Roll on the seventeenth when I can go up to Dad's place.
Thank you, that is all.
Saturday 13 December 2008
Friday 12 December 2008
The shapeshifter as trickster
Something that hit me out of nowhere; shifting shape is somehow parsed as lying. The Mystique thing. Multiple faces like veils tied around a ‘real’ body, a ‘real’ identity, obscuring it. A tease maybe. A deception, definitely.
And I’m not saying there aren’t people who do that, but the possibility of having more than one shape and all shapes being true doesn’t really seem to be one that’s allowed to enter heads.
When trying to stick to one shape, one identity, has always been the thing that felt to me like lying; hiding stuff, trying to be predictable, trying to be boxed neatly so that people can see me and understand.(And somehow it’s my responsibility to be understandable, not theirs to try to understand…)
It’s tiring…
…and not surprisingly Knux has no truck with this whole ideology whatsoever.(And have I mentioned how glad I am that I met my Echidna?)
Shape shifting for me is truth telling, because the truth is bigger than one story. Shape shifting is nakedness, brazen and bold. Here I am. All of me.
And I’m not saying there aren’t people who do that, but the possibility of having more than one shape and all shapes being true doesn’t really seem to be one that’s allowed to enter heads.
When trying to stick to one shape, one identity, has always been the thing that felt to me like lying; hiding stuff, trying to be predictable, trying to be boxed neatly so that people can see me and understand.(And somehow it’s my responsibility to be understandable, not theirs to try to understand…)
It’s tiring…
…and not surprisingly Knux has no truck with this whole ideology whatsoever.(And have I mentioned how glad I am that I met my Echidna?)
Shape shifting for me is truth telling, because the truth is bigger than one story. Shape shifting is nakedness, brazen and bold. Here I am. All of me.
Wednesday 10 December 2008
...well, this is a new one.
Yesterday my mother went out to a parent/teacher meeting at Ian’s school, mostly OK save for flu. She came back doubled over and clutching her stomach and asking Ian(he was closest at the time)to call 999.
I went in the ambulance with her to the hospital, and I’m not sure why. Duty, maybe. Curiosity. Probably some of it was that I wanted to get out of the house and away from Ian, too. I didn’t feel upset the way I would if someone I loved was sick. I haven’t loved my mother for years…if I ever did in the first place. You need a personality to be capable of love, and as soon as mine developed it was in opposition to my mother’s. Opposing personalities can be reconciled, but…not in this case. There’s just too much bad blood between us for me to ever think of her with affection.
On the other hand, I DEFINITELY wasn’t gloating. I didn’t feel good about it at all.
I wasn’t sure what to feel, really. I felt blank inside. And vaguely panicked. Slow-motion panic. I didn’t scream or shout. I’d been reading Tales of Symphonia fics online the previous night; somewhere at the back of my mind I thought about blank-faced ‘angels’ with their souls locked up, and the famous Aurion poker face. I always thought that face was a trick; something he, and others I know, had learned how to do in order to conceal their emotions. Now I wonder whether sometimes stuff happened that they didn’t know how to deal with, didn’t know what to feel about…so they just went blank. I was wearing that face.
Symphonia also made me think of the Orchestra, and thinking of the Orchestra made me think of other Packs, and I wanted very badly to be with a Pack just then-somewhere warm and noisy with lots of friendly people. I wanted to see long-time rivals bicker and long-time lovers snuggle.(These are sometimes the same people of course, and sometimes they even do both at once…)I didn’t want to actually talk to anyone, though. Just sort of sit there and be warmed by other peoples’ normal lives-or what passes for normal life, in a Pack. A good, accustomed weirdness. In a way I would have preferred to be with the Orchestra than with my own Pack or with the Emblem Packs. People in those Packs know me well, they’d want to talk to me and involve me in things. The Orchestra are friendly but they aren’t so close to me, and they have their own problems right now with a couple of unexpected and troublesome visitors to host. They’d probably let me sit down someplace, and just carry on whatever they were doing around me. That was about all I felt up to, really.
I didn’t talk to my spirits. My mind had sort of shut down. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, even if they were in my head, even if they were parts of me.
I wonder what the paramedics and the folk at the hospital thought of me. The blank-faced teenager who sat very still and stared at the wall, or read a book silently.
Though, a lot of people in the Accident and Emergency waiting room were quiet…everyone was, actually, save one babe-in-arms. Maybe that’s normal. I got a chocolate bar and some terrible tea from a vending machine. I felt very cold, physically and mentally; the tea and chocolate helped a bit, but not much.
Before my grandparents picked me up and took me home again, I found out what was the problem, at least. A urine infection-probably. The weird thing is, though, my mother didn’t display any of the usual symptoms of urine infection. And I’ve had urine infections before, and they were annoying and painful, but they didn’t leave me doubled over and shaking uncontrollably. The healerfolk think it’s possibly something to do with her recently having had a coil fitted.(The thought of those things has always freaked me out a bit. I suppose I shouldn’t comment on methods of contraception, since I’ve never had a reason to use any of them; still, there’s something creepy about fitting metal semi-permanently into your reproductive organs. And what about TSS?)
She’s staying in the hospital overnight, at least; don’t know when she’ll be back, though the doctor said it will be okay, it’s not life-threatening.
I also feel annoyed at how useless I was. Of course, I’m not healer trained, and I did all I could in the situation, and professionals were there who had the thing in hand, and it’s not like I ran out and left her in trouble, but still. Something real happened here for once-a genuine emergency-and I was useless. It makes me feel ineffectual, resentful and annoyed. Also annoyed at myself FOR feeling like that, when it’s so pointless.
*sighs*
I hope I never have to go through this again…though, with my mother getting older, odds are I probably will. Or something along these lines, anyway.
I went in the ambulance with her to the hospital, and I’m not sure why. Duty, maybe. Curiosity. Probably some of it was that I wanted to get out of the house and away from Ian, too. I didn’t feel upset the way I would if someone I loved was sick. I haven’t loved my mother for years…if I ever did in the first place. You need a personality to be capable of love, and as soon as mine developed it was in opposition to my mother’s. Opposing personalities can be reconciled, but…not in this case. There’s just too much bad blood between us for me to ever think of her with affection.
On the other hand, I DEFINITELY wasn’t gloating. I didn’t feel good about it at all.
I wasn’t sure what to feel, really. I felt blank inside. And vaguely panicked. Slow-motion panic. I didn’t scream or shout. I’d been reading Tales of Symphonia fics online the previous night; somewhere at the back of my mind I thought about blank-faced ‘angels’ with their souls locked up, and the famous Aurion poker face. I always thought that face was a trick; something he, and others I know, had learned how to do in order to conceal their emotions. Now I wonder whether sometimes stuff happened that they didn’t know how to deal with, didn’t know what to feel about…so they just went blank. I was wearing that face.
Symphonia also made me think of the Orchestra, and thinking of the Orchestra made me think of other Packs, and I wanted very badly to be with a Pack just then-somewhere warm and noisy with lots of friendly people. I wanted to see long-time rivals bicker and long-time lovers snuggle.(These are sometimes the same people of course, and sometimes they even do both at once…)I didn’t want to actually talk to anyone, though. Just sort of sit there and be warmed by other peoples’ normal lives-or what passes for normal life, in a Pack. A good, accustomed weirdness. In a way I would have preferred to be with the Orchestra than with my own Pack or with the Emblem Packs. People in those Packs know me well, they’d want to talk to me and involve me in things. The Orchestra are friendly but they aren’t so close to me, and they have their own problems right now with a couple of unexpected and troublesome visitors to host. They’d probably let me sit down someplace, and just carry on whatever they were doing around me. That was about all I felt up to, really.
I didn’t talk to my spirits. My mind had sort of shut down. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, even if they were in my head, even if they were parts of me.
I wonder what the paramedics and the folk at the hospital thought of me. The blank-faced teenager who sat very still and stared at the wall, or read a book silently.
Though, a lot of people in the Accident and Emergency waiting room were quiet…everyone was, actually, save one babe-in-arms. Maybe that’s normal. I got a chocolate bar and some terrible tea from a vending machine. I felt very cold, physically and mentally; the tea and chocolate helped a bit, but not much.
Before my grandparents picked me up and took me home again, I found out what was the problem, at least. A urine infection-probably. The weird thing is, though, my mother didn’t display any of the usual symptoms of urine infection. And I’ve had urine infections before, and they were annoying and painful, but they didn’t leave me doubled over and shaking uncontrollably. The healerfolk think it’s possibly something to do with her recently having had a coil fitted.(The thought of those things has always freaked me out a bit. I suppose I shouldn’t comment on methods of contraception, since I’ve never had a reason to use any of them; still, there’s something creepy about fitting metal semi-permanently into your reproductive organs. And what about TSS?)
She’s staying in the hospital overnight, at least; don’t know when she’ll be back, though the doctor said it will be okay, it’s not life-threatening.
I also feel annoyed at how useless I was. Of course, I’m not healer trained, and I did all I could in the situation, and professionals were there who had the thing in hand, and it’s not like I ran out and left her in trouble, but still. Something real happened here for once-a genuine emergency-and I was useless. It makes me feel ineffectual, resentful and annoyed. Also annoyed at myself FOR feeling like that, when it’s so pointless.
*sighs*
I hope I never have to go through this again…though, with my mother getting older, odds are I probably will. Or something along these lines, anyway.
Friday 5 December 2008
Starry, starry night
I love how it gets dark early in winter, and I love Christmas lights. Not the tacky reindeer and Santa sort so much, but fairy lights.
There's frosty blue ones in the trees in the Market Square, and golden ones in the restaurant in the Conservatory Village. Multicoloured ones just about everywhere. They remind me of stars-it's been cloudy recently, but tonight there were some of those visible too, as well as a very bright full moon.
It's like at this dark nub of the year we feel the need to pull down heaven like a blanket, borrow a bit of starfire to warm ourselves up. Athene was talking about how she can't get used to Christmas in Atlanta, where it's all sunny and bright but people put out elaborate light shows anyway; what's the point? Atlantans must amuse themselves however they can, I suppose, and there are worse ways, but I agree with Athene, for what it's worth.
I was sitting and eating dinner in the restaurant at the Conservatory Village just a few hours ago, looking out of the window into the darkness with the reflections of the gold fairy lights on it, and thinking of Indra's net. That's the other thing stars remind me of, stars and fairy lights both; that infinite shimmering mesh of golden beads, all linked.
There are many worlds, and they don't all share the same sky-I've known that since I was tiny. Lucy Pevensie talked about the Narnian constellations-'dear old Leopard!' she said, seeing it again after a sojourn in the world of her birth, away from her kingdom. The stars were different there. But she was a world-traveller, and all the worlds are linked, regardless. More recently I heard Haras-uquara talk of a million lights reflected in a million mirrors, and that's the way of the worlds, she said, that you can't tell which are real; all are, or none. We pass from reflection to reflection. And though not all worlds have the same stars, I can't think of any that have no stars. Presumably there's some that do...but then, I'd wager they have something else just as good.
And all the worlds came, ultimately, from the same place. I believe this; one word spoken, a fount of gold. B'raishith...
So maybe, just maybe, they do share one destiny.
It's hard if not impossible-probably impossible-to know for sure, but when the lights glitter you can't help wondering.
What I do know is that this is here, and I am me, and this is here because it has a position in the 'Verse, it is linked to everywhere else, and I am me for the same reason. And I am very small, but I have friends in many places, and time to sip tea and look at the stars.
There's frosty blue ones in the trees in the Market Square, and golden ones in the restaurant in the Conservatory Village. Multicoloured ones just about everywhere. They remind me of stars-it's been cloudy recently, but tonight there were some of those visible too, as well as a very bright full moon.
It's like at this dark nub of the year we feel the need to pull down heaven like a blanket, borrow a bit of starfire to warm ourselves up. Athene was talking about how she can't get used to Christmas in Atlanta, where it's all sunny and bright but people put out elaborate light shows anyway; what's the point? Atlantans must amuse themselves however they can, I suppose, and there are worse ways, but I agree with Athene, for what it's worth.
I was sitting and eating dinner in the restaurant at the Conservatory Village just a few hours ago, looking out of the window into the darkness with the reflections of the gold fairy lights on it, and thinking of Indra's net. That's the other thing stars remind me of, stars and fairy lights both; that infinite shimmering mesh of golden beads, all linked.
There are many worlds, and they don't all share the same sky-I've known that since I was tiny. Lucy Pevensie talked about the Narnian constellations-'dear old Leopard!' she said, seeing it again after a sojourn in the world of her birth, away from her kingdom. The stars were different there. But she was a world-traveller, and all the worlds are linked, regardless. More recently I heard Haras-uquara talk of a million lights reflected in a million mirrors, and that's the way of the worlds, she said, that you can't tell which are real; all are, or none. We pass from reflection to reflection. And though not all worlds have the same stars, I can't think of any that have no stars. Presumably there's some that do...but then, I'd wager they have something else just as good.
And all the worlds came, ultimately, from the same place. I believe this; one word spoken, a fount of gold. B'raishith...
So maybe, just maybe, they do share one destiny.
It's hard if not impossible-probably impossible-to know for sure, but when the lights glitter you can't help wondering.
What I do know is that this is here, and I am me, and this is here because it has a position in the 'Verse, it is linked to everywhere else, and I am me for the same reason. And I am very small, but I have friends in many places, and time to sip tea and look at the stars.
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