Still There

From the Victorian Romantic Tarot, the Six of Cups; from the Dreaming in Color Deck, Patience:

I am still every age that I have been. This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...but that they are in me to be drawn on.

―Madeleine L'Engle

My eye is drawn to the smallest girl in this painting who holds the back of her sister's dress. It's as if she finds reassurance and security when looking down at such a great height. I lived with my grandmother as a preschooler, and enjoyed having my three, slightly older cousins next door as my companions. When my mother remarried and we moved, I had to find reliable anchors in other places, such as classmates and neighbors. I am still that little girl in some ways - I find it helpful to have friends that bolster, inspire and encourage me. Patience's card looks feathery and light, reminding me that it is a trait that might begin as a sigh of frustration but ends in tender openness. Surely the human anchors I've been fortunate to have over the years have had this trait in spades.