A Spell for Banishment
To banish a demon, one must name it.
Last weekend, I attended my 20th college reunion. But it was more than a reunion—it was an exorcism, a reclamation of a sacred space that had been defiled.
In college, I was sexually harassed for two years straight by a (wrongfully) trusted mentor. Like most predators, this professor would probably deny that he did any such thing. He never tried to kiss me or grope me, he would protest. He never demanded sexual favors in return for grades. Never mind that he strongly implied that I should have given him somethingin return for writing my letters of recommendation for graduate school. And never mind that he gave me a Valentine’s day card professing his love for me. And that, when he bought me an expensive dictionary as a gift, and I awkwardly stammered my gratitude for his friendship, he said, “Oh, Harper, we’re more than friends.” Never mind all that.
I didn’t know what to say when he gave me that dictionary, but I had also long since learned that saying something wasn’t enough. This professor had pressured me go to lunch with him at the faculty club almost every week, to the point where some of my acquaintances began asking me if I was dating him. I had tried to say no to these lunches—hadin fact said no very explicitly—but he had just laughed and waved his hand and said, “Oh, now, don’t be silly. Come on, let’s go.”
At the time—as a 20-year-old perfectionist raised in the conservative South—I didn’t realize that I could have kept on saying no. Or that, when he refused to respect my decision, I could have walked out the door. I could have dropped his classes. I could have changed my major. But I didn’t know any those things were possible. I had told my friends what was happening, and they were horrified on my behalf, but they didn’t know what I should do, either. And I had told my parents, but they just told me to keep my head down and push through the discomfort for one last year. He wasn’t doing anything that bad, after all.
I have long since forgiven my parents for this failure—the failure to raise a raging storm on my behalf—because they are also deeply loving and supportive human beings. But for twenty years, I found it impossible to forgive this professor. Forgiveness felt like an excuse, an exoneration. And even more viscerally, I could not forgive him because I was still afraid. Afraid of him, yes, but even more afraid of myself: my anxiety, my tendency to freeze, my sense of utter powerlessness.
So, I avoided my college campus because I dreaded running into him there. What would he say if he saw me? Would he wave me down and smile and make oblivious, meaningless small talk? Would he scowl at me, fully aware of his transgressions, defying me to label them? Would he think of me as a former student? An ex-girlfriend? A ticking time bomb? And I certainly didn’t know what I would say or do in return. Maybe selective mutism would overwhelm me, as it sometimes does when I am deeply upset. Or maybe I would scream: “You are a twisted, evil, disgusting troll!” and he would call the campus police on me. Or maybe I would vomit on him, which would serve him right.
In any case, I moved to a faraway city and pretended my college didn’t exist. I avoided all thought or mention of this professor, as best I could, but it didn’t help that I also became a professor in the same general field. It meant that I sometimes saw his name in a book or article, and it would punch me right in the gut. One time, I never submitted a book review I had agreed to write—never even read past the front matter—because the author thanked my abuser in the acknowledgements. Another time, a colleague mentioned his name at a conference dinner, and I began shaking violently. “Please don’t mention that name in my presence because he is a fucking creep,” I said. The dinner conversation sort of dried up after that.
I hated him, and I could not forgive him, and his memory stuck in me like a black locust thorn. For decades, I meditated, prayed, sang, chanted mantras, lit candles, took nature walks—all with this black locust thorn in my heart. I always struggled on the Day of Atonement, not because I had sins that needed forgiving (which I did and do, of course), but because I myself could not forgive. What is a Day of Atonement without forgiveness? I finally gained some relief when I assigned that enormous task to God, whoever or whatever that is. Let God forgive him, if God wills—to forgive is divine, after all, and I am only human.
Perhaps paradoxically, I eventually discovered that anger was the key to dislodging this black thorn. Anger and a fierce, fuck-you kind of defiance that has been difficult for me to access in my life. Don’t get me wrong, Prozac helps, too. But in addition to prescribing pills, my psychiatrist helped me connect the dots from my repressive Southern upbringing, a molesting babysitter, a sexual assault freshman year of college, these two straight years of sexual harassment, and, later, an emotionally abusive partner. She taught me to identify the deep pain that leaked out in nightmares and unexpected phobias—fear of flying, heights, bridges, highways, sunburn, dish soap. If I was going to get out of this psychic vortex, I had to learn to access my voice. I had to learn to access my anger. Fawning and freezing and fleeing had not helped me. I would have to fight.
So, I made plans. I suggested to my best college friends that we attend our 20th reunion. (Actually, it was my 21st reunion—look at me breaking the rules). In my heart, I held this vision of the reunion like a candle: me, in a sparkling party dress and ferocious Doc Martens, stomping up and down the hallway of the humanities building, burning purifying sage and clutching a black crow feather to symbolize death and rebirth and freedom. I would stomp through the halls with my friends and my talismans and my terrible, terrible anger—and I would set myself free. Maybe professors would pop out of their offices and scowl at the ruckus I was causing. Maybe the burning sage would set off the fire alarm. I didn’t care. Let them scowl and wail. Fuck the expectations of quiescence and compliance that had left me vulnerable for so many years.
When the day actually came, it wasn’t quite so dramatic as all that. But it was good. I set foot on a campus that I had avoided for more than 20 years. I met with old friends in the college quad, where we drank cheap beer and visited our old dorm rooms and reminisced about bygone times. We toured the campus, where we discovered that the student pub still smells satisfyingly of pizza grease and spilled Natty Light, even though it tragically no longer sells beer by the pitcher. We marveled at how young the students look, as middle-aged people are wont to do. We entered the nondenominational chapel, with its breathtaking gold mosaics glittering in the lamplight, just as the sun was setting, the perfect time to say a silent prayer.
And then, in the falling darkness, I went to the humanities quad with one of my best friends. I hugged the old tree growing there, a twisted live oak I used to sit with while I meditated upon Martin Buber’s I and Thou. I was so glad it was still there, my old companion. And then we went inside—into the heart of darkness. But our minds do funny things to protect us, don’t they? I had daydreamed about this moment for years, and I had nightdreamed about it for months. But my brain had completely blocked out which doorway actually led into the humanities building. I first led my friend through an adjoining doorway into the languages building (where to be fair, I had also taken many classes), and I stomped through those halls, fists balled, ready to fight a metaphorical fight. I went in several more doors, all leading off the same quad, until there was only one door left. “Um, I’m pretty sure that one is the humanities building,” my friend said.
She was right. She opened the door, and my adrenal system shouted, “Don’t go in there!” as though I were a cheerleader in some horror movie. When we entered the building, my heart rate spiked; when we went up to the second floor, I began to gasp for breath. We walked down the empty hallway, and I saw the familiar names of other professors—so many of them were still working there, 20 years later, wrapped tight in that ivory embrace. I squeezed my friend’s hand harder and harder, like I used to squeeze my mom’s hand during an airplane takeoff. And then we found the door with the dreaded name. I cried. That had certainly not been part of the plan. But it turns out, tears are as cleansing as smoldering sage and as freeing as a black crow feather.
When we left the building, my friend handed me a pen and paper. “In case you wanted to write something down. And then we can burn it, or rip it up, or bury it, or whatever.” This is what I wrote: “[Name Redacted], you should not have sexually harassed me. It was wrong. I forgive you.” I named him, and I named what he did to me. I named the demon, and I banished it. I ripped the paper into tiny pieces and sprinkled them at the base of my Martin Buber tree.
I am not afraid anymore, not of him, and not of myself. That’s what this trip was really about. It was not just a reunion with my classmates. It was a ritual conjuring of my frightened, silent 20-year-old self, so that I could whisper in her ear, “Don’t worry. This place does not belong to him. It belongs to you.”
Harper N. Shawe (she/they) is an author of fiction and creative nonfiction who centers the stories of women, LGBTQ+ folks, and other marginalized groups. Their writing is inspired by a multi-denominational spirituality and a love of nature. They live near Philadelphia, PA with their family and their tabby cat.
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