Things I Cannot Explain

What I've learned about existence through tarot cards, missing cats, and diagnosable compulsive behaviors.

I got a tarot reading recently.

I’ve never been quite sure of what I think about tarot. In high school I bought a deck mostly because I liked the illustrations; in college I learned the psychology behind it, and then I learned about the traditions responsible for its prevalence in our culture today. The strange drama of Edwardian mysticism is fascinating, but not entirely convincing, not to me. I have three decks now. My own practice hasn’t brought me any clarity into whether or not magic exists, I fear.

I do, however, believe fully in the power of heartfelt, well-meaning advice. And I believe that regardless of higher powers or the lack thereof, a proper tarot reading can function as just that. So much of life is directed by the stories we hope to find in ourselves and the ones we project onto others, for better and for worse; interpreting tarot cards is much the same in my eyes. So, in a tough situation last month, I asked a friend— a tarot reader friend, and the real deal, too¹— if she could offer me any guidance.

She could. There were bits of the reading that were broadly applicable, of course, and there were bits that felt specific but plausible to guess, or to generalize. But there was also a part that threw me off. It wasn’t the imagery of the cards; it wasn’t even in the basic themes associated with them. It was innocuous: a turn of phrase she used to link two thoughts, a figurative image that came from almost nowhere, a concept she moved right along with as though it was nothing.

Her very specific, spur-of-the-moment metaphor was true— it was something I hadn’t told her about, nor could she have guessed on her own from the details I gave her for the reading. There is no way she could’ve known. She said it and I stopped breathing.

When you are prone to magical thinking, it’s a dangerous game to ascribe meaning to coincidence. I know this better than most.

Years ago, I lived a few houses down from an outdoor cat named Jett. He was Salem-like, following people along the sidewalk and seeking extra dinners at any cost, always with a look of intense feline judgment in his eyes. I’d get off the school bus a few stops early to walk home with him; I’d head in the front door to drop off my backpack and he’d meet me on the back porch, impatiently awaiting his scoop of kibble for the day. Once he’d eaten, we’d wander around in the woods for a while. I adored him.

One winter, Jett disappeared.

It wasn’t unusual to go a few days in between seeing him. I wasn’t the only one of whom he’d won the heart, I’m sure, and it was only coincidence that my bus route often aligned with his rounds through our subdivision; he had places to be, homeowners to manipulate, and if the bus ran a few minutes late, he could be off running his scam in another front yard by the time I hit the sidewalk. He’d stop by the porch later that night, displeased with my tardiness, or he’d catch up with me the next day, chirping gruffly at me on my way home.

Except this time, it wasn’t a few days. It was a week. On Friday I lingered for five minutes at the streetlight by his permanent residence, wondering if maybe he’d come out from the garage— his owners kept it permanently cracked by a foot or so— if he heard me call.

Nothing. Well, maybe they were traveling, I thought. Maybe it was just an unlucky week. I’d catch him on Monday like I always did and we’d rule the woods once again.

But on Monday, I stumbled off the bus, too-heavy backpack and viola case pushing me down the hill, and I still did not encounter Jett. I started to worry.

We had our own cats: Charlie, a behemoth flamepoint Siamese with the refined demeanor of a troubled polar bear, and the twins, ginger not-quite kittens whose temperaments were mild and whose breath was horrific. And then there was the alley cat,² a Maine Coon mutt we’d brought in from the rain a few months prior— he was lovely, sure, they all were. But they did not follow me down the sidewalk, or guide me into the forest. They were not Jett.

Jett, who was an outside cat. It was getting colder, so much colder. The woods were muddy and the sky darkened earlier every night. There were coyotes, I’d heard. Jett, who ran his dinner-seeking hustle as if he really was starving. What if a new neighbor, unfamiliar and concerned, had called animal control? Jett who crossed the street like a Salem-colored squirrel; Jett who could climb up a tree, but struggled climbing down.

Another week went by, Jettless. I was a sixth grader with responsibilities; I liked grown-up shows and teenager music and reading books outside of my grade level’s library section. I still cried like a newborn kitten on the bus ride home from school. That third Friday, I was so torn up, the tears started early. I rushed out of orchestra, my last class of the day, and stared into the bathroom mirror, eyes stinging. Something needed to change.

I jostled my way onto the school bus and sat heavily down, propping up my viola case to divide my seat in two— some privacy from the loud kids around me would help my cause, I thought. The window was foggy and cold; I leaned against it, clasped my palms atop the lucky pendant around my neck, and closed my eyes.

Universe, if you’re listening, I thought, please let Jett be okay. And I held my breath.

My lung capacity lasted until the bus was halfway down the street. Heart thundering, I gave my necklace a squeeze and gasped out of my trance. Nothing had changed, not as far as I could tell; the mean girl to my left was still laughing; the engine continued to rumble disconcertingly beneath my feet; the peeling plastic of the seat in front of me remained as it was, yellowing and mournful. Heart an inch from breaking, I shifted my weight away from the window.

A circle of clarity in the glass, just where my miserable forehead had rested a moment before— inadvertently, I’d wiped the condensation away. Through the window, I saw dying grass and dreary cloud cover and a thin prismatic line of light, an arc over the road. A rainbow.

When I got off the bus, Jett was waiting on his lawn to greet me like nothing had happened at all. I cried, happily this time, and thanked the sky; I took up its mantle, the one I’d just proved existed, and promised to wield it wisely. I’d learned of the universe’s all-knowing, conditional benevolence and my own ability to tap into it all in one afternoon. I knew that this magic was forever my privilege, my gift, and my responsibility.

Of course, it was none of those things. It was OCD. That permutation of it, the “if I hold my breath, the cat will be safe” style of compulsion, would haunt me for years. Soon enough it turned into “if I don’t stop breathing at this particular traffic light, I will never see the cat again,” and then “if I can’t make it the whole ride home with as little air as possible, the cat will be gone forever and it will be my fault.” It broadened and got worse and got worse and got worse; one summer, a recent one, I was terrified to leave my room, for fear it would cause some horrific calamity known the world over. Still, it got worse.

And finally, finally, it’s getting better.

I can step on sidewalk cracks again; if I catch myself holding my breath, I release it, and nothing bad happens. I see false equivalences— breath holding, cats brought back home— and I know them for what they are. When tragedy strikes I no longer believe it’s because I failed to indulge in some unfathomable OCD ritual; the thought remains, but I let it pass on by.

Jett would be sixteen now, I think. I haven’t seen him in ages, not just because I moved away. He wouldn’t have lived forever even if I held my breath just as long. I know that now.

But there are some things I still can’t explain. Case in point: the rainbow.

I know, logically, that performing an OCD compulsion does not summon signs from the heavens to cut through the bus window and shine down on little old me— but it’s still strange that a rainbow appeared at all. Correlation, causation, whatever. The coincidence is odd regardless.

My tarot reader friend could not have known what she would’ve needed to know to say the thing she said. This doesn’t mean it came from a higher power, not necessarily, anyway. For me, it’s dangerous to assume that it did, what with the OCD and all. But the skeptic in me goes back and forth, college grad philosopher to sixth grade mystic to somewhere in between: is it responsible to assume that it did not?³

It’s a coincidence. It’s fate. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I hate not knowing, whether it’s the whereabouts of a neighborhood cat or the existence of the divine.

If I did know, though— if I knew for sure the whole time that Jett was okay, or if I was certain, one hundred percent, that a higher power did or did not control what my friend saw in those cards— then I wouldn’t know what it’s like to hope. To grasp uncertain at shapes in the dark and dream they might bloom into color.

Is there an explanation for these things which I cannot explain? My answer is: maybe. And I’m learning there’s beauty in leaving it at that.

Jett, my old pal. Miss you.

1. She’s also a fellow Substacker! Check out her blog! Right now!

2. A story for another day.

3. William James, my old friend…