Nine of Wands - Free-write 9/78

I've been doing these free-writes based on tarot cards. Most of them are so stream of consciousness that it doesn't make sense to post them publicly, but as it's turning over to another year, and this one seems appropriate, I thought I'd clean it up a bit and send it out there.


(I really like this deck's visuals for this card. ...and I've just spent 5 minutes looking it up and in a staggering turn of events, it turns out the artist is someone I knew in my youth. Huh.)

This card seems remarkably apt for the current time, somehow, even though there are 78 cards in the deck and there’s no reason to suspect that 1 out of 78 wouldn’t hit particularly hard. This is the end of the year. Today is new year’s eve, on the Gregorian calendar, and this year has been about as shit (in new and different ways) as the rest of the last 5 or 6. Everyone I know is exhausted, and unwilling or unable to keep bringing their A-game. Maybe unwilling and unable are the same thing at this point. We’re all tired. We’re all of us that weary warrior with the bandage around their head leaning on a staff as though its strength can give us the push to move another step. We have no more steps or strength, and yet there are more steps to take. But no goal, somehow.

I need a goal. I need something to work towards that isn’t just “make it to tomorrow.” After 2 years of unending pandemic and mass social mismanagement, it’s hard to think of reasons to make a goal, when the situation may change at any moment. Small goals then. One step at a time, leaning on a staff.

• Black belt
• Writing and finishing this group of 78 free-writes
• Finishing the 100-day writing challenge
• Practicing the ukulele, perhaps also the jaw harp and the auto harp. Picking up games as they come. Those last several aren’t goals really.
• I want to learn to play a song on the ukulele, and play it well.
• I want to finish the game I’m currently playing: Spiritfarer.
• I want to have a date with my partner where we both dress up.

These are attainable, right?