Allison Thurman

revisiting tarot

For all my interest in the strange and unusual, I don’t have much experience with it. I’ve never been “intuitive” or “empathetic” or whatever else people call Colin Wilson’s Faculty X. I’ve never seen or experienced anything I can’t explain.

So what am I doing with all these tarot cards?

a spread of tarot cards in bright primary colors. The most visible card is The Emperor, featuring a king wearing purple with a crown on a blue background — I’m currently using my Tarot of the Witches deck, a gift from my mother. They’re small and slick enough to shuffle easily.

My parents got me my first deck as a birthday gift when I was in high school, a classic Rider Waite deck (which ought to be called the Rider-Waite-Smith deck). I suspect they had my grandmother’s help, she of the “Fate” magazine subscription with their eclectic back-page classifieds. Where else would one find such things before the internet put everything a only click away?

I was fascinated, in large part by the artwork. The Rider Waite might look a bit flat compared to some of the glossier decks out there (Dali, David Bowie, Dave McKean)* but the outlines are clear, the symbols easy to see. Still, I love variations on a theme so I’ve accumulated a couple more decks over the years.

I never tried to use them for divination, not seriously. Sure, I tried to memorize the meanings and learned a layout or two. But I don’t think I ever believed any of my results. Nothing ever seemed to pan out, even though the meanings were broad enough to interpret however I wanted.

But tarot are good for other things – specifically, shaking up the creative impulse.

Author and tarot designer Kris Waldherr‘s session at the Historical Novel Society conference was a compressed version of her extended tarot workshops, and the first time I’ve seen tarot presented as a tool for accessing and activating creativity. Cards can be used as inspiration, as story-structuring (the Major Arcana itself is a story cycle of major archetypes), casting character readings, and more.

But what I’ve found most useful is that the cards jog my right brain. The flexibility of interpretation invites me to make things up about any given card’s meaning or imagery. The symbols get me out of my plodding, linear thinking. Sometimes just looking at the artwork instead of words rests my mind long enough for something to float to the surface.

Asking them questions is useful as well. Never good for a simple “yes” or “no”, layouts help me get at ideas and answers that I already knew but couldn’t quite articulate.

So I view tarot as a less of an oracle** that works in mysterious ways and more as a tool to get at my subconscious.

Much as I love the pretty decks, I’ve found a version of the Rider Waite with meanings printed on the card so I don’t have to break off and look them up!

*Links to specific decks don’t imply endorsement, just personal interest.

**Fun fact: all tarot are oracle cards, but not all oracle cards are tarot. I found a John Dee oracle a while back that I ought to give another look, but one thing at a time.

tidying up with the Clash

Like many of us, I’ve spent the majority of the past year and a half within the same four walls. Also, like many of us, I’ve noticed the clutter piling up: papers with no file, CDs that never got shelved, clothes that no longer fit (the “covid 19”, anyone?) and junk I forgot I had, if I knew about it at all.

In the Before Times this was bearable but closed in with it every day became maddening. I’ve got enough mental baggage going into the After Times that I’d like to impose some physical order.

But I just can’t get into the Marie Kondo method.

I took a look at it. A lot of it is sound: be methodical, be ruthless, dispose of anything that doesn’t “speak to the heart”. But I’m not super sentimental, so short of family photos or things I have a long history with very little speaks to my heart.

Besides, she thinks you should only have 30 books. And, I mean, to each their own, but… yeah, I just can’t smoke what she’s smoking.

picture of haphazardly shelved books, a figure wearing PPE standing amidst them — Not an actual picture of my library, but…um. Photo by Darwin Vegher on Unsplash.

The clutter does sing to me though, always the same song by the Clash:

Should I stay or should I go?

So I putter around the house picking things up humming the tune to myself and making decisions. Not all of the lyrics work, but enough do:

If you say that you are mine
I’ll be here ’till the end of time

And it will, it really fucking will, until 10 years and 3 houses later this thing is still in your closet or basement and you don’t know where you got it, or why.

If I go, there will be trouble

What if I need it and don’t have it?
What if it is something so utterly unique it is literally irreplaceable?
What if it has enormous sentimental value?

And if I stay it will be double

Where do I put this?
How many inches of shelf space do I sacrifice if I hang onto it?
If I can’t store it, is it an eyesore?
Does it even work anymore?

This indecision’s bugging me

Like you wouldn’t believe.

If you don’t want me, set me free

Because someone else might want this. To the donation box then…

Exactly whom I’m supposed to be

Did this at any point represent who I am as a person, or anything I’m interested in?

Don’t you know which clothes even fit me?

Does this fit? Did it ever? Might it again? Do I care?

So ya gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

So I’ve already donated a few boxes of clothes (and yes, books) but this is ongoing.

I’m going to try to revive this blog as I dig myself out of this real and metaphorical mess. What do y’all want to read about? I’ve got an HNS conference review in the works but am otherwise straining for subject matter.

And how are the rest of you re-entering the world?

mixed emotions

Tomorrow HNS2021 starts and I wish I were more excited than I am.

I type this from my home office – the same office from which I’ve been working from home for the past year and a half. So while I have the week off the day job, there’s not much change in my routine. Indeed, I still have domestic obligations that aren’t going away just because I’m on (sort of) vacation.

I’ve made shamefully little progress in my writing, due to…well, everything. It’s been a crap year. I’ve even neglected my blog because I’ve simply not had much to talk about. “Be forgiving of yourself”, yes, but I go into this conference in about the same place as I did back in 2019—except without not even an active blog presence to point to.

My first HNS was back in 2015. Back then I was excited about the conference and the people and the classes and the first feedback on my first draft of The Book!!! This year (my fourth conference, Christ, my fourth!) I just want to be done with the latest draft of The Book so I can start querying it again and move on to the next thing.

More than anything else I want to get excited about the Next Thing. The muse isn’t gone, and I still sit down to Scrivener every morning in case it shows up. I’ve got a couple of vague notions (and one short story I’m actually eager to polish) but that feeling of being so seized by an idea that I can think of nothing else eludes me.

I’m in a ditch. I know I can dig out. It’s taking a hell of an effort though, and I’m an impatient person.

Over the next few months I am going to try and resurrect this blog though. If you have any ideas of what a (still relatively isolated and housebound) writer might blather about I am all ears.*

*Contrary to perceptions my comments are not closed – they’re just closed after 3 weeks and I’ve not written a blog post in 3 months.

the beginning of the end (?)

Given all the gloom and doom I’ve documented for the past year I thought I’d switch it up with something good for a change.

Yesterday I got my first dose of the Pfizer covid vaccine.

I didn’t expect to be eligible this quickly – given the slow / patchy rollout in Maryland (state to state and county to county ALL had different schedules) I was certain I wouldn’t even be able to make an appointment late April at the earliest.

But the governor opened up pre-registration for appointments to everyone over 16 on April 1 (a news story I double-checked on Hogan’s website to make sure it wasn’t a cruel April Fool’s joke) and after signing up at the state and county mass vaccination websites I got an invitation to make an appointment on the 5th and got my jab on the 8th.

The vaccine site was in a local rec center and was very well run – we were in and out in about half an hour, with half of that a 15 minute wait period. No real choice over what shot we got, but given I was getting it way earlier than expected I wasn’t picky.

So far it’s not bad – sore arm, no worse than a flu shot. Even if the side effects get worse (and I’m told the second shot will lay me out) it’s the start of the shield that, even if it doesn’t make me bulletproof, means I won’t land in the hospital and I’m doing my part for herd immunity.

I’m trying not to be under any illusions that the world will go back to normal because it somehow feels like it ought to. I’m reminding myself that the vaccine isn’t a “get out of social distancing free” card. I’ll still have to mask and social distance. Travel still isn’t advised. No matter how much the state/country want to open up theaters, museums, concert venues etc. indoor socializing even with precautions is probably right out.

But I’m doing my part for herd immunity. And unlike social distancing, masking, etc. getting vaccinated feels like a positive step towards fixing this instead of just surviving.

2021 in review

Yeah, I know we’re only in January but damn, it feels like a year already, doesn’t it?

Like many I hoped the national fabric would start to mend after Inauguration Day but no, the idiots-that-be couldn’t even let us have that.

January 6 was an emotional roller coaster. I started the day watching the Democrats get the Senate back. Regaining the majority with 2 blue candidates is joyous, that they were both from Georgia, remarkable. But winning it back with Georgia’s first Black and first Jewish senators? Historical.

Mom would have loved it. Cruel that it didn’t happen until the first anniversary of her death. I wish she’d seen it.

Then the afternoon happened.

I can’t say I was surprised. I expected some sort of Trump-related violence, but I’d thought it’d be at polling places on Election Day. That Trump himself riled up the crowd…well, we knew who he was, and with administration grownups resigning left and right there was no one to stop him.

No, what’s most jarring is that as the investigation goes on the news gets worse and worse. Lots of prior planning on the parts of the insurrectionists but little preparation on the part of Capitol and DC police despite ample warning that something was brewing. Possible support from white supremacist elements inside those same police forces. Apparent support from members of Congress, even as they cowered in secure locations.

The cherry on this shit sundae is Republicans bleating yet again for national unity while offering no remorse or responsibility. My hope is that Democrats will not give in to the same “Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football” scenario they’ve fallen for repeatedly since Newt Gingrich and probably before.

Charlie Brown runs at the football, Lucy snatches it away — What happens every time well-meaning Democrats reach across the aisle. Via

Nearly a month on and I’m still digesting everything that’s happened—and is likely to keep happening. These folks aren’t going away, though I can’t imagine how you deprogram ~70 million conspiracy theorists.

But let me end on a hopeful note. I watched/listened to the inauguration as best I could given that it was a work day. When Biden was at last physically inside the White House I was able to relax a little. And I like what he’s doing so far.

Paradoxically for such a long month, it was Inauguration Day that felt like the real new year, the real first day of 2021. As we go into February (and how the hell is it almost February already?) I’m trying to be optimistic.

It’s working, at least subliminally—in the past week I’ve been able to crank out more edits on Fool’s Gold than I have in the past 2 months. If I can continue at this rate I stand a chance of starting queries again by spring. Which I ache to do—I love this book, I’ve learned a lot about writing while creating it, but I want it to be done so I can move on to the next thing, whether it’s about Renaissance cryptid zoos, time traveling glam rockers, or something else.

So raise a glass if you’ve got it. I want it to be a good year!

2020 in review

I hate year in review posts. Or, at least, reviews of this year. But that’s most of us, isn’t it?

It’s been a rough year. I’ve vented some here but the vast majority I’ve kept to myself. Sharing isn’t always cathartic for me and lately, it’s more like picking a scab.

So as I type this listening to Haçienda’s NYE party I’ll try and winnow out some good that came out of this year (listening to 24 hours of some of the best DJs in the world from the comfort of home isn’t that bad, for example):

I got to see my sister before the world shut down.

The last time I fenced (a competition in early March) I managed to win second:

I finished a short story.

I finished the mock Fortuny dress:

sleeveless pleated dress in bright sky blue — I know, kind of anticlimactic to just drop this here, but I’ve been crawling along on it since June so it doesn’t feel like there’s been some huge stopping point.

uneven hem of pleated dress, long enough to flare over the feet. — I even got the flared hem I wanted. It’s not perfectly even, but that’s the nature of creative work – it never is. It’s just Good Enough.

I’ve rediscovered the restfulness of painting:

The dress still needs a belt. This will occupy my restless energy for at least a month.

I’ve managed to keep up with friends and family despite the distance and separation.

I’ve kept my job and my health.

Those I know who were unlucky enough to get covid got only mild cases.

There are multiple effective vaccines.

And I’m lucky enough to be isolating with the best person I could ever be isolated with.

Those of y’all who have made it through 2020—you made it. Really, anything else is icing.

2021 needs to be better. I’m crossing fingers, toes, and anything else I can cross, that it will be.

thoughts on victory

Everyone take a deep exhale.

I know I did when I finally got the news. Between avoiding doomscrolling and computer updates, I didn’t know about Biden’s win until several hours after the fact, but that was my first and most visceral reaction: a relaxation, a letting go. Knowing that Biden’s leads were strong enough that they weren’t likely to change after potential recounts and/or legal challenges took a weight off my shoulders I’ve been carrying for 4 years.

Then a little twinge of pride: Mom was right. Every vote does count and nothing illustrated that better than Georgia’s early lead of just over 1000 votes. I am incredibly heartened to see my home state go blue this time! Given the history of gerrymandering and voter suppression in the state, it was an uphill battle for Dems on the ground, they worked hard and Stacey Abrams (Mom’s fave) should get any position in the Biden administration/DNC she wants!

Followed by the bittersweet: Mom would have loved this but she’s not here to see it.

The Biden/Harris victory speeches were elegant and inspiring, made by candidates who actually seem to give a damn about the country and the people they serve. I look forward to being impressed some more, but right now, the bar is so damn low—is it sad that I’m sufficiently impressed by politicians who speak in complete sentences about unity and science? Hell, I’ll take just the science—Biden’s first move is consulting actual epidemiologists to develop a national plan for combatting the pandemic and about damn time!

Speaking of unity, I don’t know how that is going to happen. Already I’m wading into discussions about what Trump supporters want and how to reach them. I have very mixed emotions.

On the one hand, Democrats as a group have a crap record of understanding the Trump voter mindset. I get that they’re angry, but I’m not sure why or what gets them so angry or desperate that they’ll vote for a demagogue. They’ve been ill-used by their chosen candidate and lied to by their “news” sources but I don’t think that’s what’s pissing them off. So while I’m thrilled to the core of my little black heart at Trump’s public humiliation I can’t bring myself to rub his supporters’ noses in Biden’s victory (well, not too much).

At the same time, it’s hard to trust or forgive people who saw 4 years of rampant stupidity and cruelty and decided “yes, more of this please”. Kids in cages, neo-Nazis lauded as “very fine people”, and 200,000 dead of a deliberately ignored pandemic aren’t just “differences of opinion”. The majority of Trump’s constituency may not be openly hateful but they still seem to find it awfully easy to turn away when others pull out their torches and pitchforks. It gives me a serious goddamn pause.

As such, I totally understand the anger of liberals who have turned themselves inside out to reach across the aisle since before Obama being asked to yet again understand and soothe the very people determined to treat them as subhuman.

So, I don’t know what reconciliation is going to look like if it’s possible at all. This is why I’m not a politician.

I do hope that Biden’s and Harris’ secret service details are freaking ninjas, because I don’t doubt there are a lot of angry Trumpies who feel like they have no recourse but violence.

Maybe the only thing I’m sure of is that the work is not over – if anything, it has just begun. You better believe that the fundraising and voter turnout machines of both parties are going to focus on the January Georgia runoffs like the eye of Sauron.

So I’ll keep donating, and I’m gathering stamps and prepping my printer for VoteForward’s next effort: sending letters to Georgia voters encouraging them to vote. I’d love it if you join me.

What do y’all think of all this?

tomorrow

round sticker with pattern of Maryland state flag: I Voted — Received Saturday when the Maryland Board of Elections counted my drop off ballot.

Many have asked me what I’m doing for Election Day. And I have no real answer for them.

There are plenty of options between the two extremes of either watching every minute of television coverage, spiced with occasional doomscrolling, or avoiding coverage altogether in favor of reading, video games, hot baths, or other self-care. The only part most parties seem to agree on is that there will be massive drinking late Tuesday/early Wednesday, either in celebration or despair.

I…honestly have no idea. I diligently wrote and mailed off ~65 letters for the VoteForward effort and I’ve kept up with news as best as I can stand. As an anxious person, I’m accustomed to trying to imagine every eventuality in a (futile) attempt to predict the future but this year (hell, the past 4 years but especially 2020) has been so (cliché alert!) unprecedented that I find myself ironically trying like hell to stay in the moment.

Because it feels like tomorrow night (even though we all logically know the results won’t be known for days) will herald either the end of the world or a new beginning.

I’ll decide tomorrow how and how much I’m going to follow what looks to be a very slow-moving trainwreck when I read the AM news. And likely reconsider my decision every time I look at the news tomorrow, no matter how frequent or seldom.

I may not be on social media though. If I’m smart, I won’t be.

on voting and my inner Pollyanna

Voting was very important to my mother.

She voted in every election – local and national – from the time she was eligible to vote. I remember her taking me once to the polls when I was too little to understand why the big room was so full of tall tables with little shields around three sides.

She worked in a public library where among her duties were registering other people to vote. She didn’t wait for patrons to ask—if their records showed they weren’t already registered she always asked and encouraged them to vote, whatever their political inclinations.

Right up to her last day, she told anyone who would listen—family, friends, doctors, nurses—that they must vote, that our votes matter and we shouldn’t throw away our vote out of apathy.

oval lapel sticker: My vote counted! — And I followed in her footsteps. This sticker is from several elections ago.

***

At long last I found a (feeble? Fabulous?) way to honor my mother.

I’ve mentioned Mom’s desire that I write something about voting before but I’ve had a hell of a time figuring out just what and where. Right after her death, it was just too close, too raw. Then as the months passed, the project was too daunting. What if I got it wrong? What if it wasn’t enough? What if it wasn’t good?

So I spun my wheels. Then a friend pointed me at VoteForward, and there I found a medium that felt right.

VoteForward is a grassroots effort to get out the vote through handwritten letters to registered but inactive Democrats. Handwritten anything is novel enough to get noticed in this world of email and texts. They’re also more intimate (and hopefully effective) than shouting into the void of social media, or winding up in someone’s spam filter or deleted voicemail.

So I’m writing an abbreviated version of what’s at the start of this post (minus the photo) in each of these letters. I can only write about 5 at a time before my handwriting becomes illegible, but if I can crank out 5 a day between now and the October 17 mailing date I’m still going to reach more people than I would be posting to my blog.*

Some might say I’m cynically exploiting my mother’s death, but she would have wanted this. It’s coming from a place of hope and optimism that she had that I often severely lack.

Because yes, I know—the American system of voting is broken. Given the disparity between the popular and Electoral College results in 2016 and the vote-counting debacle of 2000 I think Mom realized this too. But this is the only system of voting we’ve got, and if we want any chance of fixing it we have to keep using it. She would have, and I will continue to.

Mom called this faith that it would all turn out for the best if we just tried hard enough her “inner Pollyanna”. When I was younger it used to make me roll my eyes but with age, I’ve developed my own inner Pollyanna. She’s smaller and weaker than Mom’s but in times like these, I need every little shred of gladness I can get.

So maybe I’m working my hands to carpal tunnel with these letters for no reason. Maybe my writing sucks, maybe every one of these letters will wind up in the garbage. But I think it’s worth the risk. So to honor my mother I’ll keep sharing her dying wish.

*I love y’all and I’d still rather have only 10 readers who “get” me than have to water myself down to attract thousands! But this is the vote. I need reach. I hope you’ll share this, but I hope more that you’ll join VoteForward (or something like it) yourself!

plague diaries: the After Time

There’s a lot of talk in my circles about the “Before Time” vs. the “After Time”. Namely, our lives before coronavirus, and what we want them to be when it’s over.

I find both conversations unbearably bittersweet.

Don’t get me wrong, I have happy memories of the Before Time. But reminiscing only reminds me of what I can’t have right now and makes me itch.

But dwelling on what happens in the After Time is even worse.

It’s not fear of the unknown, it’s my intense dislike of not being able to predict what will happen next. I don’t know where/when/if the virus will surge again. I can’t foresee if there will be new and thrilling improvements in sanitizing public places or where/when/if we’ll have an outbreak of anti-mask idiocy. And while multiple vaccines are in the works there’s no telling when they’ll be available either.

As such I can’t plan more than a week or two ahead at best (let’s set aside that I was usually bad at planning more than a week or two ahead even in the Before Time).

Fantasizing about who I’ll see for the holidays or what fencing competition I’ll go to next just…grates. It’s like revving my engines only to stay stuck on cement blocks. It changes nothing and wastes energy I need to just to get through the inconveniences and irritations of the next few days.

Be assured I do have plans for the After Time! Lots of people I want to see, things I want to do, and places I want to go. But it’s just painful to dwell on so if I’m mute about them, this is why.