Not So Deep Thoughts

I don’t think what I’m about to say anyone else knows. Not quite a dirty little secret, and yet there’s something just odd enough in it being that I’m sure I could probably get a raised eyebrow from at least one psychoanalyst.

Last night, as I was walking home from a dinner party, I found a playing card lying on the ground just around the corner of my street. Just one card. Face up. A card that I have a long history with: The King of Hearts.

You see, I’ve played my fair share of Solitaire, starting with the actual real life version involving dealing the cards yourself and never expecting the cards to go off jumping around the room as soon as you finished off the last pile of cards. And once it hit the digital age, there was no stopping me. I used to play game after game after game, watching the hours of my life being filed under ‘Solitaire’ in the filing cabinet of my life.

But there came a time when I didn’t win a single game for months on end. It wasn’t a streak of bad luck nor Rosencrantz-like chances of dealing on the wrong side of the three card draw ad infinitum. No, the fact that I didn’t successfully finish off the end of any of those games was because of my own doing.

You see, do you remember that point towards the end where the game a had switched from tactical card maneuvering to moving the bottom card of the four long arranged piles to the neat little ones at the top, one by one. This home stretch of the game left no doubt of winning in the players mind; it was just a matter of enjoying the victory lap. I’m sure none of us would dispute it if someone just pointed to the 4 long piles waiting to be filed up to the tops ones and said, “Is this good enough? Do I really have to go through the bother of arranging them again?”

But I would go through with the ritual, up until the very last card, which would always be the King of Hearts; and then I would stop, turn over all the cards, mix them into one pile, shuffle, and do it all over again.

I’m really not sure how to interpret it either; that or how to interpret finding that lone card lying on the street. True, the last month has been a time of many endings for me, but how does this relate? Putting the King of Hearts up top would bring the game to the end, but you’d also being winning said game, and that’s not such a bad thing. Plus, the fact that the King is the only card left on the board means that the game is won, regardless of whether or not it’s moved up top.

So what the hell does it all mean? I don’t like winning? I like winning but I’m modest? I can’t finish something I’ve started? I’m not one to stand on ceremony? I just really don’t like those damn jumping cards?

And here I am, sitting here fiddling with the King of Hearts in my hands, wondering what, if anything, it means, where the pile to which it belongs is to be found and whether or not to put it down.

God, I need to turn off my brain - - - Going to Barcelona tomorrow to teach for a few days - - - that should help, or at least be better than the King of Hearts’ brilliant idea of getting rid of HIS headache: