Tag: Finding Balance

Chapter Thirteen – Death

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Tarot

We spent our days in the square.

It was where we gathered when we had nothing to do and wanted to be with others but still have the freedom to be outside. There was a Coffee Revolution on one side with a large patio and on the other side, there was a Scotiabank. There were other little stores too, but we stayed away from those stores. We felt comfortable more out in the open areas. I know that I felt safer among a group of people than I did sleeping in the shelters. I had stayed at the Ottawa Mission before, and I had felt like I was out there for the world to gawk at.

When I had stayed at the Ottawa Mission, I’d had a clean room with four walls and a small window, a simple bed with clean sheets and a blanket. It is a place for healing, but when you come out of there, people look at you differently. Your story is visible for everyone to see, and you don’t belong to anyone.

Among the people here, I was among my family. Sunshine and the people I knew here had become part of me in some way. I was surprised by how quickly you could form a bond with someone. All you had here was your word and your reputation. As long as I was honest about who I was and treated people kindly until they gave me a reason not to, I could be part of this family. It was that simple to have a family and I had never experienced anything like it. In my biological and extended families, there were lies, memories held onto for too long, jealousy and pain caused by other people. There were shadows with the occasional moment of light. There were promises that were broken time and time again.

With the people here on the streets, we supported one another, and we fought for each other. These were my brothers and sisters, and this surprised me. To be accepted for who I was and the fact that people wanted to know me was mind-blowingly amazing. It felt wonderful not to justify who I was and talk about what had brought me here. I simple was.

At the end of the day, we would go back to wherever we had found to sleep and rest our heads, but during the day, we always found each other. It was like there was a homing beacon that led us together.

I remember sitting in the square one day with my family, the sun bright on my face and in my eyes. I turned to look away from the suns rays and found myself looking at my mother. She was walking with a friend and looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see her. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see my mother here, but I knew that she often went out on Friday nights of went shopping on the weekends. Still, it I had never thought that I would see her here, or rather that I couldn’t comprehend the sudden clash of my two worlds: where I had been and where I was now.

My mother did not slow down when she saw me. She continued talking to her friend and kept walking. Her eyes looked at me though and I tried to hear what my mother was saying without the power of words. I felt an ocean stretch between us, each of us on our own island and unable to touch each other. I watched the current take my mother away from me and into the waves.

I sat there stunned, my head filled only with the sound of waves and the scrape of metal and steel when the waves hit the rocks around me. I tried to think of what she could have done, what kind of life receiver she could have thrown me, and my brain came up completely empty except for the sound of the waves hitting the rocks with furious abandonment. I knew at that moment that if I didn’t give up an offering of some kind, the wave would take me, too.

Closing my eyes, I tried to delve into the wires, skin and light. It took me a while to find it, but it was still pristine. It was the mind garden that I carried with me, the plants the result of everything I had planted.

Around me, my family carried on and I could hear the gentle sounds of their voices, but I was still within myself. I knew what I had to give to the waters, what I could freely give them in order the calm the waters within me. I didn’t want to break, not now, not after all this time. My mother told me that I would have to learn to do everything by myself, that nobody else would be able to do it for me.

Up until quite recently, my mother had been the one who had helped me and made me realize that anything I wanted to do was possible, despite being disabled. She had helped me to realize that even though I had difficulties I had to fight against every day, I could fight the battle. Even better, I could win.

I just didn’t realize that when my mother had said that I would have to do everything by myself and nobody else was going to help me, she was also talking about herself.

I reached down and gently plucked the Lily-of-the-Valley. Its petals were a wonder of blue, a few different shades so that the petals were made of water. The petals had reminded me of sapphires, and they always shone like beacons in the dark when I got lost for too long among my plants.

I went to the small pond in the centre of my mind and placed the lily within the water. The hiss of the waves and the strong screech of metal stopped. I wondered where the currents would take the lily. I knew only that by the time I saw it again, I might be ready to see my mother again.

Chapter Eleven – Justice

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

There was a justice on the street that hadn’t been in my life before.

In my life that had been, bullies sometimes went unchecked, those that were different were hurt and often there was no way to find retribution. The street held a kind of law and an unspoken rule of conduct. If someone was down, you held them up. It someone had been hurt by someone else, you stood up for them. I’d come to realize in a short time that you protected those that you were close to. It was just something you did without thinking about it.

Fast friendships formed and these people cemented themselves into your life and it was like you knew them right away. It was like this with Angel. I hadn’t known her at all when I had first met her, but now I searched her out whenever I was at YSB or the square. She filled my life with light, and I tended to gravitate towards it, not to drink from it but so I could bask in her glow.

It was healing to be next to her and her warmth filled over into my life. She would often draw her chalk art on the pavement of the square and put a hat out to collect change. Her art was so beautiful and lifelike that it looked like it could rise up out off the pavement and come to life. I was amazed that she could create such beautiful art with chalk on something as hard and unfriendly as the pavement. It seemed like a wonderful kind of balance whenever Angel worked the chalk into the cold pavement and brought it to life. Angel found life in the world that hadn’t been there before, and I marveled as I watched her work.

“Did you want to write something?” She asked.

I shrugged. “Well, nothing I write will be as good as your art.”

She stopped drawing and gave me a stern look. “Don’t say that. You’re a beautiful writer and your poetry is incredible. Why don’t you write a poem to go with my drawing. You can take your time with it. Here,” she handed me a piece of white chalk

I held it for a moment, watching her bring a woman to life within a forest of leaves. She looked out at me from within the window that Angel had created for her, and I could see her looking up at me. I looked into the woman’s eyes and began to write her story, scratching the white chalk onto the pavement.

I watched as both of our creations came to life together, my words taking inspiration from her. “She looks like she’s looking up at me from behind a window.” I told her. “Or like she’s outside looking within.”

Angel nodded and worked window lines in front of the chalk woman’s face. Only a few lines had been added, but it brought the chalk painting alive for me, made the final words of my poem come out and tumble from my fingers.

“There,” Angel said. We sat back and looked at our piece of art, my words a balance to her world of colours. I hadn’t noticed, but the amount of money in the hat had grown quite a bit. When the day was over, Angel handed me half.

“I can’t take that,” I said. “I wrote my poem for fun.”

“I painted my lady in the window for fun, too. We both worked hard in our own way and should both get paid for what we made. Fuck, I made more today than had it just been me painting. We helped each other.” She put the money into my hand and folded my fingers over it. “I mean, you didn’t see the people going to walk by my art, but they stopped to read your words and what you had written. We did it together, Jamie.”

We gathered up our windfall and headed towards McDonalds on Rideau Street. We could treat ourselves to something. I usually got a Fillet o’Fish and Angel would get nuggets or a Big Mac. We could eat in the restaurant and be near a washroom, pretend that we were normal, just for a moment.

I remember getting our food and thinking about the poem I had written. Eventually, both the drawing and my poem would be gone, never to exist again. It’s not like Angel and I could take a copy of her drawing, and I hadn’t thought to write down a copy of the words I had left behind.

I was okay with that.

It was our give to those that had given us the money we had in our pockets. The art and the words belonged to them, and we had left our magic in the streets. I wondered if others would be guided by the flash of the woman’s blue eyes or the curve of the vowels I had penned.

In that moment, I thought of the chalk dust we had marked the pavement with like stars, waiting to lead others to where they would find their magic.

Chapter Nine – The Hermit

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

Sunshine lived with two other guys in a two-bedroom apartment.

It was this squat building painted a burgundy too dark to be considered gentle and there was yellow trim everywhere on the outside of the building. The building looked tired, but damn it was trying. “It’s not much,” Sunshine said. “I get a large room with a window that looks out into the alley. There are sometimes that I like to sit there and listen to the music that the evening has to offer.”

He gave the old building a wink. “Still, she can be temperamental like all old places are.” Giving me first a shrug and then a saucy wink. “At least she’s trying!”

The lobby was a one room with a jumble of mailboxes that looked strangely like mouths. I was reminded of the doorknobs from The Labyrinth for some reason and wondered what kind of a world I was about to enter. There was graffiti in the stairwell that had been there for years. The words had faded to the point where they were unintelligible. In certain sections of the stairs, it looked as if a painter’s pallet had exploded: the stairs were covered in bold blacks and yellows, arcs of magenta, vibrant oranges faded to the dusk of dusk itself.

To my mind, only the fey folk lived here or those desperate to live. It felt like home to me right away. My stepfather had taught me to recognize the signs of what had once been a good building. This building may not look pretty, but I could see what the building had once been underneath the grime, crumbling stone and faded windows. She had been a jewel in her day. The wood held the stories of these people that had come before me. I may not be here very long, I thought, but it would be home while I was.

Sunshine’s roommates nodded at me when Sunshine and me came into the apartment. “This is Dan and Mike. They’re nice. Their room is that way. They don’t want anyone knowing that they are a couple, so mums the word, honey.”

We passed by a kitchen, the bathroom and then ended up in Sunshine’s room. He was right, it was a spacious room and the window to the outside world was huge. I could see the deep blue of the dusky sky and it brought me comfort. “Come here, honey. Look, it’s like a window box. You can even sit in there and write. I like to do that. I write in my journal sometime, you know? I know that it will be published someday.”

He went over to his stuff and pulled out a roll of foam. “I don’t have a lot for you to sleep on. My mother got me a futon, but it’s only a single. I can give you this to sleep on? I’m sorry honey, I wish I had more.”

I took the foam with reverence. “Thank you, it’s more than enough. You’ve given me so much already.”

“You go on and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back. I’m going to see if those two guys have left any food in the house.”

While he was gone, I took a seat in the window. If I wanted to, I could have opened it and dangled my feet out into the alleyway. Instead, I was content to sit there looking at a slice of the moon that I could see. There was a haze around the building that seemed to take on more life the darker the sky got. It’s like the building wanted to shine for all those that might need her.

I sat there and tried to focus on my own light into my words. I sat there, holding my pen and paper in hand and just enjoyed the moment instead. There was no other sound except my own breathing and Sunshine in the kitchen.

I knew that the world held the dark and the light and that I had a choice to make. I could let what happened with Shades dim my light, I could disappear into the uncertainty of this world and let myself become lost within it. What did I have anymore but my own will? I could choose to let that go, too and embrace what may come.

Or I could choose to dust myself off, get up and not have my life determined for me by a man. I was in a place of comfort with someone I trusted, and I hadn’t had that with Shades. I thought of the steps that I had taken and the path I had chosen for myself. I would see this path through to the end, no matter where it took me.

As I looked up at the sliver of the moon I could see in a dusky blue sky, I promised myself this.

Sunshine came back into the room holding two mugs. “Good news, honey! They didn’t finish everything off.” His smile was infectious as he held up the two mugs. “Chicken noodle soup!”

Chapter Seven – The Chariot

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

I spent a lot of time at the YSB.

It was a home away from home really and gave me a place to get away from Shades when he was in one of his moods which was happening more and more lately.

The YSB was a haven of safety in a world that felt new and frightening. It was a place where the waters seemed to stand still around me and I didn’t feel like I was going to be taken out to sea. Whenever I was with Shades or out on the streets, I hear the steady ebb, flow and wave of water around me and within. My emotions were uncertain of where this path would take me. The waters only calmed when I put pen to paper.

I had taken a notepad and pen with me when I left home and I had taken to writing in it when I found myself lost. I would often go through the tarot deck that my brother had given me and wrote down my thoughts about certain cards within the Ancient Egyptian Tarot. It helped me to understand them. The scratching of the pen would calm the waves, and it was like the words were leading me home to myself.

I would sit in one of the chairs at the YSB, talking to friends, reading books that I found on the bookshelves, delving further into my tarot deck and writing. Interspersed through the nots about tarot and my thoughts, I would write poems, casting my words like stones upon the paper.

Words had been my comfort for so long. I had found my way in the world through them, and I had written voraciously since I was a child. I had to write; it was the way I found my voice when I felt that I didn’t have one. All throughout high school, my writing gave me the comfort I needed. I didn’t even realize I wanted to be a writer, or that I was one. Writing and words were just part of who I was. My pen had been quiet, but I had begun to take the journal out from time to time. There were only a handful of pages left, and I had to keep my writing small, but even so, they came out in a small torrent, and they carried me along, letting me know that they had my back, much like my cards. The words let me know that spirit was always there.

I looked at the pages left in my journal and wondered what I would fill those pages with, what words would fall out of me and find their way together.

One of the workers of the Youth Services Bureau stopped by my table, a woman named Rebecca. I later found out that all of the people that worked there were social workers. They were some of the very best people in my life at the time. They took care of me, each in their different way. Some would sit outside with us while we smoked cigarettes and others would walk around making sure we had food, or we had been able to take a shower.

She gave me a kind look. “What are you reading?”

“It’s my journal. I’ve been writing in it, but I’m running out of room.”

“Well, that’s awful,” she said. “You don’t want to stop a story or a poem in midsentence.”

I shrugged and gave her a weak smile. “There’s not much I can do. I’m running out of paper.”

She looked at my face and she could see the longing there. The pen lay on the table in front of me, but I didn’t reach for it. She saw my hand twitch and gave me a smile. “Hold on a second, I have an idea.”

Rebecca walked away for a moment and rummaged in the desk where the social worker on duty would sit. She returned a few minutes later with a few sheets of paper. She had folded them in half. When she handed them to me, it felt like she was giving me water or the breath of life. I could hear my pen click in joy on the table.

“You can’t stop story before it’s done,” she said. “You can fit them in the back of your journal so that you can keep writing. If you need more, just let me know.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I told her, knowing no other words.

I slipped the paper into my journal and let the torrent of words take me forward where they would.