I’m reading Alexander Chee’s ‘The Querent’ for the x3 since his book of essays came out, waiting in my doctor’s office for the doorknob to turn and for someone to come in to help me, at last. This liminal place has always been freighted for me, as I imagine it might be, for you too. The first time @cheemobile book came out in 2018, I was plagued by weird migraines and could barely read, couldn’t even see at times; afraid of light & noise, as if I was half feral, as if I had lived many months in a doorless cave, alone. In The Querent Chee writes about the Tarot, his history with it, how he put it away and picked it back up. What really appealed to me though, what gave me that quicksilver sensation I feel compelled to share through my lens here now ~ is his ideas around fate & knowing one’s fortune, which comes at the end of the essay: ~ when we know how something is going to turn out, is our mind/body/heart ~ attuned to this outcome ? Do we make it happen? I don’t know what’s in store for me, & I waver on wanting to know: every day with my beloveds feels like a gift but also every day filled with regret & illness feels like living inside a tar pit. These 2 sides of the seesaw feel enough for me. In the center I keep my heart in a little smoldering cauldron & she’s constantly in pursuit of magic and inspiration some of which I share here & other bits which I keep cupped close to my ear like a moth telling me a secret. Each way feels like a door, my hand on each knob~ there are so many choices in this lifetime ~ more than my ancestors had, more than even my grandmother had when she was young, growing up rough in Brooklyn, which is why I think my life and way of being, delighted her. She’s gone now, so a door is shut in my mind though one always stays open in my memories & this is the way of things~ doors always closing & opening... I always go to see this painting ‘Birthday’ by Dorothea Tanning, *around* my own birthday, & think of the past, the future & the possibility of the multiverse. If there’s another me ~ I hope she’s getting it right & I hope she feels better. I hope she’s opening the best doors. I hope she knows how to shut others tightly behind her.♾