My late father sometimes reminded me of a day when we traveled to the Happy Jack recreation area. My family lived in Laramie at the time. My father was attending the University of Wyoming and was also earning his keep as a teacher’s assistant. My father told me that I stood up on a ridge and shouted to the wind, “I’m happy!”
I may have been happy. I honestly don’t remember the incident or the place. I can recall moments from that year, 1968. I remember some of the dreams I had. I seemed to be nothing but trouble for my mother. I was an overly curious child who was always getting into things.
My lifetime has been spent beneath the shadow of the Three of Swords. To put this in poetic terms, I’ve always been melancholy in varying degrees. If I were to choose poetry to describe my life, the first poem I’d select would be Alone by Edgar Allan Poe. I was reading Poe’s works at six years old and I related to this poem. I also loved The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. What would it be like, I wondered, to have a sister who was such a dear friend that she would put herself in danger to rescue me from the goblins who were draining me of my joy?
I did not have a sister. I had friends here and there, now and then, but they always left. I loved creating, but it wouldn’t be until later in life that I reconciled myself to the fact that my stories were my constant companions. I was not destined to have lasting friendships or find happy ever after romantic love.
To put it in clinical terms (alas, how very dull!) I have always lived with varying degrees of depression. I’ve been told I should medicate away the Three of Swords. Attempts at doing so failed spectacularly. The Tower fractured beneath me, plunging me into madness.
I can exist beneath the shadow of the Three of Swords. When the swords increase to nine or ten, atmospheric conditions present danger not only to happiness but to my very corporeal existence.
directionless me
spinning twilight I wander
without any guide
