The Book of RaRa Part 1: Major Arcana

Chapter 1: The Magician

So… this chapter is about my life from the ages of 0 to 1 years old. Some might call it the most magical time in a person’s life. Oh yeah. Infancy is where it’s at baby! Man, those were the days. No bills, no solid food, you could cry at any mild inconvenience and the world around you would bend to your will. Oh my! The baby! She’s crying! What is the problem, baby? Why do you cry? Here, let me drop everything I’m doing and try to fix every single problem that you might have to stop your incessant wailing. 

I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty magical to me. Can you imagine if I tried to do that today? At my ripe old age of 22?! I’d be locked up on the spot! Luckily for the world, I grew up and went to therapy, so I’m currently 2 years sober from crying in public. You’re welcome.

Shockingly, I don’t have a ton of concrete memories from the ages of 0 to 1. In fact, my memory doesn’t get real sharp until around the age of 5. That’s when things really start to ramp up. So, until then, I will share the vague memories I do have of my infancy and mash them with memories my relatives have of me from around that time to hopefully form some kind of narrative that slightly makes sense. Okay, here goes nothing…

So I know I spent most of my time from the ages of 0 to 1 with my grandpa Jack and my mother. Apparently, he used to put me on his belly and he would laugh so hard that I would bounce and then I would laugh hard and then he would laugh harder… probably the jolliest interactions both of us had ever experienced. Unfortunately, he died before I reached the age of 1. I know it was a hard death in my family, because he was definitely a rock. A tree of life if you will. But, I know he is still with us in spirit, and I even feel his hand on my shoulder sometimes. Jack is a precious soul.

Some other memories from this time include: me hearing one of my uncle’s voices at the beach. Actually, I do believe this memory was from right before I was born, and I have some evidence to back up this claim. My memory is as follows: I see nothing but an orangey-pinkey-red, a shade of sherbet if you will; I hear the ocean waves crashing, and the distant voice of my uncle. This is probably the earliest memory I have, and I truly believe this was from right before I was born. I asked my mother her thoughts on the matter, and she told me she went on a family beach vacation right before my ejection, and the uncle whose voice I heard had been in the ocean with my mother. She probably could’ve had me right then and there on that very beach, as it seems I was already fully formed. But alas, I was not born on a beach, I was born in glorious Sayre, Pennsylvania. Read that last line with loads of sarcasm please.

Okay, the last memory I have to report from this time is my first birthday party. I believe it was ladybug themed, and I had a gigantic ladybug cake that I dug into with ravenous intent, and I believe I forced the adult members of my birthday party to indulge in my confectionary feast by jamming my slobber-ridden spoon with a 1:4 slobber to cake ratio into their unwilling mouths. Ah, to be a magician. What a time, man. What a time.