Marseille decks give me peace. Each card, like an old friend. I always smile when I flip over one of them; no matter which. It's been with me forever, sometimes tucked away for a while, sometimes in my back pocket, and it makes me feel like part of a centuries old tradition of game and fantasy and candlelight poetry.
Actually I like all cards; from Settlers of Catan resource cards, to poker, to any kind of stackable deck of painted or written on cardboard rectangles.
I recently moved to a small beach town in Central América, and i decided to not bring my entire tarot collection, so I chose my favourite 4 decks. Spanish Fournier, Flornoy's Dodal and Noblet, and the cheerful CBD. Interestingly enough I didn't bring down any of my historic facsimiles since I don't usually "communicate" with them as well when it comes to readings. But now that I think about it, I miss them tremendously. Just going through and looking at them, and wondering about their past.
I live in a pretty touristic attraction town. People from all over the world stop by to spend at least a couple of days here. Lots of french people come down. Often times I've bumped into someone from Marseille, and i have found it very interesting how little tarot mean to them. When someone says: "I'm from Marseille, France" I feel like shaking their hand and telling them how I have an interesting connection with their town, and do you know Yves Le Marseillaise or Rossane Flornoy, and I can't wait to visit and all that... but with any mention of TdM, all I get is kind of a blank stare and a crooked french eyebrow asking "what in Le Monde, are you talking about?"
Funny.
Paece all,
Bryan