XVII. THE STAR
THE LOVERS would be next, but I don’t want to think about that.
THE STAR is said to gesture toward reprieve after difficulty. It follows THE TOWER, and before that, THE DEVIL: unhealthy attachment, then disaster. The Royal Road, my favorite tarot website, says, “The hope and inspiration which The Star in the tarot represents is vital for keeping a sense of equilibrium, particularly when life is at a low ebb. Without the special sense of faith and hope of The Star, we can simply give up.”
I have already told you about the late summer and fall three years ago when I began to understand how I was going to move forward by way of a book, and through Fleetwood Mac. By October, I had departed from “Silver Springs” and began looping playbacks of “The Chain.”
And if, you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain
I bought a dress that looked just like the one Stevie Nicks wore on the cover of Rumours. I went to a Halloween store somewhere in the suburbs. I had no plans to be anything but alone. I wrote in an essay that became part of the book:
In 2013, Lindsey told Rolling Stone, “For me, getting married and having children was a positive outcome. I wonder sometimes how Stevie feels about the choices she made, because she doesn’t really have a relationship—she has her career.”
I buy a blonde wig. I am trying to be alone with myself, but I can manage to be alone only with my Instagram. I draw black lines on my eyelids and wear my gauziest black witch clothes. I braid my hair, gather it under a mesh cap, and lower the wig onto my skull. I set my phone camera on a timer and ask it to capture me, looking at it like a person I want to put my wet red mouth on. There’s no one in this house but me and the ghost that recently pulled my curtains off the walls and shattered a glass bowl in the drying rack while I stood at the sink. I show the ghost the tip of my thirsty tongue between my teeth.
In the booklet that comes with the Rider Waite tarot deck, THE STAR is said to signify “Loss, theft, privation, abandonment, although another reading suggests hope and bright prospects in the future.”
I think I knew that I was on the threshold between loss and prospects that month. I don’t think I ever wore the wigs or the dress again. I had no parties to go to, which was better than it sounds, because I finally had to spend time with myself and learn that she was not intolerable.