Step Aside Empress, the Magician's Got This

Reclaiming the Well

I bought a child’s calculator yesterday. It was my first step in taking the apps out of my phone and having one thing to do one thing. And here’s the really embarrassing part. I learned what the iPhone has done to our sense of on/off. Or maybe just me.

Yes, it’s that basic.

One button for everything, right? The side button, or the small button at the bottom your index finger depresses, turns the phone on and off, when you press it. So, what happened with the calculator? I couldn’t turn it off despite there being a larger than life button with the word OFF written in white on a black button. This is a child’s calculator - plus, minus, divide, multiple. So, what does a calculator have to do with reclaiming the well, and who the heck are the Empress and the Magician?

For me, they are me. Yesterday, I would have asked if that sentence made sense. Not today. It makes sense to me, and that’s the second step. Baby steps. Words on the page. Three. Four. Rarely more.

Fire. Earth. Air. Water.

Build or destroy.

Inside. Outside. The story remains the same.

Stagnant? No.

A spark becomes a flame

Buoyed on the wind

To the water’s edge

Waves meet - one of fire, one of water

Sharp cold. Sharp heat. Burn. Cut.

Cuts run deep. Blood on the page.

The Empress steps aside.

The Magician appears.

Time to reclaim the well.

That damn one button. One way in. One way out. No thanks. My manuscript is back ready for it’s next round of revisions. I’ve been away from it for a while and as excited as I am to have it back, I’m nervous, too. Like meeting up with someone you haven’t seen in a long time.

Will they remember me? Will I remember them? Is what I remember colored by pink-tinted glasses or does my memory serve? Who’s story will we be in? Mine or theirs? Maybe a bit of both. Elements only, of course. Just pieces of a puzzle being put together one piece at a time over a lifetime.

But like the calculator now separate from my phone, I am reacquiring what was lost (apps in the phone) to real pieces of me I can touch and feel. Walkman. Record Player/Hi-Fi Tower. Camera. You get the picture.

A special thank you to Fallon at FallonWrites for the tarot reading to jumpstart me into me and to Kristi Noland at NolandEditing for taking such loving care of my book.