{"id":12530,"date":"2017-09-20T21:12:49","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T04:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/?p=12530"},"modified":"2017-09-20T23:10:23","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T06:10:23","slug":"i-dont-practice-santeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/i-dont-practice-santeria\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don&#8217;t Practice Santeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_12534\" style=\"width: 505px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Saint-Clare-intervenes-to-save-a-child-from-a-wolf-2-in-this-panel-by-Giovanni-di-Paolo-1455.jpg?ssl=1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12534\" class=\"wp-image-12534 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Saint-Clare-intervenes-to-save-a-child-from-a-wolf-2-in-this-panel-by-Giovanni-di-Paolo-1455.jpg?resize=495%2C343&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"I don't practice santeria\" width=\"495\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Saint-Clare-intervenes-to-save-a-child-from-a-wolf-2-in-this-panel-by-Giovanni-di-Paolo-1455.jpg?w=495&amp;ssl=1 495w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Saint-Clare-intervenes-to-save-a-child-from-a-wolf-2-in-this-panel-by-Giovanni-di-Paolo-1455.jpg?resize=300%2C208&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 495px) 100vw, 495px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-12534\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saint Clare intervenes to save a child from a wolf. Giovanni di Paolo, 1455<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But I do love a botanica. I just found another one in Long Beach, hidden on a side street but filled with a million delights. Shelves that nearly reached the ceiling were stocked with perfumes, oils, cleaning sprays, amulets, religious figurines, herbs, and candles.<\/p>\n<p>I grabbed a bottle of <a href=\"https:\/\/godammit.com\/my-new-tattoo\/\">Arazza Todo<\/a> oil for a friend, and a pretty teenager with blood red hair asked if I needed help. YES, I told her, and asked in a cheery voice: &#8220;What do you have if your kid hates you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She led me to a candle labeled Santa Clara, and said mothers used it to pray for the well-being of their children.\u00a0 She added that the shop&#8217;s owner sometimes turns on three candles at once, arranged around a bowl of water. I love the idea of turning on a candle! I might have to go back there to buy a &#8220;Court&#8221; candle that you turn on if you&#8217;re in legal trouble. My kid who hates me has threatened a restraining order against me because I can&#8217;t stop sending him email.<\/p>\n<p>[Note to you kids who hate mommy on Reddit: fuck off. This isn&#8217;t about you.]<\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;m home, I&#8217;ve turned on my candle and burned a stick of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anjiecho.com\/holistic-spaces-blog\/2014\/6\/8\/space-clearing-with-palo-santo\">palo santo <\/a>to cleanse my house of bad vibes. I can&#8217;t actually pray, because duh, atheist, but I can speak to the candle in a tone of respect, like I speak to clothes hangers or things I trip over.<\/p>\n<p>It occurs to me that my reactions to my kid breaking up with me are similar to symptoms of <a href=\"https:\/\/adaa.org\/understanding-anxiety\/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd\">PTSD<\/a>: Irritability, hostility, fear, rumination, insomnia and nightmares. It <em>is<\/em> traumatic, after all. One minute it&#8217;s Where&#8217;s the clean towels? and the next minute, Please leave me and my family alone.<\/p>\n<p>In my most morbid moments, I wonder if I&#8217;ll get to hold my child again before I die, maybe because of all the biopsies. In calmer moments, I figure that none of this matters. Life is but a dream. You&#8217;re here, stuff happens, and then you&#8217;re gone, poof. Why agonize about anything?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But I do love a botanica. I just found another one in Long Beach, hidden on a side street but filled with a million delights. Shelves that nearly reached the ceiling were stocked with perfumes, oils, cleaning sprays, amulets, religious &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/godammit.com\/i-dont-practice-santeria\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,11,6],"tags":[291,455,257],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Saint-Clare-intervenes-to-save-a-child-from-a-wolf-2-in-this-panel-by-Giovanni-di-Paolo-1455.jpg?fit=495%2C343&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t44M-3g6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}