Doing tarot for fun and guidance

For fun, I've started drawing one tarot card a day via the app Mystic Mondays. It’s a little weird because part of the fun with tarot is the tactile experience of touching the cards, and an app can never really recreate this subtle, bodily feeling. But it’s still fun in the way that the lottery or a slot machine is fun— that pause of anticipation what did I get!?!

I owned an actual tarot deck when I was in high school. I didn’t get far in learning how to read the cards or do spreads or anything sophisticated. I liked the artwork, and their long rectangular shape. I liked reading what the cards meant. I liked the witchy New Age store I bought the deck in (it had loads of candles, cool jewelry with moon and sun motifs, and smelled of patchouli). By the time I went to college though, I had moved on to other hobbies. I have no idea where that tarot deck is now, but I’m finding my way back thanks to some friends who own some gorgeous, including the IRL Mystic Mondays.

How the app works is, you get a Card of the Day. You get a reading of sorts, a brief interpretation of the card and some advice. Sometimes the card feel so spot on it’s eerie and other times it’s not. Like the other day, I drew the Ace of Pentacles, Reversed which Mystic Mondays interprets as money mishaps, reevaluation, financial hardship.

“You may need that extra [financial] cushion that you’ve been saving up for!” the card says. That exclamation point was too much. My brain flew into panic mode: am I about to be fired? I am about to be felled by a medical emergency?!

It’s so hard sometimes to not wonder if someone out there (like god(s) or super smart aliens) do know more than me. Is it more or less comforting to think there is a being that can see how this all turns out, or that we’re plodding along with no idea of what happens next. We’re sort of just hoping things are going to work out?

Maybe this explains my fierce attachment to my planner and my routines. I want to know what’s going to happen and my planner with all its color coding is the closest I can come to predicting my own future. But I can’t stop my little kid superstition from flaring up sometimes. 

When I was having a particularly rough week at work (you know one of those where everything is a million times harder than it should be, plus you have to deal with the roadblock that is the Finance department) I kept drawing Cups cards that were reversed. Twice I got the Nine of Cups Reversed: overindulgence, impatience, unrealistic expectations. “Your vision is not going according to plan,” the card taunted.

“No shit,” was my response, and I immediately wondered if this app was trying to tell me something because it knew forces outside my control were wrecking my project plan. Especially since I got it twice in the same week! But then I got something dumb that didn’t obviously fit into my life. The Six of Cups Reversed declared that my past was coming back to haunt me. I still feel decidedly unhaunted. 

Really, I don’t actually think tarot is fortune-telling or out to predict the future. Mystic Mondays describe their tarot as an “intuition tool for spiritual guidance” and that—the guidance—is what rings true for me. One of my more tarot-savvy friends looks at tarot as a prompt for introspection. And sometimes it’s real real nice to have someone (or something) outside yourself give you direction or offer thoughtful suggestions. “Put in time…slowly but surely things will start happening,” Nine of Cups Reversed said. Easier said than done, but it did get me to remind myself to chill out and that everything would be fine. And it was.

One more anecdote about tarot-as-guidance: my partner had his tarot read a while back, when he was debating on whether or not to leave his job. The tarot reader flipped over Death and, after he stopped cackling, explained the card was more about rebirth. He kept a tiny version of Death in his wallet as a reminder to think on the topic. Four months later he left for a new job.

How I fall into and pull out of crappy moods

On my way to the office. I was feeling cute with my new dusky gray suede shoes and navy blazer with bold red horizontal stripes. Plus, my jeans made my flat butt look good. 

And then I tripped walking up the stairs to reach the El. Not sure what went wrong. All of a sudden I was on my knees, gravity sliding my backpack up my shoulders, making me feel like an insect flipped on its back, trying to get purchase on anything to right itself.

Luckily no one was immediately behind me so I could pretend no one saw me fumble. I wasn’t hurt, just got a little rusty dust on my shoes and butt-flattering pants. But my legs vibrated the whole way up the stairs and my feet were tense and stiff. And for a split second I saw myself tipping onto the train checks, with zero reason or warning, like when I fell up the stairs. 

It wasn’t 9 a.m. yet, and I had already embarrassed myself in public and almost cried and I was hungry. By the time I got to work, all the desk space in this ridiculous non-assigned seating office was already taken in my team’s corner. Obviously, this day was going to be terrible. 

And it had started off so well! A few seconds of disorientation and embarrassment killed my mojo so fast.

But then I spied a free desk on the opposite side of the floor by a co-worker, a jovial misanthrope who liked to make fun of the homemade soups I brought for lunch while I poked fun at him for eating junk food like a ten year-old and not knowing what fennel is. 

After we chatted for a little bit, my little tumble seemed far away and silly. I’ve noticed this before, that when I’m feeling low and grumpy, the thing I shouldn’t do is leave myself alone with my bad mood. It festers. 

My co-worker saved me because he started talking to me. He even made me laugh and how can you feel crappy for some stupid reason when you’re in stitches for some silly reason?

The tough part about this is what to do when I’m on my own and I’m stuck with myself to find the will and energy to pull myself out of it. Because really, it isn’t anyone else’s responsibility to make me feel better. Though it’s nice to have help.

So I put together a list, considering what things do I like to do that will get me out of my own grumpy brain.

My Shake It Off List.

• Go to the book store

• Go to the wine store

• Go to the grocery store, by fun groceries (not the normal eggs, coffee, yogurt crap)

• Get a massage

• Listen to a podcast

• Jump up and down to loud music.

• Watch episodes of comedies, “Frasier,” “Parks & Rec,” etc

I want to put “walk my dog” on this list, but his constant squirrel and rabbit hunting would fray my nerves if I’m already irritated. Reading could be good (which is different than browsing for books to buy), but this would depend on the genre of book. Nothing too serious, please!

My female body doesn't fit anywhere

So as I write this, I'm sitting at bar in O’Hare airport in Chicago, killing time before I hop on a plane for a work trip. I should actually be working since it's 4pm.

I like sitting at the actual bar, marveling at all the bottles of booze (do they have any gins I like?!) and watching bartenders mix drinks. But the bar is not a comfortable place to sit. At 5’2”, it’s a pain for me to get settled onto a bar stool. I can’t simply sit, I have to hoist myself up to get my ass on the seat. Half the time I wind up too far away from the bar so I have to stretch my arms to get my drink. I have to fold myself in half to eat. In order to get myself into a less awkward position, I climb down from the stool, push it closer to the bar, and then hoist myself up again.

This whole process makes me feel like I’m a five year-old.

Being a short person in the world is frustrating. And 5’2” for a woman isn’t even that small. But it is small enough and annoying. I also possess a tiny set of hands and feet. Rings and bracelets fly off my digits; size 6 shoes can flop off my feet. The kids department suffices in a pinch.

I am a slightly more dramatic example of a simple truth: this world was not built for women. It was built for men. 

One of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible, articulated this with science. In the episode Invisible Women, writer Caroline Criado Perez discusses her book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. It’s about how data is collected (for a range of things, cars to heart attacks, etc.) and how women are often not included in research studies. Or, they are initially, but their data is ultimately excluded from the final findings. Because periods or other aggravating nonsense.

Car crash test dummies, for example, were modeled after the male body only.  If you have breasts, you know how uncomfortable and obnoxious seat belts can be. The researchers didn’t think and/or care about this! In some cars, I feel the seat belt rubbing against my neck. Petite frames were also not taken under consideration.

It’s infuriating to learn how for so long, a bunch of dudes decided that half the population’s experiences weren’t worth much thought, or weren’t valid, weren’t worth recording. On top of that, I’m boggled by the arrogance and shitty decision-making at play, by the researchers and men overseeing the manufacturing of products. I’m a researcher for a living (working on apps and websites) and I’d need a damn good reason to exclude such a huge sample. I mean really, how hard is it to get feedback from women? IT’S NOT.  

Before I listened to this podcast, I hadn’t devoted much energy to thinking of the ways that my body is uncomfortable. How tables, for example, are usually too high and I have to scrunch my shoulders up to use a fork and knife. How backpacks are often too long for my squat frame. How I tense my thighs and hips constantly on the bus so I can anchor my lower body to something, even itself because my feet don’t completely touch the floor.

My feet rarely totally touch the floor anywhere. My office chair at work, my couch, my friends' dining room table. I fold my legs under me or swing my legs back-and-forth. I hardly notice unless someone points it out. I wonder if my constant restlessness is just me being antsy or a product of how I’m rarely, actually, truly comfortable.

How do we fix this problem? Gather more data, diverse data, better data. With information that reflects the lives and experiences of the range of people who live in the world, we can design a world that fits different bodies.  

How a gynecologist appointment can be the worst

So I went to the doctor’s office last week for my annual gyno/pap smear/lady doctor visit and it was terrible.

Not in any really bad way. There was no surprise news, no traumatizing experience. Usually I don’t have any issues with going to the doctor. In fact, I'm relieved. I am just enough of an anxious germophobe to want to be poked with needles, have blood drawn, my pee tested. It means I'm keeping myself safe and healthy.

This time, though, I felt gross. And dehumanized.

For my brief checkup, five different people came into my exam room. Five. One nurse stared into the computer and asked me the very same medical history questions as a form I had just filled out, a resident popped in to ask if it would be okay if a male resident joined my doctor during my exam. Then this resident and my doctor and finally a different nurse to administer my flu shot.

The resident asked me questions about my medical history. I raised my hand to shake hands with him, but he ignored me and launched into questions that I had answered both on paper and to the nurse ten minutes prior.

I laid down and let him and then the doctor do the exam. I listened to her ask him questions, “Did you feel the. . .?” and a brief discussion ensued while I was staring at the ceiling tiles.

He gave me a warning, a “I’m going to. . .” as he was doing it. I mean, come on. Give a girl a moment to mentally brace!

And then they were done. Pulling off their gloves and tossing them into the full trash bin—I saw their used gloves poking out of the top—the doctor saying a quick word of “thanks for letting this male doctor come in here” while I was trying to cover myself and get my feet off those stirrup things.

I have to say, Swedish Covenant in Chicago, this was the first time I felt like I was a meat bag being pushed down an assembly line at a doctor's office. Thankfully, I'm in good health and this visit was routine for me. But with those long ridiculous forms and invasive questions (When did you start having sex, how many sexual partners have you had, do you suffer from depression?) I couldn't help thinking: what if I really needed help? Or something more than a quick swab? I'm not confident anyone of the five people who came into my exam room would have noticed. I would not have felt comfortable broaching a sensitive issue.

Here's what I've learned from my years in corporate culture: you move full steam ahead, blinders on, because you are doing your job. Operations and processes established by that culture make an impact on how you work and help create those blinders. I wanted to understand what was going on here, what systems were in place that had nurses squinting at a computer and running between exam rooms all day, had doctors breezing into a room with barely a nod at the patient.

I thought about quotas and wondered how many patients my doctor, the hospital, saw in a day. Who decides, and how do they decide, how many appointments slots are available? Say it another way: who decides how much time each patient gets with their doctor?

In the elevators, I ran into the nurse who initially took me into the exam room. She was holding a plate of food and told me she was going to a different floor to eat her lunch. If she didn't leave, she wouldn't get a break because people would keep telling her to do things.

I doubted my situation was unique.

Before heading home, I stopped to use the bathroom. There were two stalls. A woman with a walker was waiting in front of me, and told me the reason she wasn’t using the handicap stall was because someone had “left” something. She frowned, pursed her lips in disgust. Then told me she thought it was the woman who was leaving as I was coming in.

“That's gross,” I said, in commiseration.

Meanwhile, a woman wearing white sneakers was taking a really long time in the only other stall.

I ran out of there.

I should maybe stop optimizing my life . . . ?

Have you seen this book before — the one with the pink and white flower bed? 

I’ve picked up Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy in bookstores, drawn to that cover but have always put it down. “Resisting the attention economy” made me think of some hippy dippy self help book for millennials about meditation and mindfulness and other commercialized buzzwords.

But I listened to her interview on Longform Podcast, and now I’m intrigued. She talked about letting things happen instead of doing everything with an accomplishment on the other side of it. Try going on aimless walks, bird watching. 

Odell talked about birds a lot, how you can plant yourself down for hours in hopes of seeing a particular kind of bird and that bird might not show up. Her point was, being OK with not seeing the bird. That the experience of being outside, of sitting in a field with binoculars and looking at the world around you, is the goal/not-goal so-to-speak. 

I mean I get it. So much of modern life (especially if you are a millennial, especially if you work in an office) is about doing. How can you build more efficient tools, processes, routines, optimize, to squeeze more into what is actually a finite amount of time. How can you constantly be productive?

I am very much guilty of this mindset and it seeps into my non-work life. A Friday night idling at home can feel like such a waste. I could have been knitting or reading or doing this thing on my To Do list (on a Friday night!) instead of lolling on the couch. The guilt for not making sure every waking moment counts is real. 

And then I read about how to be a creative person with a job (h/t Rosamund Lanin’s newsletter) and was horrified. Though I was full on-board with showing that creative people can and do have jobs, its emphasis on maximizing time had me throwing on my armor to fight for the empty hours in the week I manage to snag. My weeks are already constructed to allow me to squeeze in writing time and exercise and my paying work and the obnoxious things you need to do to live (dentist, grocery shopping, checking the bank account, etc) what more could I possibly do?!

After I calmed down I realized this article might not have been for me, since I already have a routine for creative work. A few weeks ago, I might have been inspired to try to cram in more ways to multi-task my life. But since listening to Odell, I’m questioning that approach.

I don’t think she is arguing against a routine and goals. More like, we’ve gone to an extreme in our modern approach to work and life.

But I recognize that I hate feeling like I’ve wasted my time. That any unstructured, aimless, mind-wandering time needs to be scheduled. Maybe jotting in planner, “unstructured time; 2-4pm” seems lame, pathetic. But doesn’t there have to be a balance between working toward goals and moments where you can just be without an explicit purpose?

Have you read Jenny Odell’s book? I’d love to hear your thoughts!