78 cards.
I wonder what life experiences the tarot doesn’t cover. Or which it would, if there were 88 cards, 98 cards, 100.
Tarot, maybe, is as limited as the light spectrum. The perception of our world is inspired by what our eyes can see. But there’s ultraviolet and ultrared there, too. There should be a tarot card for the feeling of impending doom. Or the feeling that the best of life is behind you.
By that I mean: If tarot had another suit, we would experience life more vividly? If I told you there was a color that was the color of speed and was somewhere between yellow and purple, would you believe me?
Perhaps tarot is as expansive as ROYGBIV, and it magically is the only palette we need. I don't know. But I do think about it: The untold tarot.
Anyway, here’s a story inspired by the Four of Cups. It is not a one-to-one parallel but I thought of someone who might be wallowing, and might be a bit ridiculous about it.
Four of Cups
a tiny tarot story
Actually, getting my heart broken on national television wasn’t the hardest part. People always assume it is. Humiliation and whatnot, voice getting foggy with tears in the back of a limousine. But for me it was a victory, making it to the top four of Season Three of The Bachelor.
I outlasted my last name. There were two Kelseys my season., Kelsey A. and Kelsey H. I was so memorable that I became just Kelsey, leaving my H somewhere around Episode Five’s trip to Peru.
No, the hardest part wasn’t the bunk beds or the lack of privacy. Or the way producers would ply us with alcohol then spin us around with mind games. Or the Bachelor telling me, when the cameras were off, that I should stop interrupting people: “It’s not nice.” Or even getting eliminated on a tarmac as the remaining three got to board a plane to their final destination (St. Lucia).
The hardest part was coming home.
My mom used to say that I shouldn’t make bets with the future, but with the present. Make good choices now and hope they lead to a brighter future, that kind of math. She was an accountant and so things, for her, always added up.
Going on The Bachelor was a bet with the future. I was hoping if I went on the show my life would change. Then I came home and it didn’t.
On the show, being from Idaho was the most interesting thing about me. Until that point, it had been the least interesting thing.
Brian the Bachelor came to my house and marveled at the mountains visible from my backyard. He thought Idaho was all prairies. I thought, “You I really don’t know anything, do you?” but I didn’t say that part.
Obviously, I knew Brian wasn’t for me before he told me I wasn’t for him and so the breakup was insulating. Still, I cried in the limo because I had five glasses of wine that night and the idea of Brian was gone, which was shame, because this meant I was going back to Idaho for real.
The life shaped hole I left behind was waiting for me in Coeur d'Alene. Ralph had kept my job at the dentist office, which my mom got for me. My landlord let me sublet my one bedroom. Looking back, the show was more like mummification than rebirth. One last glitzy sendoff before I was forgotten.
Three months passed.
I wallowed.
Brian got engaged to a girl from San Diego whose grandfather was a senator, though the show didn’t advertise that since he was currently under investigation for possibly taking a bribe. She wouldn’t use drug store toothbrush because she said she knew, from sources she would not name, that it was poisoning the American people. She brushed her hair out 100 times religiously, every morning, and insisted on doing it in our shared bathroom. Now she wore an emerald cut. I couldn’t help but think the game was rigged.
I decided to become a local. I withered. My hair was two shades of blonde: The real color, with grey undertones, and the Palomino horse tone I adopted to charm the general population. If Brian sat next to me at a restaurant he wouldn’t pause his meal to give me an awkward hello. Not to be rude, but because he wouldn’t have recognized me.
Then November settled on my shoulders and I stooped. Cal caught me at the bar when I toppled backwards. I was a local but not a bar regular yet (yet), and so I had forgotten the third stool on the right is wobbly.
“Why are you here?” I asked, casually, as if we had spoken yesterday, and not five years ago. As if the conversation had never ended.
“It’s the night before Thanksgiving, Kelsey, everyone’s here,” he said. He still smiled when he said my name. He must have forgotten about me, too. If he remembered, he wouldn’t be smiling.
“Since when do you come back?” I asked.
“It’s the night before Thanksgiving,” he said, again, like I was an alien, still smiling. Not condescending, though, sweet, like he was happy to see I was still a klutz with the reasoning of an alien.
I wasn’t ridiculous to ask. San Francisco is a 15 hour, 39 minute drive from this bar, this town. I know because I looked it up when he asked me to come with him five years ago.
It had taken him a while to ask me and no time for me to respond. Fear works both ways: either you can’t decide or you decide too soon.
I thought I didn’t want to go with him. I liked where I was. But really, I was 23, and my mom liked where I was, my dad liked where I was. I think we all just didn’t want me to grow up.
The story writes itself. Cal and I tried to make it work long distance and then he met someone else.
I was waiting for him say it. I saw you on TV. But he kept not mentioning the show. Then I was offended that he didn’t mention the show.
“Just say it,” I said. “Everyone else has.”
He looked around. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I gave him my best face that said, “If you keep pretending to be a stranger I am going to throw up.”
“Fine,” he said, since he could always read my faces. “I thought Sydney was ridiculous. And I liked your red dress.”
November lifted from my shoulders and it felt briefly like May. We could be honest. I didn’t have to talk around this obvious thing. Interesting that he brought up the red dress. That was Episode Eight.
“I thought you didn’t like reality TV.”
“How often are your ex girlfriends on it?” I was curious,” he said, then took a sip of beer and ordered me one.
“How do you think I did?”
“Really well. You didn’t let him propose to you. That would have been a mistake.”
I turned my whole shoulders to him. “Yeah? And why would that be?”
“Did you not talk to the guy for episodes? He had the charm of a talking surfboard. I mean, that is cool on the surface — surfboards can’t talk – but you can’t bring that kind of guy places. He won’t fold up. He is not flexible. No, Kelse, not right for you at all.”
“Who is?”
Cal turned to me. I could say he was about to say something. Instead of doing what I usually do, instead of letting the words come out of my mouth like lightning and deciding where the conversation would go, I let it go. If only the cameras could see me now, I thought, before realizing: They would probably turn away in favor of something more interesting.
About Tiny Tarot Stories
How will it go? I will choose a tarot card. I will write a story, poem or meditation. I will send it out.
Will I do it every day? No, probably not. But I’ll do it often enough that you can expect to see my email in your inbox more often.
Why am I doing this? Because it seems like fun middle finger to ChatGPT, and because a creative writing exercise that will kickstart my longer projects. This is a continuation of the project that I started on my Instagram, @kefi_tarot, during the pandemic. This is a way for me to access the creative engine that sometimes is under a layer of ice (and by ice I mean fear).
Who is this for? Me, but I’m so happy you are here with me. I hope these stories make an opening into tarot’s archetypes and allow you to start seeing the ways archetypes and stories uphold our lives and the peoplein them.
Can I submit a card? Yes, in the comments, or send me a message.