Embracing the Tower

I remember once hearing a random public speaker describe, as a parable of sorts, a Maryland-based family that planned to go to Disney World in Florida for vacation.  They packed their suitcases, loaded up the car, and headed on their way.  After driving for hours, one of the children called out from the back seat, “Hey, why does that sign say Welcome to New Jersey?”  The child’s parents quickly responded, “Don’t ask so many questions.  Go to sleep and when you wake up, we’ll be in Florida.” After driving for a while longer, with the children sleeping peacefully in the back, the mother said to her husband, “I’m beginning to think we are heading in the wrong direction.  Did we get on the south-bound interstate?”  The dad said, “I’m sure I did.  Besides, we have been on the road for hours now; we can’t turn back now!”  When I heard this story years ago, I could imagine myself as that kid calling out from the back seat, unaware of the complexities surrounding my question about where we were.  I could also easily imagine being that diplomatic adult sitting shotgun, concerned that we were off course but also needing to navigate the potentially treacherous terrain of personal interaction, defenses, and the possibility of impotent anger that could end up being directed toward me.  Finally, I knew when I heard this story that I am most frequently the driver, going 85 miles per hour in the wrong direction but unwilling to look at the map or consider the reality that I will never arrive in Florida from Maryland by way of the 95 North Interstate.

For me, the story I just described perfectly captures the essence of the tarot’s Tower card.  More specifically, when the parents realized and fully processed that they were in fact heading in the opposite direction of Disney, it was a tower-card moment.  When so much time and energy has been invested in something, it can be difficult to face that we have been going in the wrong direction, working toward the wrong things, using straw or sticks instead of bricks, building castles on foundations of sand.  The sooner we have the realization that things are not as we assumed they were, which can feel like a life-jolting epiphany, the sooner we can turn the car around or make some other plan, such as driving to the nearest airport and boarding a flight to Orlando. 

As a counselor, I have heard about many of these tower moments from my clients, and more importantly, I have had the opportunity to witness what followed those life-changing experiences.  There was the college student who had worked for three years toward a college major she despised but had chosen to make others happy.  There was the older man who got injured in an accident and was no longer able to continue in his manual-labor job.  There was the woman who had come to the realization that her presumably devoted husband had been carrying on an affair with someone at his work.  There was the child whose family moved from one side of the country to the other, leaving behind friends, family, favorite parks and restaurants, and virtually everything the child had known up to that point in his life.   Experiences like these are rarely easy; they turn our lives upside down, make us question everything we thought we knew and understood, and prompt us to reflect on what we should rebuild once we have cleared away debris that likely includes misplaced pride, disillusionment, impatience, denial, and arrogance. 

It feels good to make progress, but sometimes we- as humans- assume that movement in any direction must be progress by virtue of the effort that was put forth.  When I was a young girl, my grandmother taught me to crochet; I will never forget the lesson she taught me once I had enough skill to follow a crochet pattern to make items like slippers, a blanket, or baby bonnet.  I was attempting to crochet a bedroom slipper that day.   Never being one to be overly concerned with details, I carelessly miscounted and put the wrong kinds of stiches in a couple of the spaces.  I quickly realized my mistake, but I kept crocheting, hoping that the slipper would magically come together in the end.  Many rows later, I saw that my slipper was pulling to one side and simply did not look right.  I complained, so my grandmother looked closely at my lump of crocheted yarn, quietly counted stitches and rows, and then said to me, “You made a mistake right here, on the fourth row.  You need to unravel the thread back to that point and crochet it again.”  My mouth fell open.  I exclaimed, “Unravel down to the fourth row?  But I’m nearly done!  I will have to crochet almost the whole slipper again!”  My grandmother smiled sweetly and said, “If you want the slipper to look like the one on the picture, you will need to unravel it back to that mistake and try again.  You can do it; I’ve unraveled more rows than that before!”  I stared at the warped-looking slipper for a while, and it occurred to me that my biggest mistake had not been those few wrong stitches on the fourth row; no, my biggest mistake had been continuing to crochet for so long after I knew I was off-track.  I would like to say that after this slipper-tower experience I never again plowed ahead despite metaphoric neon signs warning me that I was going in the wrong direction.  We have all done it, and the shock and horror of that moment when we realize we need to basically start over is just as intense each time.  Maturity is learning to embrace, rather than fear, these tower moments, giving thanks that no more time will be wasted on something that will not—or cannot—last and for the opportunity to create ourselves anew.