People ask me what my talents are sometimes. I don't know what to tell them really. I read. I can picture things in my head perfectly. I can focus so hard on not being somewhere that I nearly disappear. I can read people like I read books, if I want to, if it's fair for me to do, if they're trying to get people to read them. I can help you feel less broken, if you give me time and silence, if you trust me with your heart.
Those are never the things they mean.
They mean things like writing poetry and designing my room myself and painting and arranging flowers and whatever else I do that's talent. Lady-like things. Things they can approve of in the public eye.
I like those things, too.
I guess because when I touch things, make them or alter them, I leave them with me. I leave a piece of myself there; a little breath of the things they--the people who ask these questions--don't approve of. That way, the little breath of Ether I have in me--the things I touch, they have it, too.
If I were feeling very Queen-like today, I'd go into an explanation of "Channeling"--touching things to make them change, into whatever I want them to. Not just physical ones, but abstract ones, too.
Today, when I'm sitting in my room, nodding along to Panic at the Disco and reading books in my not-quite-clean room, the idea of me being anything noble is, quite frankly, laughable.
But only today.
I know better than to think this lasts. Part of my mind is on edge, waiting to be forced back up into it all like I were a speck of dust on the stage floor and a bearded Jacob will be here any minute, sweeping me up.
My point is?
I... like... leaving a breath of Ether.
If I surround things, people, ideas with me, make them feel me as I am, that way I don't have to be alone. I never have to be alone if I can feel things as they really are, I can surround myself with Ether so strong you can smell it, feel it, taste it, touch it.
Some days I can almost believe it.
Some days.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Wild:
Eliac needs someone to fill in for her; she bequeathed the task to me. Uh, Timothi. Here's the news (and please don't tell her I've been posting stuff on her tumblr).
"So I understand there's been a lot of tumblr shipping going on. This is fine. This is expected. My ship is supported and possible. The challenge of Open Law is won by Leona, and congratulations to her. See you all soon."
"So I understand there's been a lot of tumblr shipping going on. This is fine. This is expected. My ship is supported and possible. The challenge of Open Law is won by Leona, and congratulations to her. See you all soon."
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Wild: more from A Song for Summer
"I've heard from Sophie," he said.
Marek was silent, his eyes wary.
"She's going to be a bridesmaid at Ellen's wedding."
He did not expect Marek to reply, but he said: "To Kendrick Frobisher, I take it?"
"Not exactly," said Leon. "More to his kitchen gardens and his cows and his evacuees. It's supposed to be a sanctuary for us all, the wet house. She hasn't asked us if we want to be there."
Marek had reverted to silence, his eyes fixed on a sampler saying, East west, Home's best, which the departing landlady of Mon Repos had forgotten to take down.
"She's getting married on the eighteenth of December, just a week before Christmas. The wedding is at Crowthorpe in the village church at two o'clock in the afternoon. Crowthrope is where Kendrick lives, it's between Keswick and Carlisle...."
He babbled on, repeating the time and place, the nearest railway station, till Marek turned his head.
"Shut up, Leon." There was no feeling in his voice, only a great weariness.
"I could tell her you're here. I could tell her you're free. She doesn't know you're in England--Sophie didn't know whether we should--"
Now, though, Marek did show emotion. The onset of one of his instant and furious rages.
"You will say nothing about me to Ellen. You will not mention my name. "I put you on your honor," said Marek, reverting unexpectedly to his year at an English public school. "You will only hurt her," he said presently.
Leon's hero worship subsided momentarily.
"I could hardly hurt her more than you have done," he said.
-A Song for Summer, pages 362 and 363
Marek was silent, his eyes wary.
"She's going to be a bridesmaid at Ellen's wedding."
He did not expect Marek to reply, but he said: "To Kendrick Frobisher, I take it?"
"Not exactly," said Leon. "More to his kitchen gardens and his cows and his evacuees. It's supposed to be a sanctuary for us all, the wet house. She hasn't asked us if we want to be there."
Marek had reverted to silence, his eyes fixed on a sampler saying, East west, Home's best, which the departing landlady of Mon Repos had forgotten to take down.
"She's getting married on the eighteenth of December, just a week before Christmas. The wedding is at Crowthorpe in the village church at two o'clock in the afternoon. Crowthrope is where Kendrick lives, it's between Keswick and Carlisle...."
He babbled on, repeating the time and place, the nearest railway station, till Marek turned his head.
"Shut up, Leon." There was no feeling in his voice, only a great weariness.
"I could tell her you're here. I could tell her you're free. She doesn't know you're in England--Sophie didn't know whether we should--"
Now, though, Marek did show emotion. The onset of one of his instant and furious rages.
"You will say nothing about me to Ellen. You will not mention my name. "I put you on your honor," said Marek, reverting unexpectedly to his year at an English public school. "You will only hurt her," he said presently.
Leon's hero worship subsided momentarily.
"I could hardly hurt her more than you have done," he said.
-A Song for Summer, pages 362 and 363
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Wild: Your Wild-hearted Queen
"Finley. What color are my eyes?"
He looked, confused.
"The color that they always are?"
"Which is?"
"Green." He smiled. "Such a pretty green...."
He looked, confused.
"The color that they always are?"
"Which is?"
"Green." He smiled. "Such a pretty green...."
Friday, March 9, 2012
Wild: A song for summer
("I'm not afraid of children," she said.
"What are you afraid of, then?"
She pondered. He had already noticed that it was her hands which indicated what she was thinking quite as much as her face and now he watched her as she cupped them, making them ready to recieve her thoughts.
"Not being able to see, I think," she said.
"Being blind, you mean?"
"No, not that. That would be perfectly hard but Homer managed it and our blind piano tuner is one of the serenest people I know. I mean...not seeing because you're obsessed by something that blots out the world. Some sort of mania or belief. Or Passion. That awful kind of love that makes leaves and birds and cherry blossom invisible because it's not the face of some man.")
Her name is Ellen Carr.
She's plain and wants to protect, help everyone during difficult times. She's beautiful, too, if you bother looking. She's skilled at anything anyone will teach her. Self-sacrificing her happiness to eventually marry a man....
("But Kendrick had sat up, in the grip of a terrible Panic: "You won't leave me, Ellen, will you? You won't go away and leave me alone? I've always been alone and I couldn't--"
He began to weep and Ellen, fighting a weariness so profound that she thought it must pull her down to the center of the Earth, managed to take him into her arms.
"No, Kendrick, I won't leave you alone, I promise. I'll never leave you alone.")
Named Kendrick, who loves her more than it is possible to love anymore alive. He worships her as a Goddess, even Ellen says so. Ellen was raised by strong-willed females who told her to be herself. She sets off for a school and becomes a sort of Governess; and meets... Marek. Admist the chaos, the hard work, the people who need her at every moment, who never let her rest, she falls in perhaps one of the greatest loves that's ever been written. Better than Buttercup and Westly, Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia and Hamlet, Ellen's love for Marek is so beautiful because it is real.
Because happy endings don't exist, but your heart knows right away that it can. It can exist, a happy ending--more than that, it has to.
(There was so much to do here--so terrifyingly much--but she knew that Marek, when he came, would help her. Which made Bennet's word when she had asked him who Marek was seem all the stranger.
"That's a good question, Ellen," the headmaster had said. "You could say that he works here as a grounds-man, and that would be true. Or that he teaches fencing to the older boys, and that would be true also, and that at the moment he is acting as chauffeur to Professor Steiner across the lake. But when you have said that, I don't know htat you have said very much. I think," and he had turned to her with his friendly smile, "You will have to find out for yourself--and when you do I would be very interested to hear what you discover.")
Marek; so unlike Kendrick and so many others who were hers for the asking, Marek with his ability to build and write music and inspire. Ellen works hard, falls in love. More people fall in love with Ellen, but she ignores it. She listens to the man who thinks that water is for the feet.
Ellen looses Marek. War, anger, hatred parts them, and they are brought back together by no happy ending, but sheer luck. They make it. Marek...is willing to come back for... Ellen. Ellen, who married Kendrick; who worshiped her, so she could have access to Crowthrope, which is a rich-in-land Manor that she uses as a war-time Sanctuary.... Ellen who sacrifices happiness after Marek vanishes when Pettlsdorf is destroyed.
Pettlsdorf... the place Marek was raised, which fascinates Ellen. Which she worships, despite the fact her dreams were encouraged when she was a child....she worships it... not for any inexplicable reason... but because it is his. Ellen needs nothing more than that...
And Kendrick can't stay with someone he loves so much. He barely even understands Marek, none of that matters to him because it's Ellen...someone good and true and pure and gentle-hearted with a smile that could melt the sun in his sky.
His worship and love gets him someone he can love really, someone who can love him, laughable though it is.
Marek and Ellen live happily. They go back to the city that was destroyed by the war and in that paragraph you realize how hard things have been, that even though these people live happily now they had to fight. More than that, you realize that their fight for life is finally what made their life worth something.
What life is worth something to us if we do not fight for it?
More than that....
When I close the book that's made Love to me, that's touched my life in a way that nothing (except, perhaps, the most obvious thing).... I realize.
Marek came back for Ellen.
I wonder if Marek would come back for Ellen again, in a different time. When things weren't suffering from war and when Marek isn't a hero, when Ellen isn't beautiful.
If he would, then I am Ellen; trapped among the war-time work, making my Sanctuary, petting my goats with a smile.
If he would not....
I am Ellen still.
I am good and gentle-hearted and pure and decent. One day I might even be beautiful.
But I know how she felt, my poor, poor Ellen Carr, during that war. I know how she felt every day; and oh, do I wish that I did not!
"What are you afraid of, then?"
She pondered. He had already noticed that it was her hands which indicated what she was thinking quite as much as her face and now he watched her as she cupped them, making them ready to recieve her thoughts.
"Not being able to see, I think," she said.
"Being blind, you mean?"
"No, not that. That would be perfectly hard but Homer managed it and our blind piano tuner is one of the serenest people I know. I mean...not seeing because you're obsessed by something that blots out the world. Some sort of mania or belief. Or Passion. That awful kind of love that makes leaves and birds and cherry blossom invisible because it's not the face of some man.")
Her name is Ellen Carr.
She's plain and wants to protect, help everyone during difficult times. She's beautiful, too, if you bother looking. She's skilled at anything anyone will teach her. Self-sacrificing her happiness to eventually marry a man....
("But Kendrick had sat up, in the grip of a terrible Panic: "You won't leave me, Ellen, will you? You won't go away and leave me alone? I've always been alone and I couldn't--"
He began to weep and Ellen, fighting a weariness so profound that she thought it must pull her down to the center of the Earth, managed to take him into her arms.
"No, Kendrick, I won't leave you alone, I promise. I'll never leave you alone.")
Named Kendrick, who loves her more than it is possible to love anymore alive. He worships her as a Goddess, even Ellen says so. Ellen was raised by strong-willed females who told her to be herself. She sets off for a school and becomes a sort of Governess; and meets... Marek. Admist the chaos, the hard work, the people who need her at every moment, who never let her rest, she falls in perhaps one of the greatest loves that's ever been written. Better than Buttercup and Westly, Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia and Hamlet, Ellen's love for Marek is so beautiful because it is real.
Because happy endings don't exist, but your heart knows right away that it can. It can exist, a happy ending--more than that, it has to.
(There was so much to do here--so terrifyingly much--but she knew that Marek, when he came, would help her. Which made Bennet's word when she had asked him who Marek was seem all the stranger.
"That's a good question, Ellen," the headmaster had said. "You could say that he works here as a grounds-man, and that would be true. Or that he teaches fencing to the older boys, and that would be true also, and that at the moment he is acting as chauffeur to Professor Steiner across the lake. But when you have said that, I don't know htat you have said very much. I think," and he had turned to her with his friendly smile, "You will have to find out for yourself--and when you do I would be very interested to hear what you discover.")
Marek; so unlike Kendrick and so many others who were hers for the asking, Marek with his ability to build and write music and inspire. Ellen works hard, falls in love. More people fall in love with Ellen, but she ignores it. She listens to the man who thinks that water is for the feet.
Ellen looses Marek. War, anger, hatred parts them, and they are brought back together by no happy ending, but sheer luck. They make it. Marek...is willing to come back for... Ellen. Ellen, who married Kendrick; who worshiped her, so she could have access to Crowthrope, which is a rich-in-land Manor that she uses as a war-time Sanctuary.... Ellen who sacrifices happiness after Marek vanishes when Pettlsdorf is destroyed.
Pettlsdorf... the place Marek was raised, which fascinates Ellen. Which she worships, despite the fact her dreams were encouraged when she was a child....she worships it... not for any inexplicable reason... but because it is his. Ellen needs nothing more than that...
And Kendrick can't stay with someone he loves so much. He barely even understands Marek, none of that matters to him because it's Ellen...someone good and true and pure and gentle-hearted with a smile that could melt the sun in his sky.
His worship and love gets him someone he can love really, someone who can love him, laughable though it is.
Marek and Ellen live happily. They go back to the city that was destroyed by the war and in that paragraph you realize how hard things have been, that even though these people live happily now they had to fight. More than that, you realize that their fight for life is finally what made their life worth something.
What life is worth something to us if we do not fight for it?
More than that....
When I close the book that's made Love to me, that's touched my life in a way that nothing (except, perhaps, the most obvious thing).... I realize.
Marek came back for Ellen.
I wonder if Marek would come back for Ellen again, in a different time. When things weren't suffering from war and when Marek isn't a hero, when Ellen isn't beautiful.
If he would, then I am Ellen; trapped among the war-time work, making my Sanctuary, petting my goats with a smile.
If he would not....
I am Ellen still.
I am good and gentle-hearted and pure and decent. One day I might even be beautiful.
But I know how she felt, my poor, poor Ellen Carr, during that war. I know how she felt every day; and oh, do I wish that I did not!
Wild: Quoting my Ibbotson
Ellen put her arm around the secretary's shoulders.
"You love him, don't you?" She said quietly. "I mean, really?"
Margaret shrugged.
"Yes, I think it probably is... really." She shook her head. "Never mind; I'll get over it. And you? Did you have a nice time in Vienna?"
"Not very," said Ellen.
And then, because they were both Englishwomen and their hearts were somewhat broken, they turned back into the room and put on the kettle and made themselves a cup of tea.
-A song for summer (p.291)
"You love him, don't you?" She said quietly. "I mean, really?"
Margaret shrugged.
"Yes, I think it probably is... really." She shook her head. "Never mind; I'll get over it. And you? Did you have a nice time in Vienna?"
"Not very," said Ellen.
And then, because they were both Englishwomen and their hearts were somewhat broken, they turned back into the room and put on the kettle and made themselves a cup of tea.
-A song for summer (p.291)
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wild:
There are two people
to whom this is addressed.
If you are not one of these people,
if your heart does not recognize immediately that you are
then you are not.
You have all of me.
The only pieces I do not yield you
are the ones you will not, perhaps cannot, accept
and for that
I am sorry
as the sun in the sky
when it rains.
I cannot change my heart
to make it please you more
I cannot tailor my soul
to fit your hands like clay.
No matter how you wish I could
no matter how you wish that I could, for example
stop loving you
or, another example,
ditch the magic that doesn't exist
I cannot.
No more than breathing.
You get me.
My tears, stubbornness
smiles, laughter
all that I can give you
is what I do each day.
Please let it be enough.
I deserve to be happy.
I deserve to be loved.
...I deserve....
to whom this is addressed.
If you are not one of these people,
if your heart does not recognize immediately that you are
then you are not.
You have all of me.
The only pieces I do not yield you
are the ones you will not, perhaps cannot, accept
and for that
I am sorry
as the sun in the sky
when it rains.
I cannot change my heart
to make it please you more
I cannot tailor my soul
to fit your hands like clay.
No matter how you wish I could
no matter how you wish that I could, for example
stop loving you
or, another example,
ditch the magic that doesn't exist
I cannot.
No more than breathing.
You get me.
My tears, stubbornness
smiles, laughter
all that I can give you
is what I do each day.
Please let it be enough.
I deserve to be happy.
I deserve to be loved.
...I deserve....
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Wild: My seal on my hand
Long ago
In a land where the moon rose
There was a simple woman
With the silver in her hair.
She walked.
Through a forest of the trees
Which shone unreasonable bright
Through a forest of the birds
Whose songs ser’naded night.
Past the wild forests and through the empty towns
Past the empty cities with the moon above their heads,
They walked together, hand in hand:
The woman and her history,
The moon amidst the trees.
They walked for the edge of the world.
The moon bled into her skin
She swallowed it like too much time
her eyes a-gleam with power
That the lessened knew no more.
Her fingers dug into the shore
The moon bled on the land
Like her power had gutted a star.
In an empty kingdom full of empty hearts;
She closed the eyes of Legend that were pale as the glass.
She stopped the siege of beauty
With the moon on her skin
With the blue in her eyes
She offered, then, her only heart
As much as she’d given the moon to the sand.
‘I have always served you.
I have always cared.
My heart has been my strength, your boon
The gift accorded me by God
And the council I feel from your touch by my fingers.
I am the shimmer of the moon
I own the eyes of pale glass.
I am the song on Riverside
the silver in the night.’
She opened those eyes; blinked away tears
Tears that felt as heavy as ice
When you pound to get back to the air.
‘Please,’ whimpered the Eliac
She of the silver hair,
she of the pale glass in-eye
She of the touch so gentle
it could be ignored by angels,
‘Please, I am in love.’
But there was no reply
From the wisdom of the world.
‘Help my human heart.
Heal human wounds.
I have summon hurricanes
I have swept the lands with rain
I have sung the river in the bars of men
I have touched the ocean
With my dulcet fingertips.
I do not know everything;
I’m humble in my place.
I’ve felled giants, maintained peace
Sewn broken hearts together
With your voice inside my ears;
And felt your hands of heaven on their lives
Like the breath from a ghost.
Take not this heart.
Take not this soul;
Is not this mine to give?
The woman with the summer in her eyes
Is trapped inside the rivers in my heart
Is carved into the soul of me
Like water wears the stone.
There is no defense, no aid
That even you can give me?
Please, I am in love.
Save me from eternity?’
But there was no reply.
‘Please, I fear this heart, this love
Devoting myself well and truly
Please, she doesn’t want my heart!
She doesn’t want my soul!
Oh Water, take it back from her.
Oh God, pray end my suffering:
There is no battle I could make
Against the seat of Love!
I may be a warrior
I may be strong, be fast and strong
But I am not enough for her.
My God,
there is no strong man
That could lift my heavy heart
The edges curled with truth
Like a burning hunk of meat.
Please.
Please, make this stop!’
But there was no reply.
Sitting at the edge of the world
Where the water touched the land
The moon upon her skin
The soul of night inside her hair
The pale light upon the shore
From her calloused hands;
Water, overcome by love,
Wept herself to sleep.
In a land where the moon rose
There was a simple woman
With the silver in her hair.
She walked.
Through a forest of the trees
Which shone unreasonable bright
Through a forest of the birds
Whose songs ser’naded night.
Past the wild forests and through the empty towns
Past the empty cities with the moon above their heads,
They walked together, hand in hand:
The woman and her history,
The moon amidst the trees.
They walked for the edge of the world.
The moon bled into her skin
She swallowed it like too much time
her eyes a-gleam with power
That the lessened knew no more.
Her fingers dug into the shore
The moon bled on the land
Like her power had gutted a star.
In an empty kingdom full of empty hearts;
She closed the eyes of Legend that were pale as the glass.
She stopped the siege of beauty
With the moon on her skin
With the blue in her eyes
She offered, then, her only heart
As much as she’d given the moon to the sand.
‘I have always served you.
I have always cared.
My heart has been my strength, your boon
The gift accorded me by God
And the council I feel from your touch by my fingers.
I am the shimmer of the moon
I own the eyes of pale glass.
I am the song on Riverside
the silver in the night.’
She opened those eyes; blinked away tears
Tears that felt as heavy as ice
When you pound to get back to the air.
‘Please,’ whimpered the Eliac
She of the silver hair,
she of the pale glass in-eye
She of the touch so gentle
it could be ignored by angels,
‘Please, I am in love.’
But there was no reply
From the wisdom of the world.
‘Help my human heart.
Heal human wounds.
I have summon hurricanes
I have swept the lands with rain
I have sung the river in the bars of men
I have touched the ocean
With my dulcet fingertips.
I do not know everything;
I’m humble in my place.
I’ve felled giants, maintained peace
Sewn broken hearts together
With your voice inside my ears;
And felt your hands of heaven on their lives
Like the breath from a ghost.
Take not this heart.
Take not this soul;
Is not this mine to give?
The woman with the summer in her eyes
Is trapped inside the rivers in my heart
Is carved into the soul of me
Like water wears the stone.
There is no defense, no aid
That even you can give me?
Please, I am in love.
Save me from eternity?’
But there was no reply.
‘Please, I fear this heart, this love
Devoting myself well and truly
Please, she doesn’t want my heart!
She doesn’t want my soul!
Oh Water, take it back from her.
Oh God, pray end my suffering:
There is no battle I could make
Against the seat of Love!
I may be a warrior
I may be strong, be fast and strong
But I am not enough for her.
My God,
there is no strong man
That could lift my heavy heart
The edges curled with truth
Like a burning hunk of meat.
Please.
Please, make this stop!’
But there was no reply.
Sitting at the edge of the world
Where the water touched the land
The moon upon her skin
The soul of night inside her hair
The pale light upon the shore
From her calloused hands;
Water, overcome by love,
Wept herself to sleep.
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