the call is coming from inside the house - literally!) My entire life I have loved my friends fiercely, but this feels different. Our constant proximity to each other, the easy reliance we have on each other for comfort, and the intentional community we create is unlike any other dynamic I’ve experienced.
I am in love with Kat, Chelsea, and Lina. It might seem like a strange way to describe it, but that’s because I have a limited selection of words to work with. Perhaps they might even find it an odd way to characterize our relationship. But I’ve said “I love you” to several romantic partners in the past, and never did it hold this much surety or sense of peace. Never did I want to spend my life with those people in the way I want to spend it with Kat, Chelsea, and Lina.
And here’s why:
I am in love with Kat because she sings along to songs she’s never heard before. Somehow, with surprising speed and accuracy, she picks up the melodies and lyrical patterns of new music so easily that I’m convinced she has the entire Spotify catalogue downloaded in her brain. She interacts with people in a similar manner. Everyone who meets her feels instantly at ease because she treats newcomers like old friends, wrapping them in casual familiarity and offering thoughtful questions that coax even the most socially anxious person out of their shell. Her Taurus energy oozes from every interaction you have with her - she’s generous, earthy, aesthetic, and specific.
It takes a sun witch to know a sun witch, and I can say with absolute certainty that Kat is an angel of warmth. Our rooms are situated caddy-corner to each other, and when I sit on my bed with the door open I can peek into an inviting sliver of her room. I see: Mustard yellow duvets, dried bouquets, and lesbian artwork hung in ornate frames. I hear: Norah Jones songs, giggles shared with Rose, and long-winded voice notes analyzing the politics of Survivor. I smell: spicy sweet perfume, burning palo santo (introduced by me), and beeswax candles.
My favorite time of day is when I get to jump into Kat’s world and share all the random schemes I’ve been cooking up inside my head. She meets every absurd thing I say with humour and tenderness, and then offers the same silly soul-unburdening back to me. My inner child is safe around Kat; my broody teenage self is seen around Kat; my current adult self is cherished around Kat. There is room for everything with Kat, because she has her arms flung open wide to the world and to the people she loves. If you would like to meet a hug in human form, I recommend you meet Kat. If you would like to laugh like a carefree kid again, I recommend you meet Kat. If you would like to have every sticky, squirmy emotion in your complicated little heart met with care, I recommend you meet Kat. Basically, you just need to meet Kat.
I am in love with Chelsea because she likes to sit with her back against the wall but has the biggest heart of us all. She does not offer herself up for easy inspection upon first meeting, and she moves through the world with a high degree of discernment that’s been hard-won. But when Chelsea smiles, I know I’ve done something right. While I might call myself an “easy smiler,” Chelsea is the opposite; it’s a gesture reserved for people who have earned her trust. I am filled with pure, piercing joy when I know I’ve made her show her teeth - with a laugh, a grin, or a duet of a Black Eyed Peas song at our favorite dingy karaoke bar. Her smiles flow freely around me now, and the deep satisfaction it brings me is similar to when a standoffish cat chooses you as their person to snuggle with.
I remember the exact moment when I knew I had won Chelsea’s favor. I was crying in the kitchen over a nasty UTI and didn’t want to go to urgent care alone. She immediately volunteered to come with me and dashed down the stairs to get her bag. The clinic was closing in 45 minutes so we had to rush out the door, but in those few moments between deciding to go and leaving the house she had packed a Sudoku book to entertain me, chocolate to keep my spirits up, and painkillers to keep me comfortable. Her attunement to what I needed - even in a state of rushed emergency - astounded me. I aspire to offer that same level of care and attention to detail to her, but I know she will probably always have me beat.
There is no surface-level anything with Chelsea. Either you’re in deep, or not at all. Whether she’s talking Green Party politics, the dynamics of online fandoms, or rally car racing, you’re going to get a six-course meal on the subject served to you with the utmost precision and detail. I’m in awe of the effort she gives to the things she cares about. We joke that it’s neurodivergent hyperfixation, but I actually think it’s just passion, and that most people have forgotten what it means to be passionate. And just when you think you have Chelsea’s mind figured out, she’ll make the most out-of-pocket comment that doubles you over in unexpected laughter. Her quiet depth is a force to be reckoned with - even if she would rarely say the same about herself.
I am in love with Lina because she dresses like a cartoon character - all pleats of colorful fabric and sparkly loafers - but speaks with a sailor’s mouth. She prefers to move through the world as a multicolored blob, her oversized outfits acting as armour against the unknown. Her whimsy stands out against the all-black ensemble of Wellingtonians and general nonchalance of Kiwi culture. Which is why I’m filled with absolute glee when her appearance exists in direct contrast to the way she speaks. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard and as frequently as I do with Lina. She is devastatingly observant, quick to share her opinion, and uninterested in fuckery (unless she’s perpetrating it). We often joke that we need a podcast titled “Two Fire Signs Walk into Bar” because we fan the flames of each other’s unhinged infernos. I think the people would enjoy it.
In equal measure to her biting quips, Lina is brimming with big emotions and cries easily. I’ve dried her tears in the middle of Courtney Place, in my car, and in the kitchen. And damn does she look intensely beautiful when she cries. Like a Disney princess, her eyelashes clump together with tears shining like crystal droplets that roll in perfect lines down her cheeks. I hate to see her hurting, but it really is a sight to behold. The freeness of her emotion, the grace of letting it all out! Lina pours herself like a river into all of her feelings, and we are lucky to witness it. She would say the same.
More than anything, I wish I could spend a day inside of Lina’s head because everything is both completely straightforward and deeply fantastical. For Lina, the world follows a set of logical rules, a certain cause-and-effect that should be obvious to everyone else who runs around at random. But magic exists as part of those rules, and therefore mystical experiences and serendipitous moments should follow the same predictability as paying your taxes. The ordinary and the mythical are woven together in Lina’s timeline like a Wes Anderson film, even when she would prefer not to feel the weight of it. Luckily, we have each other to share the burden of being alive.
So do you get it? Do you understand now? Do you see why I’m in love? How could I not be when I am surrounded by such intensely beautiful people? My life feels like a perfect indie coming-of-age movie with these three women by my side. Our energies are balanced, our laughs are frequent, and our hearts are held.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than the days where we bask in the sun at Princess Bay, presiding over the creatures hiding in rockpools like benevolent gods and collecting little treasures to share with each other.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than when we sit together on our green velvet couch and watch queer TV shows that make us cry because we can see our younger closeted selves in the characters.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than when we pile into my bedroom to discuss the latest triumph or heartbreak over steaming mugs of tea and a shared plate of supermarket biscuits.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than this. And if that isn’t what it feels like to be in love, then I sure as hell don’t know what does.