I don't know the Polish word for Psychic
The Realisation
I managed to live 26 years and 351 days before I cried on FaceTime to my Mum. Last Thursday, as I lay in bed, I had the quiet realisation that I did not love Gdańsk in the way I had hoped, and as Friday progressed, it only got louder.
I have been here two Fridays and have cried on both. The first was only three days into my stay here, and I had this horrible concern that maybe this decision was stupid. The second was ten days in, and I could call it - this decision was stupid.
Fridays are also harder than they used to be because they are the end of another working week, and despite my efforts, nothing has come through but rejections and yeses that weren’t yeses but might be in Spring. Patience is not a virtue I have been blessed with, but it feels more obvious when the days are long, dark and cold.
I went to St Mary’s, tall, stark and not a patch on St Mary’s in Kraków. I’m not religious but I have watched Brideshead Revisited, and I’m a big fan of the patron saints. I begged St Francis with every language and variation of please that I knew as my warm breath in the frigid air spiralled up and away from me.
Come on, I’m clearly profoundly at odds with the life I have tried to live; I have to do this, I am broken if I cannot. Just give me a solid yes, one yes.
A prayer quickly became tears, quickly became an entire crisis. Why am I here? What was I doing? Why didn’t I love it?
No news came through as the people ceased work for the week, and by the time I was speaking to my Mum on FaceTime, the tears were free-flowing.
“What did you think Gdańsk would have that Kraków didn’t?” she asked.
“A Cos?”
There was a pause as my mother had the terrible realisation that I was being serious.
“Well, you know I thought it would be like the Warsaw of the North,” I elaborated, still under the misguided belief that the presence of a Cos marked a cultured, intellectual place where people swaddled themselves in navy and grey cashmere - and I say this having once made a special trip to the Cos in Katowice.
I thought Gdańsk would have its own versions of Mysia 3, Łazienki and Wilanów. Instead, there’s the Amber Museum, which I paid £6 to enter, and I tried, I really tried, but it turns out you couldn’t make me care about hardened tree sap if my life depended on it.
That night I stayed up much later than I should have, frying my brain into a heady delirium of apathy as I alternated Magdalene by FKA Twigs and Please Sister by The Cardigans when I came to the realisation that what I needed…was to see a psychic.
The Remedy
In case the constant references to my star sign weren’t enough, I’m a little bit Woo Woo (not to be confused with Woo1), but in a classy, folkloric way, like Lord Summerisle or Alicia Vikander painting a spooky portrait of Dev Patel in The Green Knight before giving him a handjob and whispering, “You are no Knight.” I think it’s actually quite chic; I'm sure that FKA Twigs has been to a psychic, and there’s actually a very feminist argument-
I am fully aware that this is all COVID’s fault - I lived alone for eight months in a foreign country during a very uncertain period for the world, and because I used to have the biggest crush on Catherine Pierce from The Pierces, I backed her tarot Kickstarter and got a deck in the mail. I actually think I’ve come out relatively unscathed from the mental consequences of a global pandemic, though I can now watch a film and predict an actor’s star sign with a startling degree of accuracy.
I hedged my bets and googled Psychic Gdańsk (not knowing the Polish word for psychic seemed like another failure, and I thought finding having to look it up would only compound it), and the top result was for someone called Jacek, whose website said:
You didn’t get here by accident. There are no coincidences. Do you need my help? Do you want to be born again, or find the eternal truth?
Of course I did, but I wasn’t 100% sold. As much as I believe in equality, there are some jobs which only women should be doing. These include:
Gynaecologist
Psychic
*End of List*
I did my own tarot reading to bridge the gap, and for the Future card, I drew the Eight of Wands as I had the week before.
I was amazed - what were the odds of splitting a deck of 78 cards into three decks and then pulling the same card from the third deck twice? I put my friend Katie, super spy and talented mathematician, onto the case. Her initial thought was that it was 1/676, but then backtracked, it could be more. The stars had a message for me, and it was incredibly rare!
However, after Katie worked it out, she confirmed that the odds were only 1 in 78, as the events were independent of each other. Now, whilst a 1.28% chance of something happening is rather low, I was fuming.
Oh, yeah and How Soon Is Now2?
I pushed through with agenting and found one that represented a very cool author called Genevieve Jagger, and because I am a considered person who stalks thoroughly, I went on her website and read that she was also a tarot reader. With nothing to lose, I slid into her DM’s (so Cléo de 5 à 7) and, as if I was a very rich recluse, explained that I needed a tarot reading ASAP and that it had to be over Zoom. Norma Desmond, eat your heart out.
I feel the need to stipulate that I have been to therapy and I am capable of doing the work, but ***The Stars*** bring me joy and I think that’s cool. It’s not like I’m a Scientologist, or worse, a Catholic.
The Reading
Genevieve was very obliging, and we met over Zoom on Thursday. I knew I was going to like her, but was totally won over when she asked, “How are you with conflict?”
“How do you mean, like managing it?”
“Starting it.”
What was scheduled for thirty minutes lasted over an hour, as we bemoaned writerly problems like shitty agents and capitalism between a six-card reading of Problem, Solution, Power, Accept, Reject, Embrace. Each card felt like an unburdening, as if I was going through the catharsis of the grief’s seven stages at rapid speed. When it came to the final card, Genevieve pulled the reversed Seven of Cups.
“This is about accepting the weirdness of the liminal space that you’re in,” she said, holding up a card adorned with a swimmer heading towards floating cups that had drifted into a vague, question mark-like shape. But what question are they asking? What question am I asking?
Why am I here?
Gdańsk was a stupid plan with good intentions. In January I will start again somewhere new, leaving me to drift in this stopgap and to try to embrace it, if only for another couple of weeks. I remain as I was, completely new, and with a tarot reader now on speed dial.
Incidentally, the Polish word for psychic is medium, so at least everything isn’t needlessly complicated.
Thank you so much for reading, it means the absolute world to me. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing or sharing with a link.
I had my cards read by Genevieve Jagger, who I couldn’t recommend more. You can pre-order her amazing book, Fragile Animals, here, or through Waterstones, Foyles or Amazon.
For this week’s post, I also would like to thank Katie for the maths, Jo for bringing Woo into my life, and the Eight of Wands for nothing!
I also launched my first paid post this week which is on fame and Daniel Day-Lewis. If you’re interested, click here to read it. Please consider supporting me if you can, if only so I can have more tarot readings.
See you next week! L x
Woo - adjective, ‘wü’, a diminutive of Woo Woo, origin: my friend Jo
A person, almost always caucasian, guilty of spiritual bypassing that appropriates aspects of Eastern spiritual practices, usually with the inclusion of ketamine. Mentally weak, they are prone to conspiracy theories and being taken advantage of by men (also caucasian) in linen trousers.
When you say it's gonna happen “now”
Well when exactly do you mean?