POST #74: IT WAS IN THE (TAROT) CARDS

A little over two years ago, while visiting my son Ned in California, I had my Tarot cards read. The reader, a friend of his – appropriately named Magick - conducted her business at the local teahouse in Sebastopol, the rich, hippie town where he lives. Now, I’m not much of a believer in things like Tarot or astrology or fortune telling or spiritualism of any sort. When the reader gets things right, it is usually because he or she is good at picking up clues from her subject. Besides, people all have the same kinds of problems; you can’t go wrong concentrating on  love, health and money.

When I laid out the Tarot cards it was obvious, even to a novice like me, that they were good: no morbid images, lots of cheerful princesses, knights and queens. This was my year, she declared; Uranus (my birth sign) was apparently concluding an orbit of the sun that coincided with my age, a good omen. She also announced that I needed to write about art. Now, I’m a pretty good writer; I’ve been doing a preservation newsletter for years now and writing comes easily to me. I don’t consider myself a professional writer so I don’t have much angst about it. However, I never considered writing about art. Most of it is gibberish anyway and besides, who would read it?

When I came back to Stamford, I showed my friend Cici what Magick had written and Cici suggested I write a blog. “You’d be perfect,” was her advice. “But I’m not good enough at the computer,” I wailed. “It’s beyond me technically.” “Hire someone,” she replied, which I did - Rosie, my next-door neighbor. The rest you know. I’ve been blogging for almost a year and a half now and can’t tell you how much fun it has been – and all the interesting people who have come into my life because of it. I get a little repetitious sometimes, but all old friends tend to tell each other the same stories over and over again, so please forgive me.

Magick also advised me to do two other things: 1) drink a glass of warm water with lemon every morning (“to quench the fire within me”) and 2) “get rid of the boyfriend,” (easier said than done.) But she probably gave that advice to every woman who came to see her, and, 90% of the time, she was right.