Tag: family

Chapter Seventy-One – Ten of Pentacles

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life

The ride to the hospital was a blur.

I called the cab and while we waited for it to arrive, I called Lisa’s boyfriend Carl and Darnelle to let them know that Lisa’s water broke. I reached out to Sophie and let her know and I knew that she would let everyone else know.

I packed a bag for Lisa and helped her into the cab, giving the driver instructions to drive us to the general hospital. Lisa was trying to do deep breathing exercises and was attempting to light a cigarette for herself at the same time. I took the cigarette from her and butted it out. “Now is not the time.”

“I’m fucking stressing out. Now is the perfect time. I want a smoke before we get to the hospital.”

When she reached for her bag again, I took it and placed in my backpack. I had packed my own bag in preparation for this day as I knew that it would be coming soon. I sat in the cab and tried to encourage Lisa to do the breathing exercises that we had practised. Thankfully, the cab driver drove very quickly to get her to the hospital as fast as he could.

“You’re doing great, Lisa.”

“I want a fucking cigarette.”

“You can have one when this is all done. For now, just try breathing and focus on little Rosalind and try to calm yourself.”

“That’s kind of hard to do when a baby is trying to push it’s way out of my vagina.” She said harshly.

It’s almost over, I said to myself. It’s almost over and then I will be free.

I tried to keep her calm during the ride and when we finally arrived at the hospital, I thanked the driver. “Good luck to the lady,” he said.

“Thank you,” I told him and gave him a nice tip.

“Okay, I want to have a cigarette before we go in. Give me my fucking smokes.”

I ignored her and got Lisa into a wheelchair. I took her to the main emergency window and told the nurses there that Lisa’s water had broken.

The next hour or so was a blur as the nurses got Lisa comfortable on a bed and rolled it towards one of the rooms that were available. I was asked to help Lisa strip down so that she could put on a hospital gown. I was given a gown for myself so that I would be allowed into the delivery room.  

The doctors and nurses wheeled her into the surgery room and after that, it was a blur of motion, sound and the music that only a hospital room is capable of, the endless beeping and breathing and the beating of heart. During all of it, I held Lisa’s hand and told her that she would be okay, that she was a goddess, that she was capable of creating magic.

“You’re all I have,” she said. “Where is Carl?”

“He’s on his way. Try and stay calm.”

“I’m going to make him rue the day he got me pregnant!”

“That’s the spirit,” I told her. “Hold on to my hand as tightly as you want to.”

Lisa huffed out a breath. “I’m going to make him eat his fucking balls.”

“And I’m sure that Carl will appreciate that.” I told her. I thought it was best to agree with whatever she was saying, she was giving birth to life after all. She had seen me through so much and had given me a nest to grow in. Now, she would be raising another life in her home. I didn’t belong there anymore.

Lisa followed the doctor’s instructions, pushed when she needed to, breathed and paused when told. The entire time, she had hold of my left hand. I could no longer feel it. She looked at me and I was seeing the Lisa as she truly was: afraid and terrified. In that moment, Lisa and I shared something with each other. She looked at me with fear in her eyes, and I tried to tell her that everything was going to be okay. While she had hold of my hands, I tried to whisper this to her spirit. Lisa was in no fit state to hear me at the moment. It was my hope that her spirit would be receptive of the energy that I was giving to her. I pictured all my chakras sending her spirit what she would need, a beautiful rainbow shared between two people waiting to welcome a new person into the world.

In what seemed mere moments, but I’m sure it was longer, the doctor handed Lisa her beautiful baby girl. They cut the umbilical cord and made sure that Rosilind was okay. She was a beautiful five pounds and four ounces with a smattering of blond hair on her head. Rosilind seemed impossibly small, hardly even real, but she was. This tiny, beautiful human that had not existed a moment before but was here in front of me now.

Lisa handed her out to me without words. She didn’t need to ask; I came closer and wrapped her in my arms. She cuddled right in and hid her head in the crook of my arms. I wondered if she was excited for what the world had waiting for her. There would be a lot to fear, a lot to fight for but also a lot of joy. As I held her, I hoped that she would experience more joy than I did in her home and that she would grow into someone that would create rainbows out of rain.

There was the sound of footsteps behind us. Darnelle and her son, Fox, Sophie and Jenn came into the room, closely followed by Carl and the sound of others. We had all come together to celebrate this new life. None of us were related by blood, but we knew each other in our hearts and our spirits spoke the same language. We were kin and together, there was light.

I remembered to pull down some of the light from the air so that I could remember this moment and feel its warmth. I wrapped the light around my wrists like bracelets so that I could carry this memory with me.

Chapter Fifty-Two – 4 of Swords

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

I arrived back at Lisa’s with a broken heart.

Every breath I took into myself hurt and I wondered if this would be the way it was from now on. I dried the tears that had started again before I entered the house. I wanted to appear strong, but I knew that this would not last long. I’d resolved myself to the idea that tears were a sign that I was strong enough to cry. I just wished the tears would stop. I had cried all the way back to Lisa’s.

She seemed genuinely unsurprised to see me back so quickly. “Jamieson, you’re home early.”

I looked at her and saw her kind face and knew that I couldn’t keep it from her for any length of time. “Francis broke up with me.” I said, new tears sliding down my cheeks.

“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.”

That stopped me short, and I felt like I’d been slapped. “Why are you sorry?” Her words clicked into my head. “What do you mean, you know? What are you talking about?”

She patted the chair beside her and passed her pack of cigarettes towards me. I reached for the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out for myself. Getting up quickly, Lisa put the kettle on to boil. She was drinking coffee, but she drank it at all times of the day. She knew I liked a cup of herbal tea in the evenings. If she was brewing me tea, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say.

She waited until the kettle was boiled and she poured the water into the mug. I could smell peppermint across the kitchen. Bringing the tea back to the table, she put the cup beside me and took my free hand in hers. “I know because we talked about it.”

“It meaning us? Like, Francis and myself?”

“Yeah, he’s been talking to everyone about his feelings for months now.”

“Months?” I felt the ground move beneath me. Looking down, I wasn’t surprised to see that the earth had opened up around me. If I looked too deeply into the earth, I could see the air moving within it and feel the wind on my skin. “What did you talk about?” I could barely get the words out. It felt like I was having to pull each word from my lips, the air to create them gone for now.

“Well, how young you were, of course. How he loved you but realized that he didn’t love you in the way you needed to be loved. There were so many years between you.”

“That didn’t matter to me!” I told her, letting out a puff of smoke. I watched it float to the ceiling to join the ether and wished that I could find a way to disappear so easily. “I knew he was having difficulty with it; he kept saying that I was only six years older than his son.”

“Then you see the problem. He already had two kids; he didn’t want a third one.”

Whatever words I was going to speak were slapped out of me. I closed my eyes and looked down at my heart which still bore the scars Francis had given me. I held my heart in my hands, and I cupped my hands around my heart to keep it safe. I would not let him hurt me. I kept my eyes closed when I spoke next. “Why didn’t he talk to me?”

“Because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He loved you in the beginning, Jamieson. But there was more than twenty years between the both of you.”

“That didn’t matter to me. I love him and never saw age when I looked at him.”

“Yeah, well he couldn’t overlook it.”

“Fine, but he should have talked to me about it. Who else did he talk to about breaking up with me?”

An uncomfortable look came over her face. “Everyone,” she said.

“Like, everyone we know? Define everyone. Like Darnelle and Sophie? Jen?”

“That’s a good start. But when I mean everyone, I mean anyone who would listen. He was so broken up about everything. It’s been going on for months.”

“But we’ve been together for months, almost a year.”

“He started talking to me about it soon after you got together. He loved you but didn’t know what to do.”

“Yeah, well, he certainly knew what to do when I was sucking his dick.” The words came out of my mouth unbidden. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She pushed my cup of tea towards me. “Francis is an asshole. He may be all flash in the pan and sparkles, but I still think that when you have a chance at love, you don’t start looking for excuses to take your heart back.”

I closed my eyes again and could see my heart. It looked whole again. There were cracks that ran along the surface, but it was still beating. I could get through this. I had to get through this. For a moment in the dark, I was beside Shades while he fucked a woman, and I opened my eyes so that I could let go of that memory. I was always giving my heart to the people who didn’t want it. Here I was having discovered what love could truly be and the magic it could create, but it had been a lie, too.

Lisa could sense where my mind was going. “He loved you, Jamieson. I’m sure of it.”

“Then why did he push me away?” I asked. Fresh tears slid down my cheeks.

“I think he was pushing himself away. Not that I’m playing devils advocate, but I can’t imagine what it was like for him to love you and fear you at the same time.”

I let out a laugh. “Why would he fear me?”

“Because you gave him the love that he’s always been wanted and that terrifies him. He doesn’t think he deserved it, so he runs away from it, hurting people in the process.”

I nodded and got up from the table. I took my tea and went out back, sitting down on the back stoop in the dark. I could see bugs surrounding the lamp by the door. I listened to the wind and the sounds of traffic and other people in the distance going about their lives, unaware that it felt like mine had ended.

In my minds eye, I saw myself holding my heart to my chest. I knew that what it needed was love and care. I couldn’t give my heart to another; I had to keep mine close and love it as much as I could. I would focus on loving myself, instead of loving others who could not love me back. I took the four shards of metal that had been left in my heart and gently pulled them free. I took the time to fashion a box around my heart that would protect it and keep my heart from harm.

I would give my heart the rest that it needed so that it would be able to heal in peace. It was the least I could do after everything that my heart had seen me through. I opened my eyes again and looked into the shadows, knowing that I had to find my peace after I had time to grieve.

I lit a cigarette and the smoke faded in the shadows much as I wished to do.

Chapter Forty-Eight – Queen of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Personal Growth, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

There were always people at Lisa’s house.

One of Lisa’s friends was a woman named Darnelle. She had dark hair and a quick wit. She had been the one to introduce Paganism to Lisa and she seemed to resent Lisa for how little respect she showed the Magick. When she was in the house, I knew that I was in the presence of an elder and she made sure to let everyone know that.

“You can’t conduct a ceremony without calling the quarters,”

“Says who?”

“Says the way it’s always been done. You must respect tradition.” Darnelle would say.

“I want to make new traditions,” Lisa would respond.

They had this argument often and it got to the point where I could follow it like a tennis match. “But you have to respect the Gods,” Darnelle would respond.

“What do you think I’m trying to do? The whole ritual is to honour them.”

I didn’t understand the push and pull between them. To me, Magick and Paganism made a lot of things possible because it was so open. There was no right way to find your light. This is what all the people I knew in the community had taught me. They were all Pagan, but how each person had gotten to this point was different, just as their journeys were not the same.

I thought of my own journey that had brought me here and I knew that each step I had taken had been one of choice. Paganism existed in a place beyond choice. It simply was, shaped by a person’s ideals and what they believed. Their spirit told them what kind of things they needed. The fact that Darnelle always insisted that her way was the right way grated a little.

Yet she could be incredibly kind. She would stock Lisa’s fridge and cupboards without asking, showing up with bags of groceries. There were quite a few people living in Lisa’s apartment and all of us were on welfare. Money was thin, and the extra food was always a blessing.  She always had a spare cigarette for me, and I loved Darnelle despite her rigid stance on how the occult should be practiced.

I ended up going to see Darnelle on my own and would travel to her place to see her. My mother had walked away from me, so Darnelle became a kind of stand in for my mom. She had two children of her own and they were in and out of Darnelle’s house often. Even though Darnelle had a rigid sense of what was right and wrong in magic, she was keen to help me develop mine.

“I know you’re a warrior witch right now, but what path are you going to take when the need to fight is gone?” She motioned at me with a cigarette between two fingers. “Warrior magic is strong, but it can wear a person out. You don’t want to be guns blazing all the time.”

“I am strong.” I told her. I looked into her eyes, dark like a cave that invites you in but hides so many wonders not ever seen before.

 I took offense to the idea that she would find me weak. I wanted and needed to prove myself to her. Darnelle had this way of seeing what a person carried within them without them having to tell her anything. It was like she could see right into you and would judge you based on how strongly the rivers flowed within.

She lit another cigarette and looked at me through the smoke. “I never said you weren’t. But aren’t you tired of being strong all the fucking time? I told you that you can’t keep going at that rate, you’ll fucking burn out. Do you think I want that for you?”

I lit my own cigarette and took my time to respond. Darnelle demanded respect. You could speak your mind, but she demanded I take the time to respond and not lash out. She always wanted me to think of what I really wanted to say, what the heart of the matter was. “If I’m not a warrior, what am I?”

She shook her head. “No, you misunderstand me. You will always be a warrior, but practicing warrior Magick all the time will tap you out. Look at what it does to Lisa. She lets it be the excuse for her ignorance, uses it to be the reason for her rudeness.” Tapping her cigarette in the ashtray she left it there to smoke while she got up to put the kettle on. Taking out two earthenware mugs, she popped to orange pekoe bags into them and then came back for her cigarette. “No, you can’t be a warrior all the time. You’ve had to fight so much. You don’t have to be a warrior all the time.”

“I don’t know how to do anything else but fight.” I told her.

“Well, then maybe it’s time you look at magic that will help heal you instead of magic that will aid you for battle, hm?”

I watched as she put out her cigarette and went back to her kitchen to get the mugs of tea. I wondered about the idea of actually loving myself and letting myself heal from the scars that I carried not just on my skin, but also within me.

I added some milk and sugar to the tea, and we held up our mugs. “To healing,” Darnelle said.

When we clinked our mugs together, I imagined that I could hear the sound of bells over the whisper of the waves. I tried to listen to what the waves within me were saying and took a sip of my tea.

Chapter Forty-Five – 10 of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Memoir, Personal Growth, Someone Else’s Life

I was taking off makeup when Francis came home.

Francis had invited me to stay at his place rather than at Lisa’s and I had been there for a few days. I felt like I was in a dream of some kind. Part of me was terrified and excited all at once. Francis said that I should feel safe and have my own space. He offered me his and I didn’t have anything to say at the moment because I couldn’t find the words.

I knew the gift he was giving me. He was like me in that his space was his sanctuary. It was his retreat away from the world that had harmed him. I knew how he felt. I would keep everyone away from me, but I love them too much. I wanted to be known but to somehow be invisible. Francis understood this kind of balancing act. Wanting someone who saw you for exactly who you were but being afraid that you would finally show them everything and then they would run.

By letting me stay in his room, Francis was letting me see him, every crevice of who he was. He had been a nomad like me, gathering their belongings into whatever they could and setting up shop in the next place that would have them. Looking around the room, at the array of shawls, dresses and fabrics, the books and journals filled with notes, magazines and bottles of nail polish; it was like living inside this glorious room of wonders that held all manner of magicks. I knew that by letting me stay there, he was letting me know he really was and the fact that he trusted me at that level was the greatest gift.

He would be away for a couple of days and had asked if I wanted to stay with Stacey and her daughter Max. His room would be free, and he told me that I could get a break from Lisa that way, too. “I mean, I love her and everything, but she lives like a pig.”

I kissed him and said “Yes, and yes.”

“Yes, to staying here?”

“Yes, to that and yes, I agree with you about Lisa. But you’re speaking with someone who sleeps on a roll of foam and she’s given me a place to sleep, so I can’t judge.”

I thought staying with Stacey and Max would be somewhat stilted and awkward, but they were both wonderful, welcoming and funny and both of them had Francis stories. Stacey said she had worked with him for a very long time. “He’s made me swear not to tell you the really naughty things that he’s done, but I told him that I’ll keep it PG.” She gave me a very saucy smile. “But I promise not to tell if you won’t tell if I do.”

“Yeah, except your definition of scandalous and my definition differ greatly.” Max said. “Trust me, what those two consider off the charts isn’t even a top ten hit.”

I liked Max. She had the most direct way of talking to a person that I really appreciated. She almost had no filter, but she was very diplomatic in her scorn. She was a few years younger than me, but we were fast friends. She had a wicked sense of humour that would light up the room or make a person the butt of a joke and I always wanted to be around her joy.

I felt like I belonged and that Stacey and Max were just part of my chosen family. Stacey even had her boyfriend over at one point and we were like some kind of family unit, and I took a moment to take it all in. It was a lovely family dynamic, and their presence helped me when I was missing Francis. I missed him with all the emotions of a young heart, which is to say that I missed Francis with everything that flowed within me. I sat, read, wrote, talked with Stacey and Max and I missed Francis. I had never let myself care that much about another man. I had always held myself closed in some way; there was always some part of me that they never knew because it was just safer. If they never knew all of me, it would be easy to walk away.

I had finally been able to be open, seen and loved by Francis and his own chosen family. It was a wonderful feeling and helped to ease my heart a little. The emotions were still there, but I could see past them. I still needed to distract myself from missing him.

I had put on make up that morning, one eye done in orange eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara and the other eye done in purple. I had wanted to be ultra fabulous for when Francis returned home, but as the day wore on, it looked like he would be arriving late. I had decided to take off my eye make up and just be myself as that’s who Franic fell in love with. I was in the bathroom when there was a knock at the door. “Yes?” I had just taken off most of the orange eye but still had some clean up to do and the purple one.

The door opened and there was Francis. He came into the bathroom and kissed me, even with the orange make up marking my face like a tiger’s stripes. “You’re home!” I said and kissed him back.

“We knew that he was on the way home, but he wanted it to be a surprise.” Max said from the bathroom doorway.

At that moment, kissing Francis and being kissed by him, my world was complete, and I finally felt at peace within myself. I was full of joy and wondered what I had done to become so lucky. I was seen and loved for who I was, and I was surrounded by people that loved me for me, not because of any obligation. At that moment, I knew that I had finally found my place in the world. I finally felt at home.

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Princess of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir

Lisa’s stepson Paul was in a relationship with a woman named Karla. She was far too thin, more skeleton than woman. It’s what I noticed about her first. The other thing I noticed was that she had a lazy eye like I did. It was as if I had found one of the others marked by spirit.

I often thought that people with lazy or wandering eyes could see into two worlds at once and that was certainly true of Karla. She was completely free. I often wonder where she came from. It was as if a spark floated down through the air and when it hit the ground, Karla came to be. She had that air of fleeting movement about her even when she was standing still.

She wore her black hair like a curtain that her eyes just peeked out from behind and when she saw me, her eyes brightened. The first time I met her, Karla caught me off guard when she came right up to me and wrapped her arms around me in a surprisingly strong hug filled with warmth. When broke the embrace, she looked at me with green eyes that shone like amber flecked with light.

“Well, all right then!” She gave me another quick squeeze. “Don’t you feel like you’re just waking up?”

“I woke up a few hours ago.”

“No, I mean in here.” She lightly tapped my chest. “In here. I feel like I’ve just started coming into myself, you know?” Karla looked at me and it was as if I could feel her reaching into me through my eyes so that she could know all of me. “You’ve been on your journey a lot longer than me, haven’t you?” She gave me a quizzical look. “Your spirit has been travelling for a long time; a lot longer than you know.”

She trailed out onto the front porch and lit up a duMaurier, lighting another and handing it to me. “Have you known Lisa for long?”

“I just met her a few months ago,” I told her.

“But it feels like you’ve known her forever, right?” She nodded as if I had already spoken. “Just like you. I feel like we’re kindred spirits.”

“You just met me.” I say, wishing I could the words back already. I was trying not to have my guard up so much. I didn’t need to protect myself from everyone. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You don’t have anything to be sorry about. But don’t you feel it?” She nods her head again, looking at me hopefully.

To my surprise, I did. There was just a lightness about her that wanted to pull me in and the scent around her was the loveliest incense, like sage and cedarwood. She smelled of smoke and flowers. I nodded back at her and her scent somehow grew larger and reminded me of the smell of campfire. She brought joy and innoncence with her; I could see and sense that right away.

I smiled despite my want to keep myself guarded against people. It was my natural inclination after everything I had been through and yet, with Karla, there was kinship right away. I was reminded of Anne of Green Gables and her friend Diana Bishop. It just felt like it was meant to be, with no pretense or build up. Karla was giving me the opportunity to see the world in a different way by engaging with it rather than hiding from it.

I wanted to take the plunge.

Lisa was all about taking life by it’s balls and either cutting them off and using them in a spell or squeezing them until they turned blue and she got her way. That was her power. Karla’s power was different.

She helped you to see the best of yourself, despite what had happened to you. Even though I carried shadows within, her brightness helped me to see not only through but past them. Karla made me thirsty for the future in front of me.

I had never thought of my future before, only the present moment that I found myself in, the minute, hour the day. I never thought of tomorrow. Karla’s power helped me to finally believe that a tomorrow was possible for me.