19 Sep 0. The Fool
Taking the Leap
Superstition is a driving force in Italian tradition. My grandmother would caution me with words from her mother: Whatever you’re doing on New Year’s Eve will set the tone of your year. Make sure you plan carefully.
When the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2012 I was ringing in a promising new year with friends, EDM pulsing loudly over the speakers, in a New York City night club.
It was a big trip for me, a wide-eyed, recent college grad. I had flown into NYC to celebrate the holiday miles away from my quiet hometown upstate. If I had stayed home it would have been too cold to go out, and nothing much was going on anyway. In the city, there were parties to attend, taxis to catch, weekend-sized adventures to be had.
On New Year’s morning, dressed in shiny black heels and a thin pea coat, I was on my way to my first-ever brunch in Manhattan. I walked down 42nd Street, still dotted with red and green wreaths, sparkling lights and smelling of fresh pine from the leftover Christmas trees. I looked up at the windowed buildings stretching on forever, and felt the sun shine down through the crisp, fresh air. It was like magic being there.
By the time New Year’s Eve weekend was over, I was completely intoxicated with the idea of packing up my life and moving to the big city.
The boundless opportunities, promises of dream jobs, dream friends and dream dates programmed into me from movies and TV, compounded by the very tangible swirling city energy I could feel, and of course the music, had all pulled me in.
EDM was a novel new genre starting to take hold. It was still underground, which was so fresh and exciting to me. Not everyone wanted to hear this strange new music but I loved it immediately. In NYC you could go out any night of the week to world famous clubs and see the best D.J.’s play a brand new set in person. I could be so much more connected to this newness, meeting people who loved it just as much as I did, instead of listening to songs alone at home on my laptop while I tried to keep busy with a nightly creative project. My mind was made up.
With that, I quit my job, sold my car and signed a lease that sealed the deal on my move to the city.
It actually wasn’t at all that seamless or effortless. It took about a year of searching before I could find a place to live. I needed one that didn’t require meeting the standard 40x rent rule and I had no guarantor. I had tried unsuccessfully to apply for jobs while living upstate but my year of work experience and distant geographical location didn’t even qualify me for a phone interview. I couldn’t apply for a typical apartment without a job due to the strict requirements. I didn’t really know anyone there, so finding a roommate seemed too out of the question. It was a long year of trying to work out all of the details to make this possible, while keeping my chin up. When I told people I was going to move to NYC it was often met with concern that came across as criticism. It was exhausting trying to defend my dream of city life, while fighting to make it come true. The long days sitting in my cubicle made the hours seem to stretch on toward eternity. The fomo was real. Thankfully, like a shining gift from Spirit, a very kind friend put me in contact with someone looking to sublet their apartment in Manhattan. It was the ideal situation, one that I could have only imagined. When I got the call at work confirming that I was officially accepted as the new tenant, it felt like a miracle. It was finally happening.
In the spring, with the promise of all new things, I left my hometown for the big city, without a job, friends, or any idea what to do for work. I did however, have a lot of confidence that this would work out in my favor. All signs were pointing to yes, as is such with the Fool card.
I landed at JFK on a cool morning in the middle of May, with my belongings in a suitcase. I was so excited and eager to dive into this journey.
My new apartment was a sun-drenched, rent-stabilized one bedroom walk-up on a beautiful SoHo street. Sheer curtains softly covered the oversized windows in each room. Down below on the street, taxis buzzed by, women walked together with oversized shopping bags, looking so chic. Everyone was busy and finally I was a part of it, too. It was easy to overlook any imperfections in my new home.
This apartment sat at the top of 5 steep flights of stairs in an unrenovated tenement-style building. The wooden floor was painted brown and a bit slanted, partially peeled tiles scattered the kitchen floor. In the bedroom, someone years ago had lofted the bed. They created a mattress raised up on a tall wooden platform, almost touching the high ceilings. It was only accessible by a stationary ladder fixed to the side of the bed. The open cavity below the lofted bed was filled with a nest of decades-old paperwork. Scattered throughout the apartment was a hodgepodge of artifacts left by previous tenants, hints at lives lived here before me.
The building was from the early 1900’s, as was the plumbing. This meant the shower was tucked behind a curtain in the kitchen, arm’s length from the stove. There was only one sink in the whole apartment, the kitchen sink. The bathroom was in a tiny closet off the living room with a light bulb and broken pull string. None of this mattered though. Because all I saw when I stood in front of the kitchen window brushing my teeth at night were the twinkling lights of One World Trade glittering back at me. This is where I was supposed to be.
It was the perfect place for a fool to begin.
If I had been honest with myself, maybe a little more grounded, and a lot less naive, I might have let all the flaws stop me. Maybe I would have decided it would be easier to stay home instead, where it was quiet and I knew what to expect. I could have continued with my safe routine: working at my steady office job, driving my new car that I worked so hard to save up for, waiting for my life to begin. That just didn’t seem like an option for me at the time. I needed to go experience the bigness of life in the city. I needed to see what that meant for me. I had to leap bravely into the unknown.
That is the energy that I feel from The Fool card. It’s naively jumping in feet first without really giving much thought to dotting the I’s or crossing the T’s. It’s saying YES to new opportunities that feel right. Ignoring the naysayers and following your path. There’s a small amount of knowing it will work out and letting it fall into place that happens with the Fool. They boldly step off the ledge, dog nipping at their heels, unafraid. Ready to leap into something new and discover life’s possibilities.
The journey is not always rosy, as we’ll see. But that is for other cards to explain.
