My girlfriend Chris and I used to take vacations together. The first trip, a road trip, involved the two of us traversing the continent in my bright blue Ford Taurus. We were driving my car from Columbus to my temporary new home in Aptos, California (close to the world-renown Watsonville I’m sure you’ve read about.
After watching Thelma and Louise at my house, a couple of days before our journey was to begin, Chris and I promised ourselves that we would try a lot of new and different things on our trip. One of the things we were going to try was visiting a psychic. By this time I had already seen my crystal gazer.
We were going to be driving along the historical Route 66 which would take us through Santa Fe, New Mexico – in our minds, the perfect place to visit a psychic.
When we arrived in Santa Fe, our first task was to check into our cute little hotel, dump our bags in the room, and then find a psychic in the yellow pages. It was early evening and we didn’t know if we had to call for reservations or what the custom was for scheduling a reading. There may have been only one number listed under “psychics” but even if there were more, we hit pay dirt on the first number we tried. The psychic was able to see us in one hour.
Woo hoo! We were excited but it left us little time to prepare. I had shared with Chris our need to write down questions we wanted answered because we might forget them like I had during my crystal reading in Columbus.
Finding the psychic’s home in the unfamiliar city was easy enough. She had told us what to look for – a white metal driveway gate with a giant black and gold guitar in the middle of it. Perfectly normal. Maybe Elvis used to live here?
The psychic invited us into her home. Our jaws dropped. The room was huge with white tile floors, white walls, and white ceiling. A definite chill in the air. The room was sparsely furnished, with just one normal-sized couch and one made-for-a-giant armchair with a sky-high back, covered in a clear vinyl. This throne was not the strangest item in the room, however. By far the weirdest and most out-of-place item was the huge, should-be-outside-in-a- Greek-garden fountain that sat in the middle of the room. The fountain was practically begging for wish pennies but I wasn’t carrying any change. I can’t recall now whether or not the fountain had water in it. With the chill, the wishing fountain, and the dead Elvis chair, the place had the feel of a funeral home.
The far side of the room opened up to another smaller room where you could see two children watching television.
There was another room off the main room that had a wooden door with a window. One of us would wait in this room while the other had their fortune told in the main room. This waiting room was more or less a shrine to Jesus. Inside the shrine you felt like you were in church. Pictures of Jesus adorned every wall. There were votive candles set up on a buffet against one wall and there were Christian pamphlets and cards quoting Scripture strewn about for some light reading to pass the time. I wished I had thought to bring a book. I think each of us had a half an hour in the room which certainly made up for the Sunday Mass we were most likely going to miss.
After our readings, we thanked the psychic, praised Jesus, and left for dinner.
We went to a Mexican restaurant. I remember because we ordered nachos and I ate a hot chili pepper not knowing it was going to fry my mouth and ruin my whole meal. We sat with our notebooks, prepared to take notes on what we could remember from our readings. I still have that notebook somewhere…
The fortune teller used cards, I think, but they weren’t tarot cards. Maybe just regular playing cards? I remember joking afterward with Chris that one of the psychic’s kids could have easily lost some of the cards while they were playing Crazy 8s, and really screwed up our futures. What I remember about my reading is that someone with the initials “RS” would be very important in my life. If you don’t have those initials, you are not that person. She also told me that I would have two children and the oldest would be a boy.
What I remember most of all though, is how angry Chris was because, when she asked the woman if she would ever be happy – a solid question that was on each of our lists – the psychic had told her she’d be happy in six years. “Six years!” She had wailed. “That’s a heck of a long time to wait to be happy!”
“What about me?” I countered. “She told me I’d be happy ‘eventually.’ It might be on my deathbed!”
Interestingly, after our trip, Chris eventually got divorced and six years later, married a guy named Steven.
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We continued our journey and stayed in Sedona, Arizona, one of my most favorite places. Sedona is a lot like Santa Fe with its beautiful landscapes but also because of its artisan community and mystic aura.
While in town we spotted a sign for tarot card reading. Even though we had already seen our futures in Santa Fe, we were both eager to get a second opinion. An opinion we would like better. We climbed the stairs to meet a man who looked to be in his fifties or sixties. He had set up shop on an upper level outdoor patio that overlooked a public courtyard. He had commandeered a table and two chairs.
He told us his fees and then instructed one of us to go back downstairs and wait in the courtyard while the other was having her reading. After the first reading was over, we’d switch.
The only thing I remember this guy telling me was that I had an old soul and that I’m on one of my last lives. (Meaning, I suppose, that had I better do something important in this life because when it was over, I was done. Kaput. Fini. This was the last chance I had to get it right.) Not a real hopeful message. Supposedly, with each life I had lived I had gotten increasingly wiser. Wait up. And this is how I turned out? Throwing money away on fortune tellers?
The reason I can’t remember any more about what this fellow told me is that I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying because I was too grossed out with what he was doing while he was saying it. He apparently had a bad cold and was one hot mess. If he wasn’t snorting his snot up his nose he was wiping his nose with his forearm. I mean, he was doing this every five seconds. I couldn’t focus and really had to keep myself from gagging. When my time was over, he actually offered me his hand to shake. Yuck! I mean, I shook it – it would have been rude to leave his hand hanging just there, but I’m sure I had a disgusted grimace on my face. I made a note not to touch my face or anything else until I could wash my hands – and I needed to do that at my earliest opportunity.
My friend, Chris, was just as grossed out by the guy as I was but opted not to shake his hand.
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About six months after Chris’ and my cross country trip, my friend Sparky came out to California for a visit. We decided to visit a psychic in Santa Cruz. I’m sure we just found her in the phonebook; it’s not like you could walk up to a stranger or anyone you knew and ask if they knew of a good psychic. They’d think you were crazy. I know if you asked me, I’d think you were crazy.
This woman did readings from her house, which was also decorated in both early Jesus and early-to-late Elvis, so popular among psychics. Adding more spice to her design efforts, however, she had added a paintings on black velvet. Whatever look she had been going for, she’d nailed it.
When I asked this psychic if I would have kids, she said she didn’t see just two or three but that I’d be surrounded by children. I guess this means my Meghan is going to have a ton of kids who will want to surround their granny.
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Besides a shyster palm reader I saw with my brother Jim in Monterey, I have only gone to one other psychic. Once again, I was with my friend Chris. This time we were vacationing in Florida. We started in Tampa, where we spent the night with my brother Jim before we started our drive down the coast, ending up in Key West. We saw a lot of crazy stuff in Key West – but that’s for another time.
One day, out in a crowded courtyard overlooking the ocean, there was a blond woman reading palms. We had done only normal vacation things on this trip (aside from the seance), so we were up for some fun. The only thing I recall this woman telling me was that I would live to be about 80. That did not seem very old to me, but I think at the time, I had already been diagnosed with Scleroderma, so 80 didn’t seem too bad.
So, have you learned anything from all the money this old soul has spent on psychics? You’ve probably learned how to waste money on vacation, for one thing, but you may have also learned a way to spice up a vacation. Talking about your visit to a psychic is certain to liven up any boring conversation you may find yourself in. ✿
Boy, you have surpassed me in the psychic department! I have never been to one!