To Quizlets

How else do we know what we were in a former life? Where we should really live? What 1970’s song best describes us? What historical figure we should have married?

Part of it is the thrill of the questions, like our own personal Barbara Walters' interview. “Which car would you drive on Sundays to your best friend’s house?” (choices: VW van, Bentley, Chevy pickup,  or no car, I’ll walk!) “Which pet would you have if you lived on a farm?” (choices: dog, cat, goldfish, iguana, alpaca, I would never live on a farm.) “If you could be any philosopher, who would it be?” (Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Yogi Berra, Philosophy is for suckas.)

And then the reveal. I should be living in Iceland, though in my past life I was the queen of a tiny Siberian village who died in the cold and cursed the snow with my dying breath. I should have been a chef and I should only wear blue, except on Wednesdays. My favorite drink isn’t coffee, but it is, in fact, Vanilla Yak Milk, with the bean still in it, served to me in a Nepalese cafe on the side of a mountain. Yes, yes, that would be my favorite drink. 

Sometimes, I take the same quiz twice. I really do know American history better than it says and I know all the lyrics to all the Beatles songs. I grew up in Texas, but I want it to say New York. My hippie name is not Ginger Sunboat, it’s Sunharvest Karamshine. My personality is not dominated by my need to keep the peace and I should definitely not be playing polo with the heir to the throne. I’ve never gotten on a horse gracefully and I don’t do team sports.

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Like any trip to a fortune teller, I want a truth told to me, for someone to say out loud what I know in my heart to be true but can’t, or haven’t fully, admitted. She takes my hands in her hands, which are warm and smell like Jergen’s. She runs a finger across the lines, tracing one all the way past my wrist. You will live a long time, she says. But you don’t want to. The end will not be happy and you will leave a terrible corpse. But you will know a great love. You have moved when you should have. Someone will name their baby after you, but it’s not someone you know.