Voodoo Sisterhood

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When I relocated cross-country from Virginia to the Pacific Northwest, I figured I’d meet interesting people and try new things.

The last place I expected to find myself was in a witches’ circle late at night in a sketchy area of downtown Portland, channeling my frustrations into a helpless pastry.

Historically, I’d had few women friends. I’m not particularly girly and have always been shy—plus, my childhood penchant for games that involved past-life recall treasure hunts, invisible spirit horses and Barbies gathering as a witches coven meant I spent a lot of time playing alone. I envied my sister and her lifetime bond with friends she’d made from grade school all the way through college and their shared memories, inside jokes, crazy escapades and absolute reliance on each other. In my mid-30s, I figured my pattern of friendships—few, and of the masculine persuasion—was pretty much set in stone.

One night at a local coffee shop changed all that.

Hot chocolate in hand, I settled by the fireplace and waited to meet some new faces. I’d signed up for a Portland Meetup.com group to make friends in my new city.

Only a half-dozen people made an appearance—all women. I was admittedly disappointed, at first. I’d been hoping to meet a new man and didn’t think I had any real use for girlfriends. We were nearly all new in town, were used to nobody getting our jokes or our rather alternative global perspectives and didn’t have much experience with women as friends.

We started sharing stories, and by the end of the evening, it was apparent I’d stumbled into the genesis of my own Ya-Ya Sisterhood, complete with urban mojo and sometimes even silly hats.

We are the Coffee Coven—because we’re witchy and because we first met at a coffee shop. And because we’ve conducted a voodoo doll doughnut ritual in the middle of the night atop a newspaper vending machine on NW 3rd Avenue.

Two of us had demanding clients who weren’t sure what they wanted but still wanted it yesterday. One had chronic transportation problems, and another was having landlord issues. Yet another had recently been left by her husband. We each needed to vent, in a bad way. So, the Coffee Coven devised a rather unorthodox ritual of release. We headed down to Voodoo Doughnut late one night, dodging frisky goth-punk kids and meth-addicted panhandlers loitering beneath the store’s slogan—“The Magic is in the Hole”—painted on the side of the building.