My husband sent a message to our family group chat, “I want to see this,” and attached the trailer to the new Godzilla Minus One. Our daughter, like me, was like, I don’t care about this, but I’ll definitely go with everyone to see it. Our son said, yes, absolutely, he’d heard it’s fantastic, when can we go.
Like most of us, I think of Godzilla as a campy monster movie. I care as much about campy monster movies as much as I do about superhero movies, which is not at all. When our son talked about Godzilla, though, he said it’s an allegory for the atomic bomb. I thought, huh, I didn’t know that. That makes it much more interesting.
We ate an early dinner then piled into the car together and drove in the rain to the movie theater. I settled in for some goofy entertainment, and was surprised to find myself captivated by the characters, the music, and the seriousness of the film. It’s a movie about a giant radioactive dinosaur monster that lives in the ocean, and it was not goofy. It showed how horrific it is to be the target of nuclear weapons, how utterly devastating they are, how big, how unstoppable. How monstrous.
I was riveted through the entire movie, and I was moved. It was really, really good.
I’ve been feeling the itch to blog, but as usual, haven’t because of the perennial “what will I write about?” problem. I checked my blog’s dashboard today to see what the built-in writing prompt was, because maybe that would spark something, and lo, here I am.
The writing prompt asks, Is your life today what you pictured a year ago? I have no clue what I pictured a year ago for my life. I looked back at my blog, which is turning out to be a really useful supplement to my actual memory. Our daughter wanted tiramisú for her birthday again this year, and I could not remember what recipe I used that she liked so much last year. I vaguely remembered that I might have blogged about it, and sure enough, here it is.
So anyway, I looked back at my blog for this time last year, and discovered that as of December 14 last year, I had blogged for 30 days straight. Thirty days! How on earth did I do that? How did I find something to write about 30 days in a row? The 14th was the last of the 30 days; I picked back up again on December 20 and wrote about a crackling fire, and then the solstice on the 21st. I didn’t write about my future self, except that in my solstice post I jotted down our menu because I liked it and wanted to document it for future years. But if I know myself, I probably pictured myself being cozy at home for the holidays. I probably hoped for myself that I’d be writing and blogging, that we’d be warm and safe with a twinkling Christmas tree and crackling fire, that our kids would be home and happy, that we’d be satisfied in our jobs and lives.
When I think of where I expect to be a year from now, that’s what I picture. Only a year from now, we will have done a bunch more stuff in between. Our daughter will have graduated from high school, and we will have taken her on her graduation trip, possibly to Costa Rica. This time next year, I hope she’s having the college experience of her dreams, and that she loves college as much as our son does. I hope our son will still love his college experience and roommates and friends, and that he will have a chance to get the summer work he’s aiming for. He may have even had a chance to study abroad. I hope my husband and I will have gotten to travel again and take fun trips, like our trips to NYC and Pittsburg this year. I picture myself still employed and finding meaning in my job, and I picture myself still writing, drawing, photographing, and appreciating birds and leaves and books and food.
This time last December, I hadn’t explicitly thought about what my life would look like in a year, so it’s hard to say whether I’m there. While my general life stuff is likely where I pictured — we are cozy, the kids are home and happy, we have a twinkling Christmas tree and crackling fires most nights — I probably hoped for myself that I’d still be blogging regularly. In that sense, I’m not where I thought I’d be. I don’t know why blogging is important to me and why I always want to be doing it. I do enjoy using my blog as a sort of searchable reference book for my life, and that only works if I actually publish, so maybe that’s part of it. It helps me remember what I was thinking about and cared about at different times.
But I don’t think that’s the reason I care about blogging. I joked once that I do it for the likes and comments, which is definitely true (thank you to everyone who reads here ♥️), but I don’t think it’s just that either. There’s something about moving from a private journal, which I’ll never go back and read, to publishing on my own little public corner of the web, where I take a little more care with my writing, where I reference posts, where I have a community that’s not limited by geography. Blogging is both expression and validation. I can express myself in a journal, so maybe it really does come down to validation. Or maybe being able to share stuff that others resonate with? That feels really good too. Is that the same as validation? I don’t know, but I really like that part — the connecting. The being human together.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that I care about blogging. Even so, after all these years (this will be my 1046th post on this blog), it’s still hard to overcome the “is this worth sharing?” question. When I saw today’s prompt and realized I had no recollection what was on my mind a year ago, I was really glad for all the times I did post. Something is better than nothing.
This year, the magnetism of the tarot tugged at me more than usual. I’ve played with self-reading for a few years, but I struggled to make meaning of what I was doing.
This year, I wanted to really learn the tarot. I’d never owned or really even looked at the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith cards, which are the most well-known and referenced tarot images, so I bought myself the Radiant version of the deck. The deck came with a proper guide book I could learn from rather than the tiny paper insert that often comes with a small box of tarot cards. I also bought the book Tarot for One by Courtney Weber, and I started listening to the Tarot Heroes podcast. Those resources, along with the guidebooks from my existing decks, help me understand traditional interpretations of individual cards, deck-specific interpretations, and how to think of the tarot in general.
But what brought it all together, what helped me start to internalize the cards and really make meaning of them in a fun way that adds zest to my life, was to not just pull cards every day, but to journal about them. Pulling tarot cards helps me set an intention each day and focus my attention towards that intention. For example, as I shuffle I might ask, “What should I pay attention to today to have a fulfilling day at work?” Journaling about the cards helps me learn them: I pull cards, look them up, consider what I see and what guidebooks say, and write my thoughts and interpretations. At the end of the day, I look at my journal entry from the morning and reflect on the day as it relates to the cards. This last step helps me understand cards that might not have made sense at the beginning of the day (and maybe they still don’t at the end of the day! And that’s okay! This is a hobby, it’s all for fun, this is not life or death.)
I love two things about the journaling process. First, journaling reinforces the message of the cards so that throughout the day, I pay attention to events or my mindset in relation to my intention. Writing about the cards helps me remember them. For example, when I pull cards I might ask, “How can I approach today so that I have a happy day?” If one of the cards indicates “Be open to saying yes,” writing that out will help me remember that message during the day. If something comes my way that my knee-jerk reaction is to say No to, maybe I’ll pause and consider whether Yes is actually a better answer. Second, by keeping a journal, I can reference previous entries to see what happened when I pulled a certain card last time, or I can identify patterns. This helps me learn the how the cards show up in my life, what they mean for me, and what lessons keep showing up that I might need to learn.
A coworker asked for any tips on how to get started with tarot journaling, so here are some of the ways I journal.
How I journal
I started by journaling on paper, but this method missed a really important part of the tarot, which is the visual element of the cards. Tarot cards are tiny pieces of art in which every component has meaning: suit, numbers, colors, posture, sight-line, atmosphere, clothing, plants, animals, tools. In a paper journal where I just wrote words, my journal entries lacked that visual representation. So I switched to a digital journal using the Day One journaling app*. I pull cards first thing in the morning, take a photo of them, then drop the photo into a new entry in my Tarot journal on the app. I title the post with whatever intention I focused on when I pulled the card, then I write my thoughts about what the cards mean. At the end of the day, I check back in and write a summary of the day and how the cards seemed to relate.
*An added benefit of keeping a digital tarot journal is that it makes it much easier to search for specific cards from past readings.
Different kinds of entries
Daily encounter This is a three card pull: the first card represents me and how I’m showing up, the second card represents an encounter that day, and the third card represents the outcome. When I first started my tarot journey this year, I’d pull these three cards, read about them in the guide book, and write out those meanings in my journal. I pretty much copied the books verbatum, and then at the end of the day, tried to correlate the card meanings with what my experience was like that day. After a while, I realized this copy paste style was akin to memorization rather than understanding, so I switched to pulling single cards and studying the art on them to find my own meaning. Now, when I pull my daily encounter spreads, I jot down what the cards mean to me and then revisit at the end of the day.
Single card Sometimes three cards are too much to digest, or I find myself not really paying attention to what I think about them and instead just regurgitate what the guidebooks say. In those periods, I’ll pull one card for the day with the sole intent of learning that one card — I’m not even necessarily asking a question about the day. I’ll put the card next to my laptop and look at it closely while I describe it in my journal. I’ll describe the colors, the facial expressions and body language, and the overall feeling it gives me. Then I’ll write what I think it is saying as a piece of art. Throughout the day or at the end, I’ll jot down moments that felt like the energy of the card.
Bigger spreads It’s rare that I do spreads any more complex than three cards except on my birthday. On my birthday, I’ll usually do a solar year spread where I pull one card to represent the whole year, and then 12 cards: one for each month. I photograph the spread and tag it in my journal so that when the month changes over, I can easily find the spread and see what to look forward to that month.
Reference Sometimes I want to take notes that are general to the tarot, and that I use as reference entries to help in my own interpretation of cards. For example, I have an entry that describes the suits (swords, cups, pentacles, wands) and an entry for numerology. I imagine one day I might have one for colors, and I have a couple of reference entries from exercises in Tarot for One. I tag these with a Reference tag in my journal app, which makes it easy to find them when I want to jog my memory.
Have fun!
My favorite thing I learned this year about the tarot is that it originated as a card game: they were playing cards. When asked for advice he’d give beginners, Jeff Petriello, co-creator of the Pasta Tarot deck said on the Tarot Heroes podcast, “Oh my god, have fun! That is absolutely the biggest thing to remember…These cards were used as playing cards for centuries… so it’s really important to remember to play with them. They have a whole history in play so I really try to encourage beginners to have that spirit.” His advice helped me not take anything seriously, and to just play around with my cards and in my journal.
I had to have a small skin cancer removed yesterday. It’s nothing dangerous or life threatening. It’s nothing to worry about, truly. I mention it because as I lay back at the dermatologist’s with my eyes averted, I thought about how we’re almost in winter now, and I am glad. The sky is a stormy gray out, and wind whistles over the chimney. When my husband and I hiked last weekend, the sky was gray, the trees were naked and gray, and the trail was thick with copper brown leaves. We were bundled in hats and gloves, and my cheeks were cold and red.
I was surprised when I traveled from Palma de Mallorca in Spain to Munich in Germany, and of the two, I fell in love with Munich. I connected with the atmosphere, the landscape, the trees. I instantly connected in my soul. It rained almost the whole time we were there. The sky was gray, the puddles were gray. I wore black boots to walk and a black coat with a black furry collar. I could see my breath, and I walked with my hands shoved in my pockets. And I loved it. I loved the moodiness, I loved the brisk air. I loved the cozy shops and the dripping leaves.
I used to think I wanted to live in an eternal summer. As I lay under the knife yesterday to have a skin cancer removed, I was grateful for winter, and for days that aren’t sunny.
A zipper clinks in the dryer as a pair of jeans tumbles round and round. The refrigerator hums. Shower water patters in our bathroom, and a brush clacks on the vanity in our daughter’s bathroom as she gets ready for work. Our son left a few minutes ago to go back to college, and the house is quiet except for these sounds.
I returned last weekend from two weeks away and went straight into Thanksgiving. Thanks to the holiday, our son was here for my homecoming, and that was the best homecoming I could ask for. I worked for one day to try to catch up on a few things, but took the rest of the week off to be with my family. I needed the break after being on and in work mode for two weeks straight. Being present with our kids soothed and rejuvinated me.
Our kids are more adult than children now, and they’re my favorite people to hang out with. We laughed a lot this week. We played Euchre a few times, Scattergories once, and our son taught us a new solitaire that I can’t remember the name of. Our son got us hooked on the excellent show The Bear, and we introduced him to Our Flag Means Death. On Thanksgiving day, we made cocktails for all of us (Tom Collins for our son, rum sour for our daughter, martinis for my husband and me) so they can get a taste for the finer things instead of the crappy stuff kids drink when the objective is to get drunk instead of enjoy a nice drink.
From Thanksgiving, we went into Christmas within a day. Friday was the only day we’d all be together until mid-December, which is later than we want to get our Christmas tree. So on Black Friday, we were at Spruce Ridge Tree Farm for our annual family outing to select our tree. We lit a fire that night and decorated together while we drank hot cocoa spiked with Irish cream.
Now, our living room looks like a Christmas jungle. The mantle is lined with candles, greenery, and conical tabletop trees in silvers and holly berry red. Snake plants flank the fireplace, palm fronds wave airily in the corner, and the monstera is taking over the front windows. And opposite those tropical plants is a beautiful temperate evergreen dressed in twinkling white lights and glittering ornaments.
Outside, the aloe on the deck is brown and deflated; its droopy leaves melt over the side of the pot like Dalí’s clocks. The first frost came while I was away. The trees are now naked and the landscape is brown; autumn is over.
Inside, the house smells of fir and white pine. Our son’s door is open and his room is empty. December is just around the corner, though, and he’ll be home again. Soon after that, the calendar will change over to 2024. And then we’ll be in the year our daughter leaves home and we enter a completely different stage of our lives.
I’ve started drawing. On my recent work trip to Germany, my team lead told us she did a random thing in the airport that she would have never expected to do. She needed a new nib for one of the fountain pens she uses for drawing. When she was in the Berlin airport, one of the airport convenience stores had a whole display of LAMY fountain pens. That in itself was pretty unusual — have you ever been to an airport convenience store that sells fountain pens? She was delighted! LAMY is the pen type she needed a nib for. And at this airport convenience store in Berlin, not only did they sell the pens, they also sold nibs. So while she waited for her flight, my lead was able to complete the task of purchasing and changing her pen’s nib.
I have a LAMY fountain pen. I wanted to see a LAMY fountain pen display in an airport. But more than that, I was intrigued by the thought of using my LAMY pen for drawing. This isn’t the first time this has occurred to me (see My friends are all drawing from October 2020). Back then, though, I got discouraged pretty quickly. My focus was on a finished product: I expected a drawing that looked like the thing I was drawing. When that didn’t happen, I stopped drawing.
On our trips to Palma and Munich, my team lead would take time every day to draw or paint. She had a sketchpad that I immediately coveted. It’s small and flips open like a journalist’s notepad: you lift the cover up instead of to the left. It’s the perfect size for traveling or keeping in a purse so that you have it with you at all times. We talked a lot about her drawing and painting practice, how soothing and meditative it is for her. She continually used her phone to snap photos of things she wanted to paint or sketch: tangerines on a tree, a cocktail glass, teammates. The more we talked, and the more I saw her seeing things she wanted to draw, the more I itched to try it again. Not for the finished drawings, but for the process.
When we went to Munich, she wanted to go to an art supply store, so my teammates and I tagged along. I was toying with the idea of buying myself a pocket-sized sketchpad like hers. And maybe a couple of drawing pens.
At the shop, I found a German-made sketchbook exactly like I wanted: small and unintimidating. I also picked up three Sakura pigma micron fineliners. I wanted something different from my fountain pens. The shopkeeper bagged my tiny purchases in a plastic bag for me to protect them from the rain.
When we emerged from the shop, I was excited. On our meetup in Palma, our team lead led us in an exercise to do blind contour drawings of one another: we spent one minute looking at a teammate and drawing them without looking at the paper and without lifting our pens from the paper. The results were hilarious and fun and forced us to reject perfectionism. This exercise opened the door for me to not take drawing so seriously. I laughed and signed the portrait I made of my teammate as if it were a work of genius.
As we walked down the sidewalk away from the shop, my lead was excited for me. She talked about how how much fun it is to be fearless in drawing, to not worry about what it looks like, but to just do it for the hell of it, because the process is fun, or meditative, or whatever good feeling it gives. It got me to thinking about writing, and how much writers block ourselves by self-editing before we even write a word on the page. The joy in writing for me is not getting it perfect: the joy is in letting words spill out. Maybe I’ll fix them up, maybe I won’t, but I enjoy just letting the words flow.
As soon as I got back to my hotel room, I sat down and drew. I drew the Glockenspiel. The next day, I drew my coffee cup and cakes from the cake shop. The third day I drew a Munich surfer, the fourth a swan on the lake I walked every morning, the fifth a leaf with raindrops on it. On the 10 hour flight home, I picked up doodling, and I spent hours just drawing lines and shapes. The plane was frigid as we flew over the Atlantic, so I plugged in the headphones and turned on the crackling fireplace relaxation video they had on the in-flight entertainment. I’d read for a little while, then pull out my sketchpad and doodle to the snap and pop of a video fire, then read some more.
Since I’ve been home, I’ve drawn every day as well: a ginkgo leaf I saw by our son’s car, the apple pie from Thanksgiving. With each drawing I do, I find a technique I want to learn. I want to learn how to do textures, I want to learn how to shade. Sometimes I find myself wishing my drawings were better, and I have to remind myself that perfection is not the point. Aiming for perfection makes it feel more like work than play, and it’s no fun anymore. But when I draw just because I like the feeling of the pen on the paper, and when I try to improve one little thing at a time — like texture, like shading — I feel invigorated, and I love it.
Some drawings. The coffee & cake drawing and the tangerine were done with my LAMY Safari fountain pen
P.S. I did see a LAMY fountain pen display in the Munich airport!Fountain pens in the airport, home of Leuchtturm paper… Germany is my kind of place.
P.P.S. I approach my blog posts these days like I approach drawing: they’re messy, and don’t necessarily make sense, and they’re far from perfect. When I aim for something clean and tidy and meaningful, something “well-written”, I end up not blogging. And I’d rather blog than not, so here we are.
Butterfly Mind 