Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a semi-regular column in which Carrie Ann Mallino interprets tarot cards for Missoula.
Dear Missoula,
Lots of people feel like January lasts forever, but for me it’s February—the longest shortest month of the year. And this year is a leap year so it’s even longer. In February, all the winter holidays are done, the gusto with which we enter a new year has waned, and spring still feels ages away. This year, we winter people of Missoula have been sorely disappointed by the lack of actual winter. Where’s our snow?! And the rotten cherry on top? Our only holiday is Valentine’s Day. For some, Valentine’s is a wonderful day. For others, there’s a lot of pressure to “get it right.” For others still, it’s just another reminder they’re single. So I sat with my deck awhile thinking about Valentine’s Day and drew us a card.
The Three of Cups, direct meaning: Gathering with friends, celebrations, creative collaborations, good times with the people you love.
If you are searching for love, I suspect you will have better luck at social gatherings with friends and loved ones than out at the bars this Valentine’s Day, Missoula. (Unless you’re searching for no-strings-attached.)
If you’re happily in love, bravo! Enjoy it! The Three of Cups suggests celebration will only bring you closer together. If you are aiming to do something super romantic for your partner this year, share it with friends and family. Not the dirty stuff! And no proposing at someone else’s wedding. Do share the grand gestures. (One caveat: If you’re looking to surprise your partner, be sure your partner likes surprises. Some of us don’t handle being put on the spot with as much grace as we would like.)
But, what if you’re widowed or otherwise missing a spouse? Or your lover just walked out? What if you feel too old to ever know true love after decades of dead ends? What if you’re a cynic who only sees a holiday designed to sell flowers and chocolates? What if, like me, you’re a hopeless romantic who is happily single? Valentine’s Day is not for everyone.
I find living a romantic life much easier to do when I am alone. I am one of those women who never married, never had children, has too many cats (and a dog for balance). I spent my life taking care of everybody else while I became—gasp!—a spinster. Now entering the phase of the Crone, I have never been happier. Sometimes I wander my space and burst into song as my beasties follow me about like I’m a Disney princess who escaped the fate of societal expectations. I haven’t ticked off a single thing on the conventional adult “to do” list, and I feel like I’ve won by refusing to play.
I wasn’t always a delighted singleton. In fact, from pre-school to my mid-30s, finding true love and having many children was my life’s mission. I couldn’t tell you why or how that me became this me beyond I woke up one day after a strange dream and a lifetime of romantic disappointment and just didn’t want that anymore. Over the years I had taken to buying a new tool after every break-up, so by the time I woke from that dream I had the most enviable tool box, crowned with my very own drill. And I learned how to use them all. A dear friend told me once, “You know, Mallino, you would make the perfect wife. The problem is you would also make the perfect husband.”
Turns out, I complete myself, and I treat myself better than any boyfriend ever has. It took some time to get here, but I live a delightfully romantic and magical life. And the only way I can imagine ruining it entirely, is to fall in love.
I digress. Back to love. Back to the Three of Cups, which does not represent romantic love, but a romantic life. If you are looking for love right now you are more likely to find it behind a familiar face. Commune and celebrate with like-minded spirits—the people you love and enjoy. Bask in that glow until you’re glowing yourself, and see what your glow attracts. Maybe a friendship deepens into something more. Maybe you rekindle a lost love—honestly, my favorite kind of love story.
But if you find yourself alone this Valentine’s may I suggest embracing the romance of being alone? You don’t have to be happy about it. In fact, feel free to be romantically miserable. After all, a truly romantic life is full of woe, just ask a poet. If you cannot be with the one you love, be wistful. Cry it out. Wail. Watch the movies that make you pine. I like to revisit “The Philadelphia Story”—I’ve always been more of a romcom girl. But you also have “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Say Anything,” or any Meg Ryan movie from the 1990s. Pour yourself a glass of Ten Spoons’ Last Chance Red and turn up Norah Jones’ “Come Away with Me.” Revel in the solitude. Love is a wonderful thing and even as a cynic I love Love. I love watching love unfold between two people. But not all love is romantic, and not all romantics are in love. And that’s OK. You do you, Boo. The rest will follow.
