What is this thing that builds our dreamses, precious?

Back in the ’90s, our English teacher, Mrs. Marigold, gave us a quiz to get to know us better. Being the subversive kid that I was, I took two of the questions and made the answers into one: what I liked about myself and something that scared me was my reliance on fantasy. It gave me so many intense feelings, but I worried as the highs seemed to fade over time. What would happen if I could no longer find the joy in things?

Being one of the wisest people to ever happen to me, Mrs. Marigold replied I had no cause to worry: obviously I was only a kid, yet I already knew perfectly well how to make my life into something creative and exciting, owing to that rich inner world. I would continue to know how to do that, she told me.

Being born on 1 June – Children’s Day – has a way of symbolically connecting me with the inner child every year. Some would call it the perpetual child – but the difference is that by choosing to trust the fantasy would never fade, I was never fully exiled from it. Thanks to Mrs. Marigold (Crăița in Romanian), I knew that growing into an adult didn’t have to mean closing off the doors of potential. (That is the fear which perpetual children manifest as a failure to launch, and while I do have my share of struggles with the latter, I’ve always viewed maturity as an opportunity to discover more, not less.)

Full disclosure, at the time we were given the quiz, I was waiting impatiently to go home and watch ‘Highlander: The Series’ as I used to do after school. A lot of what I was thinking was bound up with the topics dealt with on the show, plus my inner exploration of why I didn’t seem interested in having boyfriends. I thought it would not be fair on them since I was clearly fickle with my feelings, or that I was too busy “focusing on my studies” – not entirely wrong there, but I was confused about the underlying meaning.

Asexuality is still misunderstood today, but back then it was unheard of and I was trying to fit in by mimicking what other people told me they were experiencing in terms of attraction. The most obvious example is the celebrity crush, which however felt very different for me: I never saw myself dating the famous people, it was an absolutely ridiculous concept, but the effect it had on me (being a form of escapism from the pressure to conform) convinced me that oh, this must be what everyone else experiences too, they’re probably just not very skilled with the right words to describe it. Our experiences being fundamentally different didn’t occur to me at the time.

But let me get to the really juicy stuff here. My Ancestors were known as the Getae, which translates as “immortals” (“I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings”). This name referred to being famous for their unique belief in the immortality of the soul, which gives the three Ages of Man: that of the body, the mind, and the knowledge.

Have you ever wondered where such a belief stems from? How does one gain that particular insight? Because as I’ve continued to tell everyone over the years, knowledge has nothing to do with anything that you may stuff inside your skull, and everything to do with how you feel about things… about people… and essentially with how honest you allow yourself to be about those feelings.

So by watching this show, I was on to something that would eventually connect me to my Ancestors and to my witch practice that centres on honouring them. And I knew I was sensing something, I just never imagined what it could be. The fun part is I’m now watching reruns on YouTube, but I have the actual knowledge onboard, so it’s a whole other level!

That is how I slowly came up with the idea for a fashion project. I’ve loved clothes for a long time (also linked to my witch practice) and I am the incarnation of the fantasy Tomboy Trope: dress me like a boy and send me on adventures, and I’m HAPPY like you have no idea. So I landed on taking inspiration from Richie Ryan – his outfits have the biggest potential for me to put my own spin on Highlander fashion, beside the fact that I identify with his journey to a large degree.

It’s also a good pretext to write more about my Ancestors and tackle some contemporary issues. Right now in my country, there is a lot of nationalistic, even fascist rhetoric surrounding this tribe I’m descended from (including some people telling us what all women should wear!), and I just can’t sit idly by and listen to this nonsense making such a mess of their legacy.

I was very saddened to hear of Stan Kirsch’s passing in 2020, too. It makes watching the series and especially engaging in any form of fantasy around it very strange (ghosts!), but over the past few months I’ve grown to wonder if maybe I should dedicate myself fully to this belief my Ancestors had, and include him in it. Both the fandom and Adrian Paul (remember that time when Romanians were convinced he was ethnically Romanian?) seem to agree with my thoughts, which is nice. In any case, the “news” got me attempting to live more fully (which is not the cliché I thought it was, I’ll write more on that later).

Funny moment: in the photo above, taken on my 42nd birthday, I was wearing the Egyptian scarab, an old symbol of resurrection, and enjoying the most amazing homemade food and drink, when an elderly lady (family member of the host there) walked in and announced with utmost confidence: “HAPPY EASTER!” Umm…

Okay. Here’s to always finding the joy in things.