Tag: Protection

Chapter Fifty-Five – 7 of Swords

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

I was getting itchy.

It had been two years. I had ended up on the streets at seventeen and I was nineteen now. In two years, it felt like I had lived a lifetime. I thought of where I was now, and I knew that it was but a facet of my life. Depending on the way I turned the dice, another piece of my path would show itself and I would find myself faced with another choice.

Two years, filled with so many different things. In that time, I had experienced true friendship and had met people that filled me with joy. I found hope, started to believe in the power of dreams. I had found the small joys, like beautiful music heard through a window and the joy of food shared amongst people you loved.

I had also experienced two years of a wonderous fear of never knowing where you are going to sleep, find food for yourself, let alone people that you could trust. At times, all I kept close to me where my alarm clock and my Tarot deck. The Ancient Egyptian Tarot was the only link I had with my brother, and I’d like to think that in some way, he was keeping me safe.

I was fucking tired. I was tired of not having my own home, somewhere that I could close a door, where I owned everything within four walls. I wanted a couch and a television. I wanted to know that I could lock the door and that had my own room to sleep in. I wanted a bed. I didn’t want to sleep on a piece of foam on the floor.

I’m not sure why this clicked with me suddenly, but I woke up a little. I wanted more. I was so tired, and I wanted a home. I looked at the state of Lisa’s apartment, the dishes half-filled with old water. I wanted to consist of more than a diet of white bread and peanut butter, cigarettes and pot. I was so fucking tired.

I wanted more.

Without Lisa knowing, I started looking for another place to live. I knew that I wanted four walls around me, some kind of privacy and a different live than this one. I wanted a key ring, an address that people could send mail to. I wanted a bed. I didn’t want to be a nomad anymore.

I also knew that I would have to do this without Lisa. She didn’t want to get off welfare, and she had been on it for much longer than I had. Part of me felt like a thief as I started to inquire about good places to go and find a job. I felt like I was betraying her in some way. That by wanted to step away from this life, for wanting more, she would see it as a betrayal.

We were sitting out front having a cigarette and there was a cup of coffee in front of each of us. I tried to find calm in the sounds of the world waking up around me. I felt like I was telling my mother that I wanted to move out on my own and I knew that this was a big thing for me. I heard a bird call and it seemed like it was urging me on. I closed my eyes for a moment, taking joy from the sun that warmed my skin.

“I’m pregnant.” Lisa said.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. The sun was hitting her face, and she was squinting into it. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She took a long puff on her cigarette. When she was letting the smoke out, she looked down at the cigarette in her hand. “Huh. I’ll probably have to change to from regular smokes to DuMaurier lights, so the babies okay.”

The words that I wanted to say died on my tongue. There was no way I could step away from her now. I thought of the fact that she had given me space in her home, her food. Lisa had offered me safety. I had to make sure that she was okay. I reflected on the stated of her apartment and thought that it was no place for a baby to grow up in.

“I need your help with this. I want you to be my birth coach.”

I let out a puff of smoke. I watched the cloud of air float away full of words that I hadn’t said. I could see the odd word held safely within the smoke. “Me? Why me?”

“You’re my best friend, Jamieson. I don’t trust many people, but I would trust you with my life. I want my child to have the same guidance that you give me.”

“What kind of guidance can I give a child?” I asked her. “I don’t provide you with guidance, not really.”

“Jamieson, you’re tough. You’ve survived so much, you’ve seen and experienced horrors, but somehow despite it all, you’re positive. Your outlook on life astonishes me.” Taking another puff off of her smoke, she pointed it at me like a wand. “I don’t know how you can be happy having to live with everything you have to carry inside you. I don’t know how you’d do it. I’d be fucking miserable. I want my child to have that kind of mentality and that kind of light.” Smoke left her mouth, and I watched as it joined the cloud of smoke that held my words. As the tongues of smoke mingled, my words could be seen more clearly and I could see the word hope contained in the smoke before it, too, disappeared.

“I’d love to be your birth coach, I’m honoured.” I told her, meaning every word.

I wondered at the life I had been about to make for myself and now I knew that it would come, that I was ready, but it would not be now. I didn’t want to slither off into the night like some kind of thief either. Now that I had made the decision to move on, I knew that it would become possible.

That was enough for now.

Chapter Sixteen – The Tower

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

When I saw her, my first thought was of fire.

She had spiky red and gold hair, brown eyes and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. She was always smiling, and I wondered how a person could be a never ending source of light instead of puzzle or some kind of maze. I wasn’t used to that. Everyone was a kind of puzzle if you thought about it; you had to figure your way through what they held dear and see if resembled yours. It took years to know a person completely.

Renee wasn’t like that. She loved everyone equally and it didn’t matter who they were. Even if you chose to live outside and shunned the shelters, she loved you. If you had an issue with drugs, that didn’t matter. She always talked to you like you mattered.

She saw everyone.

I knew that I always lit up when I saw her as I began to run into her with more frequency. I didn’t know much about where she had come from and how she had ended up on the streets, but from the moment I ran into her in the YSB, it was like were drawn to each other.

I was a moth to a flame when I saw her.

All of my walls would come down. It wasn’t a question of hiding anything or observing their actions so I knew if I could trust them. There was none of that. I was instantly open  with her as there wasn’t even an iota of fear. I had only met one other person like that in my life up to that point. Those kinds of people are rare in life.

To say I was enraptured would be an understatement.

“Honey, you sound like you’re in love with her.” Sunshine said. He had just read a page of one of his journals and had asked me what happened during my day. I had spent the last five minutes talking about everything that Renee and I had done that day.

“Yeah, like I love you,” I told him. “Like we’re friends.”

“Do you ever mention to other people how my hair looks when the sun hits it just right?” He asked, giving me a wide grin.

“No, I tell them how awesome you are.”

“I know you do, what’s not to love. But you’re talking like you are in love with her.”

“That’s not possible, I’m gay.” I told him. I sat there looking at him, a new blanket I had gotten draped around my shoulders. I had picked it up at the Mission earlier and I pulled it closer around me despite the relative heat of the evening.

I thought of everything that I had given up to be gay, all that I had left behind to finally claim who I really truly was. I had struggled so much to be true to who I was. I had tried committing suicide twice in my teens, I had survived an abusive homelife and I overcome the mountain of high school, the ledge that should have been a place of safety that would help me see my path in the future but instead was a place of judgement, hatred and isolation.

I had survived everything to be what I was. It had been a secret for so long that finally owing up to the truth of who I was often felt like a waterfall that had been in front of me all this time had finally parted to let me through so that I could see what was on the other side.

“There are all kinds of love, Jamie. You love who you love, it’s your business.” He gave my hand a rub and lit a cigarette. He took a drag and passed it to me. “It doesn’t mean you have to sleep with her, but you can get as close as you want to. There’s no judgement. The normal rules don’t apply here.”

I passed him back the cigarette and when I let the smoke go free from my mouth, I let the blanket loosen around me. Sunshine had gone back to writing and I pulled out my tarot cards to figure out what I should do. I shuffled pulled out the Tower and the Seven of Pentacles. I looked within the guidebook and tried to determine what my future would bring.

Chapter Twelve – The Hanged Man

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

It was different living with other people.

I had chosen to cut myself off from everything I known by leaving home at sixteen and had everything taken from me a year later. I had thought I would have to do everything on my own. My brother had taught me that all you had on the streets was yourself and I had prepared myself for this. I hadn’t expected to be held up by so many others having been used to and ready to do everything for myself.

Dan and Mike didn’t say much, but they were kind to me in a detached sort of way. We would eat together in the mornings with Rainbow. I could hear the cockroaches scuttle away from us as we entered the kitchen and turned on the light in the morning.

“Scary fucking things,” Dan said as he looked at them click and clack away from us. Some mornings, it was like a small wave of them, fleeing from our step like a dark wave along the floors. “It’s like they just realized that it’s last call at the fucking bar and they don’t want to end up alone tonight.”

“It’ll be one hell of an orgy.” Mike said.

I let out a snort and Dan gave Mike a scowl. “Must you?” Dan said, making a gagging gesture. “Now I have to think about one nut Louie dancing at the bar, looking to get laid. I have to think about that often enough.”

They both seemed kind of exotic to me. It’s like they had this language between the two of them. According to Rainbow, one of them didn’t want to be out of the closet yet, but they seemed to be so comfortable with each other. Maybe that’s what it’s all about, I thought. Finding that one person that matched you, even for an instant. I looked at Mike and Dan and tried to imagine them as puzzle pieces; did they fit together? I tried to see if I could spot the lines between them, if they flowed together or if someone had forced the puzzle piece into the puzzle in the wrong place only to realize that it belonged somewhere else.

They had a cat. It was a sweet grey and white conk of a kitty, and she was a friend to everyone. I had never been able to have a cat of my own before and I loved cats. Thankfully, Squeak liked me a lot and I was so happy to have her company when Mike and Dan were around. She was like a mom to all of us boys and would help us chase away the cockroaches when she saw them.

It was hard for me to live with others. Even before I had found myself on the streets, I didn’t make friends with people very easily. I had been hurt so much in life, and I had to do everything myself anyways. I had known a few good friends, but that was it. It was easier than letting people in and I wanted to protect them from getting hurt. I was so used to thinking of others first and keeping myself away from them. It was what I had learned from my father. He had taught me to stay far away so that I could avoid a fist but to keep the peace if I could. I was taught to placate, soothe and provide calm so that I could step away and hide my wounds.

            Words were my friends. If I read and kept to myself, I didn’t get hurt. Plus, I could become friends with the characters in books and lose myself in their worlds. In these worlds, good usually won over evil or those that caused harm got their comeuppance. I have written since I was young because I had to. It was as necessary as breathing to me. As much as I lost myself in the word of others, I have always found myself in the words that I write.

Now here I was living with three other men and we got along better than just Shades and I had been able to. I was being given a different perspective of living with others that wanted to know me and didn’t want to hurt me. I didn’t need to pull myself away from them to avoid getting hurt. I wasn’t used to that. I had been taught to hide myself and what I was, that being gay and disabled was shameful thing, and yet none of these people cared that I was either. I felt the walls start that I kept around myself start to go down.

I watched the smoke from my cigarette flow out of the window pictured the wall around me slip away one brick at a time, so that I could start letting people in. It would take time, that it would be difficult, but I finally knew a truth:

If I let go of the wall, maybe I could finally be able to breathe. I had been holding my breath in fear for so long. What if I didn’t have to?