Reflections

Like the longed-for recollection of half-forgotten distant tunes, invoking old memories of past friends and past days, so sometimes I forlornly miss my old cards. Whilst resigned to the fact that they are gone, ransomed off in order to take my life in new directions, to enable my heart to follow new paths and look afresh upon new pastures and new loves.... yet, despite this pragmatic realisation, their memory still courses through my veins.

I yearn for the familiar feel of enthusiasm at carefully selecting and extracting any of my numerous chosen favourite decks of the given moment from their lovingly customised housing in anticipation of a new game, a new possibility. Like the well-worn feel of much loved tools in a craftsman's hands, the honeyed wood smooth with years of use, so were my cards, in their case of leather and brass and felt and wood. That faint smell of card within my nostrils upon opening up this treasure trove of knowledge and intricate potential. The challenge of calculation, assessment and refinement in hopes that, handled with sufficiently strategic manipulation, they could work their magic. The shaving away here of that slightly irregular card, the joining of that card with this card, to smooth and polish the finished article into a finely structured musical instrument, the parts coalesced into so much more than their individual abilities. Now, resonant, and if skill-fully played, a building symphony through a series of melodious rounds, to reach the crescendo of that perfect turn, when the cards blend together in that carefully planned, yet hardly dared for, perfect harmonious combination to bring your prey, or be it your predator, to their knees.

For all this, I harbour no regrets, a thousand times the same choices offered, a thousand times I would choose thus again, for what was gained in return was emphatically worth it, and yet, undeniably, as sure as the invoked memories of a once much-loved melody transport me back to moments in time long gone, I miss them...