Tag: life

Chapter Thirty – 9 of Wands

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

I was tired the next morning.

I had a fitful night sleeping on the floor in Lisa’s bedroom. I was exhausted from all the changes that had happened in my life over such a short period of time. Lisa tried to get me out of myself. I found it hard to show enthusiasm about much of anything and I missed Sunshine and the life I had before.

During my time away from the streets, I had aged out of the Youth Services Bureau when I turned eighteen. It’s not that I couldn’t go back, but I was not allowed to stay. I was too old and the fact that I could never go back to that part of my life filled me with a malaise I couldn’t name. I was constantly being asked to change, to adapt, to embrace. I was being asked to move forward, but I wasn’t sure how.

“You have to stop holding on to everything,” Lisa said. “It’s not healthy. You need to focus on the now.”

We were sitting out front of her apartment having a cigarette. She didn’t often give me life advice, but she was the queen of living in the now. “Who knows what the future holds? You can’t imagine the worst that is yet to come. You’ve got enough on your mind, I can see that. You don’t do well with change.”

I thought of all the changes I had experienced in my life in the past while and thought I had done pretty well with change and told her so. “You haven’t lived my life.”

“I know I haven’t,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t see. You are walking around all world weary but you’re at the age where you are supposed to be experiencing life. C’mon, get your cards.”

I sighed, put out my cigarette and went to my purple backpack to retrieve my tarot cards and brought them back outside. Lisa motioned at me and said “Well, you know what to do. Shuffle and draw.”

Shuffling the cards, I thought about all the changes I had been through and the weight I was carrying and how to let go of it. I drew the 9 of Wands. It showed four men trying to shift the weight of a statue, but he wasn’t doing so alone. There were others helping him to shift the weight so that they could move the statue.

“See?”

“See what?” I asked her, not sure what she was getting at.

“You carry the weight of your journey, but you are being reminded that you don’t have to do it alone.”

“I always have,” I told her.

“Then maybe it’s time you don’t. I can carry some of your weight, Sophie will help. You have friends on the streets and in the Pagan community and we’re all with you because we know you.” She lit another cigarette. “Didn’t I tell you that you were a warrior witch? It’s because you know how to fight your battles, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t ask for help. You don’t have to do everything on your own or fight battles all the time. You should let people in and let them help you.”

I thought about what she said. “I’ve been taught to do everything on my own.”

“Just because that’s the way you were taught doesn’t mean that you have to live that way all of your life. It must be so exhausting. I couldn’t do everything on my own. I have Paul and my roommate Frank to help me when I need it and my boyfriend Carl when he’s here in town. You don’t have to do everything on your own, Jamieson.” She motioned at the card. “Let someone else hold the Wands for once.”

I looked again at the card and saw that without the other people in the card the man trying to move the statue would never have gotten it done. Was I making my life more difficult for myself by trying to do everything on my own?

I would have to decide what to do, whether or not I was able to let anyone else into my life the way that Lisa was talking about. I was tired, but proud. Was I too proud to accept help and support from other people? I looked at the man within the 9 of Wands and knew that I would need to change my habits.

“Look, I can see from your face that you are going deep into yourself. Come out with me tonight? We’re going to go and play pool.”

“I suck at pool.”

“So do I, but that’s not the point. The point is that sometimes, we have to laugh at ourselves to that we can find a way forward. Sound good?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine – 8 of Wands

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

I came home to my room to find my blankets missing.

I only had two thin blankets. They were warm flannel, but they didn’t take up a lot of room in my bag. They had been spread out on my bed, and they were gone. I went to see Joey and he tried to get me to lower my voice.

“I don’t see why you’re not upset about this,” I told him. “Someone took my blankets and I haven’t let anyone in my room.”

“That’s because I took them from your room.” Joey said.

The shock left me speechless for a moment. I know that I was only silent for a second, maybe two, but it felt like a moment frozen in time. I looked at this man who I had seen with kindness, who had given me a room when I had nowhere to call my own, and I watched the light that I had hung around his head like a wreath fade, flicker and fall away. “Why would you do this?” I asked. “Those are mine.”

“I took in a new boarder today. He has nothing, less than nothing. He just got out of prison. He only has the clothing on his back and the bed to lay his head down. I figured he could use one blanket for a pillow and the other to cover himself. It’s really an act of kindness when you think about it.”

I stared at Joey and tried to find the words and I try to not let the sense of betrayal fill me with rage. “You went into my room. You unlocked my door and went into my room and you took my things.”

“For someone that has nothing!” Joey said. His voice was rising the quieter mine became. It was like a storm was building in me but in reverse. It felt like my world was imploding and the words that I wanted to scream at him were quiet and soft next to the gale that raged within me. I tried to pry the words I wanted to say out of the wind so that they could fall from my tongue rather than shoot from my mouth and hurt him.

“I don’t care if he has nothing or if he came from fucking prison.” I told Joey quietly. “Nothing gave you the right to go into my room without my permission. Nothing.”

Joey had nothing to say in response. I knew that I would not live here, that I could not live here. I would not live in a place where I did not feel safe. I lay in bed that night looking up at my ceiling. I didn’t want to fall asleep in case someone else came into the room. The fact that this room had been my place of safety had been taken from me. I knew that Joey probably didn’t mean anything by it, but I knew that this was no longer my home.

In the morning, I went to see Lisa. We had a cigarette and a coffee together and I told her all about what had happened. Whereas I had gone quiet so that I could hear the words that wanted to be said, Lisa had no such issues.

“How fucking dare he. Does he know who he’s dealing with? Obviously not or he never would have done it. You can’t live there.”

“I know I can’t, but I don’t know where else I can go. I could go and see Sunshine and see if he would take me back. I have to go look at the postings at the Youth Services Bureau and see if they have any other rooms to rent.”

“Don’t bother with that. You can come and live with me.”

I looked at her. My emotions were all over the place and I felt both warmth towards Lisa and also confusion. “You live with two other people. There isn’t enough room for me here.”

Lisa lived with her stepson and another roommate in her three-bedroom apartment. “Of course there is. And it’s my place, they just live here and pay me rent for their rooms.”

“But where will I sleep?” I asked her. “I could sleep on the couch.”

“You don’t want to sleep there. It’s all lumpy. No, you can sleep in my bedroom. It’s a huge room and there’s plenty of room for both of us.”

“I still have my roll of foam that I used to use at Sunshine’s place.”

“There, see. That’s perfect. We’ll go get your stuff later and Paul can help.”

Paul was Lisa’s stepson. “Won’t he mind?”

“He won’t mind, and he owes me a few favours. You call the welfare office and tell them that you’re moving and give them my address. It’ll be fun and we can talk about boys we like while we fall asleep.” She huffed out a puff of smoke and I wondered if the smoke carried words. I could see the elbow of an L and the curve of an O.

I was so desperate to get out of the boarding house that I agreed right away. I trusted Lisa and, even though I would be homeless once again, at least I had somewhere to lay my head that felt safe. I had no doubt that Lisa would protect me, and she already felt like home to my spirit. I thought of Anne Shirley and her friend Diana Barry from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I finally understood what the word kindred meant and what it was supposed to feel like when you met someone whose spirit matched your own. They recognized each other.

That evening, Paul came with me to the boarding house on Arlington and helped me carry my meagre belongings. I’d gotten a few more pieces of clothing and other things like books, toiletries, my notebooks and my tarot cards. Along with my rolled-up piece of foam, everything fit into my backpack and two other bags. I marvelled that I had been able to collect so much stuff and that I had left my mark on so many things.

I dropped off my stuff in Lisa’s bedroom and went to stand with Lisa on the front porch to have a cigarette. We stood on the front porch. It had once been a royal blue porch that had faded to a bright cobalt blue. As I looked out at the night in front of me, I felt like I was nestled in the night with only the smoke from our cigarettes to guide the stars.

Chapter Twenty-Eight – 7 of Wands

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

I was overjoyed to get a phone in my room.

It felt like such an adult thing to have such a thing. A phone was an item from my past and

I was finally able to stay in touch with those I loved and even a few friends. Not that many people had my telephone number and felt special. I didn’t have a lot of money and would not use the phone very much except for local calls. That’s why it was odd to find it ringing when I got home from the garage. I had made myself a bowl of pasta in the kitchen of the rooming house and was having dinner while I read a book. The phone ringing was like a siren and my fork clattered to the desk.

A part of me didn’t want to answer it, but I ignored that part of me and picked up the receiver, the ring of the telephone loud in my room. “Hello?”

“So it is your number.” Shades said. His voice was dark and full of honey, the kind that could clog your throat and make it hard to breathe. “I wasn’t sure that Sunshine was pulling my leg or not when he gave me your number.”

It had been so long since I had heard his voice. I had come to know it well during our time together and I knew that this was his angry voice. It was how he liked to start most conversations. He had always been angry about something or angry at someone. I saw that with the gift of hindsight, but when I first knew him, I thought Shades being moody was just his way of being misunderstood. I was attracted to these parts of him that he was brave enough to share under the cover of night. I realized that I had been something to be kept hidden and kept from the prying eyes of others.

I knew that he had been ashamed of me. At that moment, I was ashamed of myself because when I heard his voice, my body reacted automatically. Even though my mind and body knew that Shades was bad for me, they still wanted him. I still wanted him.

“I need to see you,” he said. “I don’t know what you did to me. I was never fucking gay before you but now I can’t get you out of my head.”

The words came out in an angry torrent, and I felt each one of them pierce my skin. I wondered how much a person could bleed before they had given away all that they were to the needs of someone else. He had already taken so much from me, aside from the parts of myself that I had willingly given him.

“I didn’t make you gay.” I told him.

“Then what did you do?” I could hear the desperation in his voice, and it echoed my own when I realized that I was gay and prayed for someone, anyone to take it away. “You only think of yourself, that’s always been the way you do thing. You just took from me.”

“I didn’t take anything from you.”

“You took my manhood. You made me gay when you put it in your mouth.”

I let out a laugh. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like you can catch being gay like you can catch the flu.”

“Then what did you do to me?” He asked again. “I need to see you. Will you come to see me, please?”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me doing it. “Sure, I’ll come see you. How do I get there and what’s the address?”

He told me and I told him that I would be there in about an hour. I sat in my room and thought only for a moment of what I wanted to do and wondering if I could do it. I knew that it would make him angry, but I just didn’t care anymore. I sat there at the desk and looked at myself in the mirror that looked back at me like an eye. I went to my purple bag and took out all of my make up and set it on the table in front of me.

I pushed my bowl of pasta aside and began applying my makeup. I started with a light powder to cover my skin and then eyeshadow. I chose a light purple colour, an almost lilac colour that made my eyes brighter. I applied a little bit of blush in a natural tone and a lipstick in a soft rose petal colour. All very neutral but I was clearly wearing make up.

With every strike of the brush against my skin, it felt like I was putting on war paint. I knew that by going to see him, I had put the ball in his court. I had to take my power back from him. I knew that this had to be done, even if it meant going to him. By the time I was made up completely, I was ready for the battle ahead of me. As I waited for the bus, I said mantra’s over and over in my head and tried to recall what I had learned from reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As I got on the bus and it began to bring me closer to where he waited, I thought of the bus as a chariot heading into war and wondered if I would be victorious.

In truth, I was afraid. I didn’t know how he would react, and I had seen him rage before. He had made me hide inside a closet rather than be seen with me. At the time, I had thought it was because he wasn’t out of the closet yet. Later, after I had left him, I wondered if it was because he was ashamed of the feelings I brought out in him, so I had to be hidden.

I would not hide now.

He would not make me cower because of who I was and what I was. The makeup drew looks from my fellow bus passengers, but I thought “Let them look.” That was the point anyways. I didn’t want to hide anymore so that I could make Shades feel better about his shame. I had to stand up for myself once and for all with him and let him know that he could not intimidate me anymore.

He was waiting for me when the bus came. I got off the bus and could already see a storm brewing around him. Part of me wondered why this was so important to me and what I had to prove, but in that moment when I saw the anger in his eyes when he looked at me, I knew that this was important to me. Shades didn’t matter one iota to me. I would not hide myself so that he could feel comfortable with who and what he was.

“Do you have to look like such a faggot?”

I could see the air around him and it looked as if it had been supercharged with the energy he was putting out. I could smell the booze emanating from him and knowing how alcohol affected people, I knew to be wary and on my guard. Confronting him was about giving myself closure, but that didn’t mean I had to endanger myself.

“I’m not exactly sure what you mean, Shades.” I told him. “How exactly is a faggot supposed to look?”

He waved his hands at me. “Like this! Like you do!”

“I’m not sorry if the very sight of me offends you.”

“It’s not that! Do you have to be so fucking gay all the time?”

“It’s not like I can turn it off, you know.” I said. “It’s not like there’s a gay switch that I can flick on and off to blend better with society.”

“You could at least try!” He was yelling now. “Then we could be together.”

I looked at him, at this man I used to be so enraptured with, and I wondered why he had held so much power over me. I thought of Rainbow and how he had treated her, how he had treated both of us and the way we thought we were lucky to have drawn his gaze to ourselves. We felt like we had been blessed to have him in our lives. I would have done anything for Shades, and I think he knew that, too.

That stopped now.

I was not someone to be ashamed of or shoved into a box or a closet to remain hidden until you were ready for me. “I’m not going to be the reason that you’re pissed off. You’re angry at me because I’m braver than you are because I can live as I truly am.”

“Just come inside and we can talk about this, about what you’ve done to me and what you plan to do about it.”

That sounded less like an invitation and more like a threat. I was done being threatened and I was done hiding. I looked at Shades and finally saw him for what he was. When that happened, I realized he had no power over me.

I could see another bus coming and I turned my back on Shades and walked towards the bus stop. It didn’t matter what bus it was, only that it would take me away from him and back to the life which I was trying to live where he had no place in it.

“Where are you going?”

When I turned back to him, it was to find him looking at me with eyes so filled with fear. I knew what it was like to be afraid, and I hoped that Shades would find a way through it towards self acceptance. I knew that it wasn’t my place to take on someone else’s fears and try to make sense of them. I had enough to deal with on my own.

I turned away from him and when the bus door opened, I got on and let the doors close behind me. As I made my way to a seat, I could see Shades looking after the bus for a moment and then he was gone from my sight and my life.

Chapter Twenty-Seven – 6 of Wands

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

The job at the city yard went well.

At the beginning of my shift, I would clean the kitchen, locker room and bathroom, swept the garage’s concrete, losing myself in the work. Sometimes, Gus would play some rock music within the garage, and I would find myself dancing along to the music, only when Gus wasn’t watching. I figured it was best not to antagonize him too much. He already suspected that I was gay and there wasn’t much I could do to change his mind about that, even if it was true.

I tried to stay out of his way and for the most part I succeeded, but there was no way I could stretch eight four hours of work into eight, no matter how hard I tried. I cleaned the same surfaces every day and I kept them clean, but there came a time in the day where there was nothing left for me to do. I would sit and read on a chair I kept near the door so that way I could take a walk every few minutes to look over the surfaces I had cleaned.

After a few days of this, Frank let out a large sigh. “You might as well come over here and talk to me.” He held out his pack of cigarettes. “You want one?”

I knew a peace offering when I saw one and I took a cigarette. I sat down slowly across from him, ready to move back to my chair should he suddenly change his mind. It felt like I was sitting down with some kind of mob boss, and I half expected a cat to hop up on Gus’ lap and for Gus to start petting him. Instead, he was holding out a cigarette. I took it gratefully and sat down across from him. I lit it and watched him watching me.

We each took a drag off our cigarettes and let out a plume of smoke. “Your fingers look funny with that shit on them.” Gus said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He jabbed his cigarette in the air. “Don’t you dare apologize to me.”

“I’m-” I had been about to do just that when I stopped myself. “Okay.”

“That’s better.” He puffed away on his cigarette for a moment longer. “You’re always doing that. Just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Though I’d kick my friends’ asses if they did that to me.

We smoked in silence again. Gus kept shooting glances at the book that I had on my lap. The cover showed black cat and the moon over a green background. “Time Cat,” I told him, taking out a well-loved paperback. I had found it at the Youth Services Bureau, and it had never left my bag since. I had read it so many times by now that sometime, I would thumb the book open to a random page and start reading it from there. “It’s a really amazing book.”

“You read a lot, then? Never stop reading. I put a book down once wen I was young and never picked up the habit again.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “Never lose the habit, kid. Never lose the habit.

“I won’t.” I told him.

I watched Gus out of the corner of my eye. He really didn’t say a lot and, as far as I could see, he didn’t do a lot aside from sitting in the garage, smoking cigarettes, his blue eyes shrouded by thick eyebrows and a haze of smoke. We passed an entire day, and the word faggot didn’t come up again. I doubt he had been talked to by his co-workers for calling me out, it didn’t seem like that kind of garage. I didn’t think that Gus and I would be sharing phone numbers any time soon, but I seemed to have made it over some kind of hurdle with him. I felt like I had won a race and I was standing proud on the finish line. He seemed to actually like me a little and I felt like I was being honoured. I wanted to make him proud, so I made sure to continue doing good work and cleaning every surface that I could see.

Gus waved at me, the cigarette dangling from his fingers making him look as if he were conducting a piece of magic. He opened his mouth to speak, and I wondered what words of wisdom would come out. “Fuck sakes, kid. Slow the fuck down. You’re going to make the rest of us look bad.”

Chapter Twenty-Six – The 5 of Wands

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

Fox brought me to talk to one of the women at the YSB.

Her name was Vicki, and she had a riot of blond curls. “We’d like to offer you a job. You’d be working at one of the city yards. You’d be cleaning up the garage. You’d work 8am to 4pm. Would that be all right?”

“My goodness of course.” I told her. In truth, the endless days of doing nothing except hanging out with Sunshine and my family on the streets or with Lisa and her friends was wearing me down. I wanted something to do, something that would make me feel like I was making a difference in the world, however small.

Fox came with me for the first time. He was one of the people that helped to find patrons of the Youth Services Bureau that wanted to work. The YSB had funds to pay workers and though the responsibilities were rudimentary like cleaning or picking up garbage, they paid a fair wage that didn’t affect the money you got from welfare if you were receiving a check each month. I didn’t care that I was cleaning a city yard. I was just happy to be doing something with my time.

When we arrived at the city yard, Fox introduced me to everyone that worked there and the other guys I would be working with. I would be only one cleaning up the garage and three others would be going out in trucks to help pick up the garbage and trash that they found in the streets. I didn’t mind at all; I loved to clean. If the other guys wanted to pick up the garbage, I was happy to clean the garage.  Cleaning had always brought me a kind of joy, like finding brightness that before had been only shadows.

The guy that ran the city yard gave me a vest to wear and a bucket of cleaning supplies. He explained my job. I wouldn’t be cleaning the actual garage, that was full of smoke and dust no matter what you did. Instead, I would clean the locker rooms from top to bottom, the kitchen, washrooms and empty lockers. If I was able to, I would clean the windows for the garage. Basically, I would clean every surface I could touch.

He showed me where the vacuum was along with the buckets and cleaning materials. I thanked him. I was shy around him, being that he was an authority figure. I didn’t need to worry though, he was pretty much an open book. Frank had a bright open face and longish brown hair that hung down to his shoulders. “We’re so happy to have you cleaning for us, Jamie. It’s hard to clean. I mean, I’m on medication. It affects my balance, you know? I used to do all the cleaning, but I feel last month, and I have to be careful. I can still drive thank goodness for that. Do you take antidepressants?”

“No,” I said. “But I do deal with depression.”

“You gotta get yourself balanced, Jamie. No one is going to do it for you. I used to think that antidepressants were the devil, but now I know that Prozac is my friend. It keeps the voices away, you know?”

I knew all about voices. I could hear my muses talking all the time, telling me stories they wanted me to write down, different poems that they wanted me to write, snippets of text or poetry that they wanted me to remember. I nodded to show Frank that I understood him.

“Sometimes, it just gets to be too much, you know? I don’t know how many milligrams I’m on; I just take what my doctor gives me, but gosh I’m so much happier. You can’t always fight against yourself. There’s no shame, you know?”

I wonder what he saw in me to make him open up to me this way, but I felt an immediate kinship with Frank. He had been misunderstood, too. “Sure,” I said. “Sure thing.”

“That’s the ticket. Let me show you who you’re going to be working with. This here is Gus. He’s a grumpy sun of a gun, but he means you no harm if you get used to him. Bars worse than his bite if you get my meaning.”

“Sure,” I knew plenty of people like that, even those whose bark matched the sound of their bite. My hackles went up a little bit and I reminded myself to be respectful.

Gus was a well-rounded man with a mop of white hair and a large mustache. He was smoking a cigarette, and it dangled from his lip. He gave me a once over. His eyes stopped at the sparkly nail polish that decorated my fingers. “What’s that about?” Gus said, pointing at my nails.

“Just something of a prank, sir.” I said, trusting my initial instinct to hide myself as much as I could while being so far out in the open. “Roommates of mine painted my nails while I was asleep.”

He blinked at me in surprise, either shocked by the lie or believing me, I wasn’t sure. He took another drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out. “Well, you may be a faggot, but you’ll do.”