Unexpected Updates…

One of the side effects of being an events reader is that for the vast majority of people that I read for, I see them only the once so I rarely hear about their lives once we have parted company. Every so often, I may get an out of the blue email, then sometimes, like the other evening, I get to see a face on TV, that looks kind of familiar and then I flashback to where and when I’ve read for them and my head fills with snapshots of cards that were pulled or phrases that I said to them…

Now the recent face appearing via TiVo made me smile… Firstly, because usually when I look through and see the random assorted rubbish that TiVo has recorded on my behalf, choosing what it guesses that I will like, I shake my head and sigh…oh…TiVo… do you even know who I am…

Secondly, because upon seeing the face, it unleashed a bwahaha! of laughter as I recalled a rather hilarious day… an encounter after months of a preamble and sorry but that is not a tale that I will be sharing here… it’s more a tale to be shared face to face over a brew with an old friend who laughs equally as loudly as I do, as the tale unfolds with gesticulation, mimicry, sound effects and such like, none of which I can do full justice to here…

No… it’s the third memory that made me smile, that I will share here…

Out strolling one day, I decided to swing by a small independent gallery and have a nosy around… I’d met the owner a couple of times in passing and each time, an invite was extended to go visit… Mostly when I visited that area of town, I arrived during closing hours but that day timing was favourable so in I went. So… I’m a fairly chatty type of person, so when I’m offered a cup of tea and a guided tour, I snap it up… We walked from painting to painting and as well as being chatty, I’m also pretty nosy, so I fired question after question… all the W’s… what/why/where/when/who… until I turned a corner and saw myself face to face with a canvas maybe 4ft high and there in oil were features that were familiar…

A portrait of a soldier in uniform.

I know him!

Really?

Yes… I’ve seen him in the pub across yonder…

No… it must have been someone else, he doesn’t live around here…

Yes… I’ve read his cards a couple of years ago…

Are you sure?

I stared into the brushstrokes that made up those vaguely familiar blue eyes and I started to drift back in time and yes… there he was sat at a small table across from me and in between us cards laid out…

OK… I don’t recall his name but he used to be a soldier…

I noticed the faintest trace of an eyebrow raise and my brain added the words – No shit Sherlock! Which seemed to be the unspoken thoughts of the artist who was too polite to call out BS on me… I carried on talking anyway…

Well… if all went to plan, then he’s living in Scotland and he’s a gamekeeper now…

Two eyebrows shot skywards…

Blimey!! Yes!! He does!! How did you know that?

It came up in his cards…

Do you remember all your readings?

Only when they revisit…

Though actually his reading was more memorable than most. He’d been hovering and circling my table all night and a couple of times made jokey comments then almost at the very end of the evening, he stood at my table and asked – So is there anything to all of this?

I think I said something like – there’s a little or as much as you want to see…

Yeah… well… I don’t really believe in all of this, so…

Good! Me neither! Pull up a pew! Let’s chat!

He sat down and said…Ok..go on… read for me… but his arms were firmly folded across his body and he leaned back in his chair. As I spoke and turned cards, the tension in his body slowly subsided then I turned over a Knight of Swords and BAM!! He was alert and almost out of his chair as he plunged forward and said STOP! Question… Is that card me? What do you think I do?

I think you used to be in the forces maybe but I’m not entirely sure what you do now…

Carry on he said…

I carried on and now I had his full attention and the arms were no longer crossed but picking up cards for closer inspection… so I say to him – So what is it that you really want to know? What made you sit down? He says… Ok… what I want to know is… I’m thinking of applying for this job as gamekeeper… do you think I’ll get it? I flip over another card… The 9 of Pentacles and he laughs out loud – Does that look like a yes to you? What do you think? I also laugh and reply… what it looks like to me is not the issue, it’s what it looks like to you… I think maybe you should think less about what I think and think more about how you create a yes… Do you want to make it a yes? He goes quiet and looks pensive… I decide to turn the tables… So… that Knight of Swords… why did it make you leap out of your seat?

He smiles broadly and tells me that the pegasus was the cap badge for the regiment he used to be in, then asks me how the cards knew that?

I have no idea… they just do… And besides… I find it far more interesting to see what you will do…

Cards used