The Truth Is...

Stream(s) of consciousness from a scattered week.

The woman with the blonde hair dashes across the street and I recognize her immediately. Where the hell do I know her from? School, maybe. A long-ago job? It bothers me for a week, and still, I cannot place her.

This keeps happening. My brain discards thirty percent of a memory but keeps just enough to drive me batty. “I’ve never forgotten a face!” I think. Just names, terms, where I put my phone. There are the words I’ve forgotten—spontaneous, incidental, serendipity, gherkin—and the words I’ve already forgotten I forgot.

These days, I want my words sharp, meaningful, honest. To the point. My appetite for euphemisms is nonexistent. For death, for sex, for adultery. No crossing of rainbow bridges. No running around. “Say it!” I want to shout. “Say. The. Word.” And so, I do.

I am bathed in a blue glow, where I subsist on a steady diet of never-asked-for: routines, suggestions, days-in-the-life. I didn’t ask, yet I cannot look away.

An influencer tells me, with a straight face, that my destiny is simply a matter of my own positive thinking. This is anathema to my being. But I’m not the one filming from a penthouse, so maybe I’m the one who’s wrong.

My inbox belongs to a former life, from which I forgot to unsubscribe. Shoes, lipsticks, limited edition such-and-such. I do not recognize the person they’re trying to reach. I used to worry a lot about expectations, about appearances, about the management of it all. Now I know that caring is a luxury for those not concerned with survival. I worried about lines when I was not so worried about life.

“Are you okay?” is often posed as a yes/no question. But the truth carries a lot more nuance.

Hollywood may glorify youth, but my reverence lies elsewhere. I harbor a tenderness toward anyone who has seen, felt, experienced. Those who’ve collected stories like layers of paint on an old rental apartment.

“When one door closes,” they tell me, “another one opens.”

But it feels more like a series of portals, each bearing a new reality.

With time, I am told, we adapt. We move beyond magical thinking. Why, I wonder, would one elect to live with less magic?

Another one: “Grief is love with nowhere to go.”

But it tries to escape like a fugitive. There is love coming out of my eyes, in the least opportune moments. There is love blurring my vision, painting the world in soft lines and slow motion. If you squint just the right way, it almost resembles comfort.

I am trying to cancel a newspaper subscription for what feels like the fifteenth time. “I think this is a bot,” I grumble, typing my grievances into the ether. Yes, I need to cancel. No, I will not change my mind!

Multiple lines later, a typo reveals that I am dealing with a flesh-and-blood person. And oh, the comfort I find in this error, this perfunctory moment of human connection. Sometimes—make that most times—there’s nothing quite like it.

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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 Journey to Enlightenment Tarot, with art by Daniela Manutius-Forster

Strength is a quiet soul. (I know, tell that to the guy grunting loudly while bench pressing at the gym.) All messaging to the contrary, it is less concerned with force and more with feeling.

The message behind this week’s card is that true strength takes countless forms, most of them internal. It may be imperceptible to others. It may come as a surprise even to us. It may be subtle in its approach—perseverance, consistency, honesty, empathy, forgiveness. If we fall prey to the societal campaign that “strength” is primarily physical, we could miss out on all the ways we are—at this very moment—strong.

Here’s a pop quiz: What’s the strongest species on the planet?

(If you’ve been reading this newsletter since the very beginning, you *might* remember this fact from October 2021.)

The iconic Smith-Waite deck, with art by Pamela Colman Smith

It’s…the dung beetle.

They may not be the biggest or buffest or scariest, but they pack the most might. They also deal with a lot of (literal) shit. And that’s exactly the point. True strength has little to do with appearances.

In our everyday lives, strength takes many forms. Having the courage to go it alone. Offering forgiveness. Standing beside someone who is grieving. Turning down an offer that doesn’t feel right. Confronting your inbox. Ignoring your inbox. Getting up, greeting the day, and doing it all again.

There is strength in showing up, even when you don’t want to.

There is strength in resting when that is what you need.

There is strength in being who you are.

There is strength in honoring your truth.

This card shows a character who has tamed a lion with a gentle, almost otherworldly, touch. Traditionally, the lion is a symbol of courage and ferocity. But in the context of this week’s message, it can also stand for all that roars within us. The noise. The fear and anxiety. The internalized messages and negative self-talk.

Strength is our ability to respond.

In the days ahead, take notice of the strength you didn’t know you had. The credit you haven’t been giving yourself. The resolve, empathy, humor, and patience that have gotten you here today.

This week, be mindful of your own (inner) lion. What tone does it take? Does it roar or stalk silently in the background? Whatever form it may take, remember the message of Strength—we are more powerful than we think.