On Beginning Again

The beauty of a blank page.

Every afternoon, a gaggle of high school students gather outside the local Starbucks, sporting Dr. Martens and baggy jeans and midriff bearing tops despite freezing temperatures. They look like I did twenty years ago, but chic. When did I get older? I think, at the sight of them. Quickly followed by, I should’ve held onto more of my old wardrobe.

To state the obvious: Time is so weird. It disappears before your very eyes, then waves at you, wearing a scrunchie.

It’s the peace sign necklace for me.

I’ve found myself in a retro mood lately, my playlist full of gems from the 80s, 90s, and early aughts. Every song carries with it a memory I didn’t know I had — a dance in a musty gymnasium, goofy teens swaying amidst scattered balloons; an angsty early morning bus ride, Discman clutched in my lap. Music is an excellent emotional shortcut, a way to access secrets buried just out of reach.

I am currently working on a book proposal, an exercise that has me rifling through mental boxes and peeking through the windows of rooms I haven’t inhabited in years. The start of a new project is always exciting and terrifying — on the one hand, it could go anywhere; on the other, you’re back at square one. But my favorite part of staring down a blank document is that whenever you’re at the beginning, you get to be a beginner. We often regard a beginner as someone without experience, a confused novice who doesn’t know better. But a beginner is open to all possibilities — there is room for learning, and also ample room for surprises.

They say an essayist writes to discover what they think, and takes the reader along for the ride. You start off with a question, then a haphazard assortment of thoughts, Jenga-ing paragraphs until you arrive at a narrative. If you’re lucky, you wind up right where you started, but with a better view.

Can’t the same be said about life? Everything looks different from the outside — adulthood, relationships, parenting. (Often, it looks easier.) Then one day you’re on the inside, navigating and redefining the experience on your own terms. You get to be a beginner all over again, seeing the world with fresh eyes.

The rules for writing and for living are not so far apart.

I used to think “finding yourself” was something you only do once, like losing your virginity or voting for the first time. That was hilariously off the mark. Not only do you change, your understanding of the past does, too. You see the birth of patterns, the methods to other people’s madness. You discover that history is not some static thing, but a living, breathing bridge to the present.

Joan Didion famously wrote that “we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be.” And while I fully embrace the sentiment, my process is much more active. I need to have full-on conversations with the people I used to be. We hang out. We compare notes. We collaborate. Together, we rewrite the draft of our story over and over, and I suspect we will for as long as I’m here.

If everything is cyclical — trends, moods, seasons, life — it stands to reason that if you wait long enough, you’re bound to see it all again, albeit in a slightly different form. It suggests that perhaps there is some order to this mad world. That spring (and another cut of jeans) is just around the corner.

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring The Golden Girls Tarot, illustrated by Chantel de Sousa

On the surface, The Fool sounds like an insult. It is anything but.

The very first card of the Major Arcana, The Fool is at the beginning of a journey. They’re on the precipice of a marvelous discovery — about the world, about their skills, about themselves. Picture a kid on a bike who just lost their training wheels, or a baby bird about to take flight. The Fool retains the spirit of youth, but knows that juvenescence has little to do with age or experience. As Betty White said, when asked for her secret to aging gracefully, “Don’t try to be young. Just open your mind.” Curiosity is ageless.

When The Fool showed up as the card for this week, my mind immediately jumped to this image of Betty White, from the Golden Girls tarot. Both Betty, and her character, Rose, are the perfect embodiment of Fool energy — brave, positive, a bit devil-may-care, and in the case of Rose, naïve. But that innocence only serves to help the Fool. Their intentions are pure, their quest is noble, and their odds of personal fulfillment are almost guaranteed.

In most depictions, this character is about to walk straight off a bluff, with no concern for the repercussions — the tarot’s embodiment of the Neil Gaiman quote, “Sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” While it’s a beautiful card, in theory, The Fool can be hard to connect with. The world presents us with a bevy of very real challenges — systemic, financial, physical, emotional… I’m sure you’re intimately acquainted with plenty of them. How can one channel Fool energy into real life, where we’re expected to show up, day after day?

This card wishes to remind you that in a world full of challenges, you do not have to be one of them. You can step out of your own way.

When it comes to making things happen, some people are planners, painstakingly charting every step. Some people are procrastinators, hinging on every excuse and distraction. Some people are worriers, ruminating on all that could possibly go wrong. Other people just go, and trust that it’ll work out.

The Fool is most like the last one, with an extra caveat. From the outside, it may appear that they blindly trust success is imminent, but that’s not actually it. The secret to their courage is that they’re not especially attached to the outcome. Of course, they want it to work, but they also know the venture is worth it. That is its own kind of wisdom.

One of this card’s most potent messages is that readiness is a myth. Sure, you can always do a bit more research. You can edit, practice, and rehearse for as long as you’re alive. But it would be a real tragedy to never let the audience see what you’re up to. Both for them, and for you.

As Jack Kornfield succintly puts it, “The trouble is, you think you have time.”

Taking that first step is always scary. Putting yourself out there is always a risk. But delaying is a risk, too. The Fool asks: Isn’t the fun risk better?

The gift of The Fool isn’t permission or encouragement, as nice as those would be to hear. It’s something even better — an unbiased observation, a much-needed view of you and your life from the outside. Spoiler alert: It looks so much better than you think.

Is there a step you’ve been delaying, a move or conversation you’ve been putting off? Do you harbor a dream you dare not speak? The Fool wants you to know you’ve got this. Because whether or not you’re aware of it, you already do.

Take a deep breath, and go.

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