Special: Lady Payton?

When I was thirteen or Fourteen, Taylor bought a book at one of those torrid book fairs called Fairest. It's set in the Ella Enchanted Universe. Anyway, like most books I got--things I got for that matter--at the time, Taylor got bored with it, and it was passed to me.

Like all books then, like when I read books because they were the only conversation I had--this was shortly before the Roses--I devoured it. It was comforting to bounce from my too-easy English class to the Kingdom of Ayorthya.

Let me tell you about Ayorthya: They sing there.

They sing greetings, they sing the occasional sentence, they sing to make things easier or harder or more meaningful. Instead of balls, they have parties called Sings where everybody gets up and sings this or that. Their games are full of making up melodies to accompany old books or new books, ones far away, made not for singing. They call it 'the Composing game'.

I used to play it in the halls, pretending to have conversations with myself.

I'd play the Composing game, just to know I'd be liked in Ayorthya.

Some of my songs were about nothing, some of them meant everything to me. It all depended on my heart. My songs weren't as fancy or clever as the ones in the book, but they were sincere. I think they'd be liked, especially with my voice.

I re-read that book today, put it on a shelf. Sitting alone in my big, too-cold room, I made up songs again.
One of them went like this:
In all of the five Kingdoms,
from Pu to closer Kyrria
there is no greater currency
than the dancing songs of Ayorthya. 


I was raised too far away
beneath a dancing sun and stars
to know the feel of cold Gold Yorthys 
but I'd know the songs of Ayorthya. 


I have no skill with needles, thread
I cannot net a fish
I cannot dance in time to tune
but I'd sing the songs of Ayorthya. 


In the Kingdom of the King
no clink of coin, no diamond mine
holds their deepest worth:
a commoner may climb the ranks
if her songs can strike the heart
and make clear tears run rivers
down the face of good Ayorthya.


My voice is like the summer down
spread across a wooden floor;
the floor may need some polish
but the feathers make it plush
and I know the songs of Ayorthya. 


And 
if I lived in Ayorthya
I'd live in the King's palace.


My voice would wrap like heat in Winter
my voice would call the sun from the skies
my smile would be second-best still
but I'd be the clear and cloudless sky
in the palace of the King of Ayorthya. 


If I lived in Ayorthya
I'd live in the King's palace.



I feel better remembering that I would have worth in worlds other than ours. Thirteen-year-old thought so, too.

That one children's book certainly started a tiny, mutinous thought: what if I were special? What if I were loved and listened to?

In the Roses, shame for having forgotten that. I have power on my own. I'd be next to royalty there.


It is time for me to remember much, I think, like it or no.



The first thing for me to remember?

If I lived in Ayorthya
I'd live in the King's palace.