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Modern Living

Revitalized again

SECOND WIND - Barbara Gonzalez-Ventura - The Philippine Star

A few weeks ago I wrote about being spiritless, having no enthusiasm for anything. Then a few things happened. I finally attached my DVD player to my computer, after it had been sitting there unconnected for almost a year. I can now watch DVDs on my computer, the unit in my bedroom. I have a new source of entertainment. That’s a change and change always lifts my spirits somewhat.

Then one day I was chatting with a sweet young friend and we talked about tarot cards. Apparently he and another friend of ours had set up a tarot club. May I join? I asked enthusiastically. Maybe around 50 years ago I began to get interested in tarot cards. The world doesn’t know for sure where they began but they are certain they began early, around the 15th century. Organized religion blames the devil for the invention of tarot cards. I believe that’s just organized hysteria. Organized religion did not appreciate people getting insights from cards because they might see through them.

 Anyway I have always been very interested in the tarot on an on-and-off basis. A portion of every decade of my life has been spent reading tarots mainly for myself, an exercise I find fascinating. Today there seems to be a wide range of tarot cards available with different themes. I have mythic. Someone else has vampires. It’s fascinating.

 So now I’m a member of this fun club. I found my old tarot collection and blew the dust off them and we are looking at them again. We don’t do fortune telling so please don’t send me any biblical quotes or whatever on the tarots that just shows me your ignorance. If you don’t like tarot cards, stop reading this right now. The tarots lead me to insights about myself. Maybe being a member of this club has helped return my spirit, revitalized me.

 On the other hand, remember I wrote about Play! An Arts and Crafts fair that a group of us were organizing? We had the dates set: Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 25 and 26. We had the place set on Katipunan Avenue in White Plains. Remember I invited people who had arts, crafts and food to sell to come and show us their goods? Well, they did and I am profoundly grateful for the effort they made.  That’s the good news. The bad news is it was decided last week to postpone the event to Feb. 7 and 8, 2015 closer to Valentine’s Day.  It was further decided to move it back to the LRI Building in Makati where it has always been held. 

 On the one hand it was a relief for me personally to have it moved next year because that gives me more time to think about my time and how I want it spent.  I just want to enjoy myself and there are quite a few opportunities popping up.  When you hit my age you just want to eat and laugh. The reunion of one of my writing classes refreshed me. I remembered that my writing classes were fun.  Maybe next year I will teach writing more. I also am beginning to feel like painting again and making more innovative jewelry pieces and selling them on the net.  That means that I will have full control of my crafts and where to sell them. As I grow older I have no more time to dedicate to patience. I have learned from mistakes I made and now prefer to do things alone.

Someone I don’t know sent me a text admiring me for living alone.I thought she was young and innocent like I once was but life taught me a lot of lessons. My children taught me well when they told me they were entitled to making their own mistakes. They proved themselves right.  Now that is the wisest advice I can give to other mothers. You cannot teach your children anything.  You must leave them to make their own mistakes and learn from them but you must never condemn them and you must never say I-told-you-so. 

 This also means you must make sure you have a life of your own and fill it with your own activities, your own mistakes that you continue to learn from. Learn to laugh at your mistakes and when you fall yet again — and you do even if you’re old — just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. Okay you may spend a few days in a stew, but at the end of two days at most, shrug your shoulders and laugh. It is time to go on to other things. 

A few weeks ago I wrote about being spiritless, having no enthusiasm for anything.  Well now I am highly spirited again, happy again.  I am creatively moving on.

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Please text your comments to 0917-8155570.

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