My Past Life

"She'll say, look what I had to overcome from my last life/ I think I'll write a book.
How long till my soul gets it right?"
-Galileo, The Indigo Girls

In eighth grade, my father took me to see a medium. A medium, according to Wikipedia is a person who claims to be an intermediary between the physical world and the spiritual world. I do not know why he took me to a medium but I will never forget it as long as I live and also I wrote it down in my eighth grade diary just in case.

I went into a house on East Avenue and she took me into a room that was dark and there was a candle on a low table between our chairs. We faced each other and she seemed to look through me. I know, you say, that's what she's getting paid to do. But it felt that way.

Think of me then, perhaps not yet 14, my bones still fractionally cartilagenous and my ligaments still partly unattached, certainly not the imposing individual I am today. I would have been cynical but there was no one else in the room. There were no "normal" people for me to show that I was still normal too, so I allowed myself to be taken in by the frangrant candle and the flickering shadows it cast around the dimly lit room.

The medium spoke in a soothing voice. I was the one who asked her about my past life. She might have told me about other things, had I not been assertive at the beginning, but let's face it, even as an eighth grader I was still Jordana, and therefore assertive.

She might have hummed or closed her eyes or done some sort of ritual, but I don't remember anything too bizarre happening so let's just say she was quiet for a moment, and then she opened her eyes. She told me the following:

I was a French princess named Marielle ("diminutive of Maria," I just looked it up). I lived in a castle and I was lonely. I was betrothed to an older man whom I did not love. Instead, I loved a young and vibrant man who was, for some reason I cannot recall now (money, family, something like that) not an appropriate suitor. I rebelled. I refused to marry my betrothed and instead opted for a lifetime of solitude in the castle. I corresponded for my entire life with my beloved via carrier pigeon. I died quietly in my castle, with my pigeons around me.

Now, in this life, I must correct the mistakes I made before. I must strive until my soul gets it right. I can only imagine what kind of mistakes I made as Marielle living in a castle in France. The opportunities for mayhem are endless...