Depression is a downer, and I say that with great authority since I believe I've experienced most varieties--from the fear and anxiety version that retards your emotional growth to what I call the one-note "drummer" that beats out a nasty mono-rhythm of negativity. It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, that internal voice taps out unhelpful messages like "you could have done a better job," "it's your fault he (the boyfriend) left you," " you'll never be happy." You get the idea.
Sometimes my depression was so obvious that my mother picked up on it and called in the troops. The troops usually consisted of my sister, who had to be forced into indentured service in the form of movie dates and meals, and my aunt (let's call her Eve) who had extended her mah jong gambling expertise to poker, gin rummy and tarot. Of course it was the tarot that interested me. I'm not saying that I believed everything she told me she saw in the cards, but I always felt a little better after one of her readings. Maybe it was the attention and focus on me and only me that lifted my spirits, but it also wasthe hocus-pocus, supernatural, occult nuance she cultivated. Aunt Eve believed in what she was doing and saying, so her prophecies became all that more convincing. And never more so than on one singular occasion.
That was the evening when a high school friend happened to be at my house when my aunt was there. We were all waiting to eat dinner, so I appealed to Aunt Eve to read the cards for "Jeanie." I'm sure I was showing off a little ("Yeah, my father is Stalin-esque, but my aunt is really cool"), but I didn't care. Aunt Eve was a rarity for me: a relative who actually liked me. Of course not everyone held her in such high esteem. Some of my relatives referred to her as a witch (and sometimes a bitch depending on the day of the week), but so what. To me she was a kinda sorcerer, and I liked that Twilight Zone feeling surrounding her. Actually it wasn't until Aunt Eve met with Jeanie and laid some predictions on her that I became a sorta-believer. That is to say despite my inherent negativity and skepticism, I started thinking that there were forces out there and beyond myself and my parents that might make some of my most prized wishes come true. This was empowering for an adolescent who regularly thought of herself as a loser.
So Jeanie had her reading with Aunt Eve and came away astounded by her revelations. Bear in mind Jeanie's impression of my aunt took on added meaning due to Jeanie's own quirky personality. Despite her being a bit of a high school outcast like me, she was nothing like me. She was statuesque, blonde with blue eyes, and blessed with confidence (two days after getting her driver's license she busted through a fence, but it never fazed her). She was also funny, optimistic and sure she would always land on her feet.
She was, however, unlucky in love since the guy she dated had eyes for a few other gals. But Jeanie walked away from my aunt that evening with a huge smile. "That lady's a witch," she said to me in amazement. She never told me what my aunt said, and I never asked. Privacy was engrained in my teenage brain as much as pop music and bell bottoms. Privacy was a sacred cow, like a bra or dress size or like whether you were cutting swimming for medical (menstrual) reasons or some other more devious reason (like you didn't want your hair to look like a frizz ball when you accidentally passed this cute guy in the halls).
Did my aunt's reading hold any truth for Jeanie? I never asked her, even when she divorced her first husband, moved to Juneau, Alaska, and became a honky tonk pianist. By then she had a relationship with another woman and they had adopted a little girl. Jeanie seemed happy--she called herself a "big frog in a little pond," referring to her music career. But it's true what they say about "you can't go home again." Like high school reunions, you cannot recapture the feelings today that bonded you 20 or more years ago. When we met at a seafood restaurant on the docks of Juneau, we reminisced only slightly. Most of the conversation was about the "now" and we took turns kvetching (Yiddish for complaining). Her father and brother had passed away, my sister and I were well on our way to being estranged, and my Aunt Eve was in a nursing home with dementia.
In hindsight, however, I can say with honesty that my Aunt Eve hit every mark when it came to me. She told me I would marry, and I did. She told me I would spend time with children, and I did if you count the three years and several summers I babysat and taught third grade. But her greatest gift was peeling back, at least temporarily, the curtain of sadness that blinded me to life's exciting possibilities. For me, that was magical.
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