setting: cool morning air brings the smells of the allotments and the sounds of the city through the window. sitting in my mom's not very comfortable chair, enjoying a quiet moment before another busy day.
i discovered something yesterday. for a long time i used to add a caveat when reading tarot online in text-form, that usually it's easier when the querent is there in person and it's a live operation. they get to correct course, and it's more of a collaborative conversation, not just me telling them what i see and hoping something lands. but yesterday i did my first face to face reading in many years and, reader, it was much more difficult than text-ones had become.
i'm pretty sure it's to do with masking? due to not really regularly participating daily in society (like via a job) in over a decade, being able to unmask at home completely, i no longer have the practice for non-scripted-words-out-loud (and even then it wasn't the type of practice that means "i know and am able to do this", it's the "i'm used enough to the pain of this to know how to grit my teeth through it"). even with my closest friend, when suddenly faced with the "task" of "performing speech", my brain just shut down. i can't do this highly engaging cognitive task plus translate its results into words while someone is there Looking and Waiting and invested in the process and the result.
i've always been better communicating in writing just in general. more time to think and process, no need to deal with Another Person Existing. maybe the fear of getting it wrong when doing distance readings is something i need to lay to rest, because a written reading when i'm relaxed and coherent is going to be of much higher quality and of more worth to the querent, than my comfort of "getting it right" in a completely mangled live reading. this way is actually better for the both of us.
