five warriors

Before I left yesterday, I pulled this card from my new tarot deck:




My new deck is a gift. I wasn't sure if I liked it until I pulled that card. The five of wands is a card of conflict and competition. Pulling that card seems to imply that there might be strife within a group.

Note that there is a redhead, and the other four women have varying shades of dark hair. Now, here's a group shot from yesterday:



Although there appear to be several blondes in the group, you have my assurance that their natural shades run from ginger brown to dark brown...or perhaps grey by now.

I'm sure that more than a few of you scoff at the idea that tarot cards are an effective method of divination, or that any form of divination is even possible. That's okay. What I think is that the energy around us is not bound by linear time, as our bodies are, and it holds information about our past, our present, and our future.

The Five of Wands, in this instance, is about a group of teenage girls, a group of young misfits who bonded and banded together in order to protect ourselves and each other. We had each others' backs. And we needed each other badly.

My high school was probably a typical small-town high school. Small, of course. Insular. Closed. Hierarchical. When I first started attending, in 1979, my hometown was still pretty small. Lots of the kids who attended came from nearby farms and small towns. If you had a recognizable last name, you were in - especially if your family had lived in town for generations. If you were attractive, you were in. If you were sporty you were in.

Being smart could not save you.

Being shy and withdrawn only made it worse.

Being obese was hell, unless you were from a family that had lived there for generations, and even then it was hell.

Having a local police officer for a father in a town of drinking and pot-smoking teenagers made you a target for mockery and some measure of violence. If you consider obscenities scrawled on your locker door, firecrackers in your locker, spit in your french fries and moldy lunches mixed in with your shoes and books to be violent.

Being from the country was sometimes a strike against you.

Being the daughter of a school superintendent (and later Director of Education)created a "smart kid" label that helped with academic success, but hindered social progress greatly.

Being the daughter of the town pariahs (oh, the rumors)most often led to rumors and vicious lies, and the snubbing of most of the girls.

The teachers stood back and watched the bullying that went on. They ignored it. In my mind, they condoned it. Some of them participated in it. After all many of them had taught the parents of the kids I went to school with. Many of their families had lived in the town for generations.

We found each other at the end of grade ten. Actually, two of the women in the picture had been my friends since grades four and six. Elementary school was really not that much better. Our group formed out of self-defense. We needed each other. And in needing each other, we all found common bonds that have kept us in touch and together over the years. Most of us live within an hour's drive of each other. Except for one of us, who has spent the last 20 years about six hours east of here.

One of us is a teacher, like her parents before her. She's married, with three beautiful children.

One of us is married, has two boys, and seems to be second mother to every small tot that wanders through her yard. She has a big kitchen and a big heart, and both are always open.

One of us married, and divorced after many years. She's dating someone new, and I have never seen her look so good -radiant and happy.

Two of us had gastric bypass surgery. In fact, the surgery is what brought us back in touch with each other after so many years - I told her, she had it done a year later, and is happy and dating.

One of us is an ECE, an itinerant blogger and a writer. She's a mother, a lesbian, a feminist, and inclined towards compassion. The kids who made our lives hell really didn't know what they were doing, or the long-term effects it would have on all of us. I can't speak for anyone else in the group, but for many years, I suffered from extreme social anxiety. I was depressed and withdrawn, and I had panic attacks whenever I went out. I couldn't speak in public, let alone sing, which is why I don't perform any music in public, to this day. To this day, new situations cause me to feel anxious and I tend to either babble or stop talking. I taught myself the social skills I lacked. I forced myself to learn to talk to people again.

And I'm okay. We're all okay. Because we had each other.