monday, twenty-five october: eight of wands
"sudden movement or change ... a card of news, change, or clarity in an unresolved situation."
I've had a number of these cards lately--you know, I'm still drawing a card every day, I'm just running out of time and energy to write anything. We moved last Wednesday, and since then three out of my five cards have been about change. (Including the Tower, which this deck represents as a giant tree with its top branches on fire.) The easy reading is that this means the change that's already happened, but every time I see these, I think, no, no more change, this is enough for now. Stay still for ten minutes.
Which is not to say the changes are bad. I love this house so much that I feel enormous guilt over it--like, friends at work ask how it's going, settling in to the new place, and I don't know what to say. "It takes getting used to, having so much space?"
The squirrels in this part of the Bronx are black, at least some of them. I've been seeing them at work for years, and now they're in my yard. One is watching me from the wall as I type. I brought my birdfeeder over from the old apartment, the big one that stands up on a pole, and so far we've seen two cardinals, three blue jays, and about eight million house sparrows. I haven't noticed any finches yet, or mourning doves. The mourning doves were the real mainstays of the old yard.
Moving is, of course, horrible, and it's going to take us several more days to excavate our kitchen table under the mountain of packing boxes, so Dec and I ate breakfast sitting on the floor today. He doesn't mind, he thinks it's hilarious. His bedroom furniture is backordered (supply chain!) so he's just got a mattress on the floor and he keeps explaining to me that he likes it better this way. I hear what he's saying, but he's still getting a bedframe. Eventually. Maybe. Someday. (supply chain!)
I ate lunch today with a friend--a coworker, but one who was a friend before either of us ever worked in this school. We haven't really talked in a while, it was lovely, but also the conversation eventually meandered around to, I don't know, how hard things have been. Not even for me in particular, I feel compelled to point out that we've come through the pandemic relatively easily, all things considered. But even so, it's been hard. I found myself talking about having this horrible realization that my friendships are all shrivelling up from lack of care. The day-to-day just feels like a lot, like I'm doing triage all the time. I think I've been doing okay at, like, parenting and work and very basic self-maintenance, but that's been taking everything I have. I don't know if I'm starting to see a way out of this or if I'm just finally acknowledging where I am, but in any case it felt good to say it out loud.