Solitaire sanctuary

Suddenly, there's Solitaire.

I havent played solitaire in a really long time. And then suddenly, it's in my life again.
It's not as tangible as I used to play it. This time it's on my blackberry. Shameful.

But, nonetheless, it's back. The 12 royal disciples watch as I line them up with clicks and cursors, ever teaching me that opposites attract and that things pile up in chaos but end in order.

I remember when my mother used to shuffle her deck of cards, murmuring a wish under her breath over and over, in the tradition that if the cards played out right, they would magically charm fate into fulfilling it. She would sometimes go on for a couple of hours, shuffling and reshuffling in a ritual that on one hand gave her hope, and on the other the patience and perseverance to follow through till she had a promise of a wish fulfilled by the energies that lay in paper with worn rounded edges.

It was calming even to see her lay the cards out in 7 coloumns, in increasing degrees, flipping card after card pausing to see if the one in her hand could land anywhere helpful. She would go on and on, on the same wish till it "opened up" in front of her.

(does this mean our fate and wishes are in our own hands?)

And so, I'm back to solitaire. I don't know where it came from, but now at every chance I get, I open the application on my phone, whether taking a cigarette break at work, or trying to drift off to sleep, or even on the toilet (yes. on the toilet.)

And like my mother, I catch myself making a wish in my mind, a request to the powers within the microchip and bits and bytes to help me move things along, to help clear obstacles, to tell me things will be alright. This ultimately leads me into a cycle of thought, of reasoning, weighing outcomes and their consequences. I am dragged into a bubble where I am reassessing and reevaluating, and retracing. I forget there is a game of chance and luck, but there is a magic about it, a romantic and whimsical thought. And then of course there's the microchip.

Solitaire is made for one. But I slowly realise that that is sometimes more than enough.