Efficient German cartomancy, Sylvia Plath’s fat figs, and prog rock

A close friend did a reading for me with her new German oracle cards - Kipper Wahrsagekarten. They’re similar to tarot but more like Lenormand, which don’t have as loose interpretations as traditional tarot. I asked whether I should self-publish or look for a publisher with all of the contracts, etc., that go with it. Looks like I should self-publish.

I am especially grateful for this moment of clarity even if just for a suggested direction. My husband and I are among the most indecisive (least decisive?) people on the planet. Choosing an egg-style at breakfast is a small triumph to be relished. So to have something as daunting as publishing somewhat sorted out - at least in a nebulous way - makes my future feel less murky. 

I think often of something Sylvia Plath wrote about choices and a fig tree with withering fruits: 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

I sit in Ms. Plath’s withering fig crotch a lot.

And then I think of the band Rush and the only lyric I can remember that must have settled into my brain while some ex-boyfriend played them on his car stereo: “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” You know what, Rush? They don’t call you “prog” for nothing.

See? Clarity can come from the most unexpected places.