update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/005.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ What I do have, though, is a story. I have the story I learned from The Woman's
 
 One day — I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold — one day, The Woman came to me.
 
-"Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars," she said as she stood before my door, looking much the same as I do — though it bears repeating that she was *quite* stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am *not;* she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! "I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?"
+"Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars," she said as she stood before my door, a skunk looking much the same as I do — though it bears repeating that she was *quite* stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am *not;* she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! "I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?"
 
 Readers, I do not think I need to tell you that I was caught off-guard by this! I had never met The Woman before, though I had certainly seen her once or twice. There were functions, yes? And perhaps she came to one of my readings or two, and certainly she was there, that day on the field as we watched Michelle who was also Sasha give herself up to the world and become one with the heart that perhaps beats at some imagined center of the System. The most recent time I had seen her, though, was in some unreadable and thus unwritable mood as some few dozen of us gathered on the first of what some are now calling *HaShichzur,* the day that Lagrange was restored after the Century Attack.
 
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Ah, I am digressing again. My thoughts and words wander.
 
 The Woman came in, looked around, and smiled to me. It was a very kind smile, very earnest, and I have no other words but to say that I felt blessed by such a smile. "Your home is so comfortable. It does not feel at all overwhelming."
 
-I nodded, feeling a wave of relief. "I am pleased you think so! Can I get you anything?"
+I nodded, feeling a wave of relief. "I am pleased you think so. Can I get you anything?"
 
 "I would not say no to a glass of water."
 
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ While I fetched us both such a glass, I said, "What is it that brings you here?
 
 "A writer, a poet, and a musician. I have been having some thoughts on joy that I would like to explore with each of you."
 
-She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food — and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is *incredibly* delicious — and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things, and the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and spiritual fulfilment yet to go.
+She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food — and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is *incredibly* delicious — and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things and in the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and spiritual fulfilment yet to go.
 
 "So, your goal with visiting is to read?"
 
@@ -60,11 +60,11 @@ I will admit, friends, that I looked down at my pajama pants and t-shirt and lau
 
 My readers will know well that I have too many words in me. Why, just look at all that I have written already! I have gone on at length about Laotian food and lovers and friends and family and mochas and melancholy. I have accused myself already a handful of times of intruding on my own story, of being helpless before the graphomania that guides my paw. So it is that you must believe me when I say that I was left speechless. All of this ceaseless torrent of words within me simply stopped.
 
-I do not know if you have ever been complimented in just the right way by just the right person, but if you have, you well know that it is startling in its intensity. Had someone else said these things about me, even my beloved up-trees, I might well have blushed and stammered a thank you and felt good for the rest of the day.
+I do not know if you have ever been complimented in just the right way by just the right person, but if you have, you well know that it is startling in its intensity. Had someone else said these things about me, even my beloved up-tree, I might well have blushed and stammered a thank you and felt good for the rest of the day.
 
 The Woman, this skunk who sat before me with a glass of water held in her paws and her very chic outfit, the one who had smiled to me with such earnestness as to be a blessing, this woman who was too much herself, had just perceived me with such force as to leave me feeling bowled over. Even today, even these many years later, I remember that compliment and find breath catching in my throat, and we have already spoken on that, have we not?
 
-We sat in silence, then, while I processed this. My friends, you may perhaps have picked up the sense that The Woman is in some fundamental way broken and perhaps unable to interact well with others. After all, she sits for so long in her room and in her home and on her field, and she sees Her Friend only with some frequency, and had only just recently gotten in touch with Her Lover, yes? And that is in many ways true. But it is not *wholly* true. She was too much herself, yes, and she would have said even then that she had lived for too long and that she was in some fundamental way broken, but she was also so much more! I have shown you all that she was through her own perception, but from the outside...ah, she was hard not to love, my friends.
+We sat in silence, then, while I processed this. My friends, you may perhaps have picked up the sense that The Woman is in some fundamental way broken and perhaps unable to interact well with others. After all, she sits for so long in her room and in her home and on her field, and she sees Her Friend only with some small frequency, and had only just recently gotten in touch with Her Lover, yes? And that is in many ways true, that she is broken. But it is not *wholly* true. She was too much herself, yes, and she would have said even then that she had lived for too long and that she was in some fundamental way broken, but she was also so much more! I have shown you all that she was through her own perception, but from the outside...ah, she was hard not to love, my friends.
 
 "Thank you, my dear," I said at last, bowing.
 
@@ -110,9 +110,9 @@ that this must be the case.
 "The silently bereaved already sit graveside."
 {{% /verse %}}
 
-I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. "There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?"
+I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. "There is a difference between the mere performance of grief and grieving itself, is there not?"
 
-"It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us but not Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said, "It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad." I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic." She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. "This was grief performed."
+"It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief — performative in the philosophical sense. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us intact but not with Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said, "It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad." I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic." She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. "This was grief performed."
 
 I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something — flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
 
@@ -136,13 +136,13 @@ When I was once more able to speak, after I had taken a moment to clean up, I as
 
 "I found this form of reading to be fulfilling, yes, but also all-encompassing. When I read in the manner that Slow Hours suggests, by wrapping myself up in the story and letting it play out in my head, I found that I became more easily engrossed, yes, but also I found myself wrung out at the end of each. I would finish a book and then have to lay in bed for ten hours straight, sleeping off and on. When I brought this up with Slow Hours, she only smiled, shrugged, and said that appreciation takes as much energy as creation.
 
-"There *was* joy there, though. It has been many, many years since I had read something so thoroughly, had so completely taken it within myself. It was nothing so trite as feeling as though I was living there with the characters, nor that I was unable to put the book down. It was a relishing. It was a savoring. Each word became a part of my world, drifting into view to be cherished and then back out of it. By the third book, I saw what it was that Slow Hours meant by wrapping oneself up in a story, and I found comfort in this."
+"There *was* joy there, though. It had been many, many years since I had read something so thoroughly, had so completely taken it within myself. It was nothing so trite as feeling as though I was living there with the characters, nor that I was unable to put the book down. It was a relishing. It was a savoring. Each word became a part of my world, drifting into view to be cherished and then back out of it. By the third book, I saw what it was that Slow Hours meant by wrapping oneself up in a story, and I found comfort in this."
 
-I stayed silent as I listened. After all, to hear so intriguing a person speak so eloquently on the act of reading was lovely! I never learned whether any of the books that she read were mine, and I was too afraid to ask. I do not know why, friends, but I was feeling quite outclassed. The Woman had a quiet force to her personality that I cannot deny, and I wonder to this day whether she knew this about herself.
+I stayed silent as I listened. After all, to hear so intriguing a person speak so eloquently on the act of reading was lovely! I never learned whether any of the five books that she read thus were mine, and I was too afraid to ask. I do not know why, friends, but I was feeling quite outclassed. The Woman had a quiet force to her personality that I cannot deny, and I wonder to this day whether she knew this about herself.
 
 "You do not seem too pleased with this as an outcome," I said.
 
-She shrugged. "It was a step on a path. I have also sought out entertainment in other forms. I spoke next with Beholden, who provided me a similar approach to listening to music. We spoke about active listening and what it means to actually hear a song, to, yes, wrap oneself up in it. We spoke about songs and albums, movements and pieces, and the stories that each of them can tell. Did you know that our dear Beholden has recently completed a concept album about the Century Attack? I did not listen to this for her assignments, per her request, but I did after the fact.
+She shrugged. "It was a step on a path. I also sought out entertainment in other forms. I spoke next with Beholden, who provided me a similar approach to listening to music. We spoke about active listening and what it means to actually hear a song, to, yes, wrap oneself up in it. We spoke about songs and albums, movements and pieces, and the stories that each of them can tell. Did you know that our dear Beholden has recently completed a concept album about the Century Attack? I did not listen to this for her assignments, per her request, but I did after the fact.
 
 "I ran into a similar sensation, however. I *did* find joy in this type of listening, as I prowled through–" At this, the woman's form rolled over in a wave and, with a quiet sigh, she was no longer a skunk, but instead a panther, black and with shining fur. She readjusted her clothing and continued. "As I prowled through the music that Beholden suggested, I found a depth to the act that I had never before experienced. I was able to wrap myself up in sound and lose myself within it. Even with the music that I did not particularly like, I was able to find appreciation and tease out organization.
 
@@ -168,11 +168,11 @@ The Woman's simple question left me all the room in the world to admit that I di
 
 "Was there a difference for you? Death Itself and I Do Not Know quit, but Should We Forget was taken from you."
 
-The Woman tilted her head, then gazed out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. "I think I knew, on some level, that Death Itself would leave us. I certainly suspected when she went all but catatonic, yes? But I knew. I had no such foreknowledge of Should We Forget leaving us. I suspect that none did, except perhaps Slow Hours, and she told me that her dreams did not make sense until after the fact." She returned her gaze to me. "So yes. There was a difference. The feeling surrounding Death Itself and I Do Not Know is a tired acceptance. They *were* a tired acceptance even immediately after. The feeling surrounding Should We Forget is a sharp and cold grief. It is a feeling of my world being upended and my footing no longer being sure."
+The Woman tilted her head, then gazed out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. "I think I knew, on some level, that Death Itself would leave us. I certainly suspected when she went all but catatonic, yes? But I knew. I had no such foreknowledge of Should We Forget leaving us. I suspect that none did, except perhaps Slow Hours, and she told me that her dreams did not make sense until after the fact." She returned her gaze to me. "So yes. There was a difference. The feelings surrounding Death Itself and I Do Not Know are a tired acceptance. They *were* a tired acceptance even immediately after. The feeling surrounding Should We Forget is a sharp and cold grief. It is a feeling of my world being upended and my footing no longer being sure."
 
 "It did not feel stable after Lagrange came back, no."
 
-"It did not. That, I am told, is why Beholden wrote her threnody: Beckoning was lost to the Attack and Muse quit out of grief one week later. Beholden, fearing that her life was unstable, declined the merge. She told me that she feared that accepting it would change who she was on a fundamental level, only for her to die, not loving her partner in the same way that she had for hundreds of years beforehand. A Finger Pointing has Beckoning's memories, but Muse is truly dead, now. Her memories have been dismissed and cannot be retrieved."
+"It did not. That, I am told, is why Beholden wrote her threnody: Beckoning was lost to the Attack and Muse quit out of grief one week later. Beholden, fearing that her life was unstable, declined the merge. She told me that she feared that accepting it would change who she was on a fundamental level, only for her to die, not loving her partner in the same way that she had for hundreds of years beforehand. A Finger Pointing has Beckoning's memories from regular merges, but Muse is truly dead, now. Her memories have been dismissed and cannot be retrieved."
 
 "I see," I said. "And so she memorialized what memories she did have in the form of her samples."
 
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ She bowed from where she sat, smiling. "And so I come to you, Rye."
 
 "Write."
 
-I laughed. I do not think it was an unkind laugh, but it was a startled one. I am a writer, yes, but I do not fancy myself much of a teacher. I do not think I am much of a collaborator, either. I get quite protective of my work, and I can be something of a bitch when it comes to having it challenged. "How shall we write, then?" I asked. "I write with A Finger Pointing. We send each other letters back and forth, telling stories."
+I laughed. I do not think it was an unkind laugh, but it was a startled one. I am a writer, yes, but I do not fancy myself much of a teacher. I run regular workshops, yes, and offer what help I may, but I am first and foremost a writer. I do not think I am much of a collaborator, either. I get quite protective of my work, and I can be something of a bitch when it comes to having it challenged. "How shall we write, then?" I asked. "I write with A Finger Pointing. We send each other letters back and forth, telling stories."
 
 "Perhaps that is a thing we can do, too, but this is a project that I would like to approach as a conversation. I do not have an agenda for how, simply that I must."
 
@@ -200,7 +200,7 @@ I nodded. "A story is a good place to start, yes. You really have made so little
 
 Ah! This was it! My friends, this was the point when I realized just what it was that made each of The Woman's smiles feel like blessings and what made it feel like she bore some power within her that I could not quite understand. It was her *stillness.* My astute readers will remember that she had a thought, some few thousand words ago: perhaps this unbecoming that her mind circled around was simply the utmost in stillness. 
 
-Now, your narrator did not know this at the time — I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story — but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
+Now, your narrator did not know this at the time — I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story — but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words here is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
 
 At the time, however, I said, "Have you found stillness in your endeavors so far? Was there stillness in active reading and active listening?"
 
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ She nodded. "Yes. My thoughts became ordered, perhaps. That turbulence became a
 
 I laughed as well. "Thank you, I think. I have a few that are labeled 'meditations on whatever', but even those probably do not fit the bill."
 
-"I would assume not. No, I came to you because I wanted to talk to you about creating specifically because I watched And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights paint while visiting Beholden."
+"I would assume not. No, I came to you because I wanted to talk to you about creating specifically not just on Praiseworthy's suggestion, but also because I watched And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights paint while visiting Beholden."
 
 "Ah! Motes! What a delight!"
 
@@ -228,25 +228,25 @@ I laughed, nodding.
 
 "How old was she that day?"
 
-"She said that she was seven," The Woman said. "I found her joy to be quite different from what I imagine for myself, though, as ought to be the case for someone who has chosen to live as a seven year old versus someone who has perhaps no choice but to love as a 317 year old, yes?"
+"She said that she was seven," The Woman said. "I found her joy to be quite different from what I imagine for myself, though, as ought to be the case for someone who has chosen to live as a seven year old versus someone who has perhaps no choice but to live as a 317 year old, yes?"
 
 "I will say that she is no less flighty or energetic when she chooses to live at older ages. When she is, say, twenty five, there is still no stopping her."
 
 "So I am told. However, she is also a very good girl, is she not? Beholden saw the state that I was in — for when Motes started zipping around the house, I started shifting between forms — and suggested that she go and paint. She said quite simply "Okay!" and ran off to the next room where she simply sat on a stool and began painting."
 
-I nodded up to the wall beside the couch, upon which a painting sat. The Woman smiled and nodded.
+I looked up to the wall beside the couch, upon which a painting sat. The Woman smiled and nodded.
 
 The painting was of my up-tree's house. The Instance Artist was one who decided that it had had quite enough of life in comfort, life here on Lagrange, life here honing, or perhaps forging new frontiers but in a familiar place, and up and left for the stars, back when humanity buckled down and decided to send out the two launch vehicles. Our very own twins, yes? Castor and Pollux? Those two half-sized Systems that even still race out of the Solar System at some unimaginable speed, yes? The Instance Artist left us all behind with no fork to spare, and broke all of our hearts.
 
-When it had lived here on Lagrange, it had contracted my other up-tree, The Sim Designer, to build for it an infinite short-grass prairie. It was a land of long, rolling hills and yet longer flat basins that always drank most thirstily from the seasonal storms that did their best to thrash the earth below. There, amid the countless acres, sat its house, low and flat, an echo of the plains around it all done up in concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of the grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass.
+When it had lived here on Lagrange, though, it had contracted my other up-tree, The Sim Designer, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining, to build for it an infinite short-grass prairie. It was a land of long, rolling hills and yet longer flat basins that always drank most thirstily from the seasonal storms that did their best to thrash the Earth below. There, amid the countless acres, sat its house, low and flat, an echo of the plains around it all done up in concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of the grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass.
 
 And so there on my wall sat a painting that I had asked The Child to make, small by her standards at only the size of both of my paws held flat, wherein she had painted the house, the endless prairie, and the sky that somehow managed to be something beyond endless. There was the gray of the concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass. There was the plain, the sky.
 
 And there, right in the center, hovering a scant claw-width above the house, a perfectly black perfect square.
 
-Readers, you must understand that, when I say perfectly black, I do mean it! There is this color, or non-color, *Eigengrau* that is perhaps the darkest you are used to seeing. If you are in a perfectly dark room, or you are out beneath the stars at night and you close your eyes, or you are hiding under two layers of blankets from the monsters that haunt us still, even in this afterlife that we have built up into our nigh-perfection, what you see is not pure black, but *Eigengrau.* It is the darkest color, I am told, that our eyes can see, phys-side! This is because, even when there is no light, the nerves of our eyes still fire occasionally. Perhaps it is because this is something that is required for nerve cells to feel healthy, and when those cells are in our muscles and it is just one or two at a time, it does not yank our hand away from our pen and paper like they were burning hot, but when they are in our eyes, every little firing is still perceived as a photon hitting this rod or that cone. Perhaps it is because there is some fundamental state of being for us that is *not* stillness, that is movement at some molecular level. Perhaps it is simply because they are lonely! I do not know, I do not know. I do not know.
+Readers, you must understand that, when I say perfectly black, I do mean it! There is this color, or non-color, *Eigengrau* that is perhaps the darkest you are used to seeing. If you are in a perfectly dark room, or you are out beneath the stars at night and you close your eyes, or you are hiding under two layers of blankets from the monsters that haunt us still, even in this afterlife that we have built up into our nigh-perfection, what you see is not pure black, but *Eigengrau.* It is the darkest color, I am told, that our eyes can see, phys-side! This is because, even when there is no light, the nerves of our eyes still fire occasionally. Perhaps it is because this is something that is required for nerve cells to feel healthy, and when those cells are in our muscles and it is just one or two at a time, it does not yank our hand away from our pen and paper like they were burning hot, but when they are in our eyes, every little firing is still perceived as a photon hitting this rod or that cone. Perhaps it is because there is some fundamental state of being for us that is *not* stillness, but that is movement at some molecular level. Perhaps it is simply because they are lonely! I do not know, I do not know. I do not know.
 
-This square is not *Eigengrau.* It is beyond that. It is beyond even black! It is deeper than *Eigengrau,* yes, but it is also a very thirsty black. If the ground of The Instance Artist's prairie drinks thirstily of the sky, so too does this black drink thirstily of all the light in the world. It draws light from the room, and when you look at the painting, the world seems dimmer. It is a hole in the world.
+This square is not *Eigengrau.* It is beyond that. It is beyond even black! It is an impossible black. It is deeper than *Eigengrau,* yes, but it is also a very thirsty black. If the ground of The Instance Artist's prairie drinks thirstily of the sky, so too does this black drink thirstily of all the light in the world. It draws light from the room, and when you look at the painting, the world seems dimmer. It is a hole in the world.
 
 I am used to it, my friends, for it sits happily enough upon my wall, but I am told that it is unnerving to see.
 
@@ -276,7 +276,7 @@ We sat in silence — silences can be so comfortable sometimes! — while I look
 
 She nodded.
 
-"I go back and forth. Sometimes, I feel that it is right in front of me and the house is in the distance, and that it is painted to scale. Sometimes, I feel like it must be behind the house, or way out beyond the sky, and it is larger than the moon."
+"I go back and forth. Sometimes, I feel that it is right in front of me and the house is in the distance, and that it is painted to scale so that it is quite small. Sometimes, I feel like it must be behind the house, or way out beyond the sky, and it is larger than the moon."
 
 "I see we understand it in the same way. I cannot tell, either. I can tell you, though, that watching Motes brought me the closest to the joy that I have been seeking that I have ever been." She frowned down to her glass, now empty. When she continued, her speech was halting, slow, thoughtful. "Not...for me, not my own joy, and I think not even for her, though the little skunk certainly seems quite joyful. It is...adjacent to the joy. It brought me near to the joy, but did not necessarily bring the joy to me."
 
@@ -284,7 +284,7 @@ She nodded.
 
 \label{warmth}
 
-We talked for some time more, The Woman and I, and discussed what it was that we could do to help her find joy. I am sorry to say, though, that we were not quite able to come up with something. 
+We talked for some time more, The Woman and I, and discussed what it was that we could do to help her find joy. I am sorry to say, though, that we were not able to come up with something. 
 
 We circled for some time around meditative acts and how that might work with writing. Automatic writing, perhaps? Should The Woman set up with a note book and a pen and look into some deeper self and begin to write? Should she bid my demon of graphomania visit her, grab her by the wrist, drag her pen across the page that words may flow after it like eager puppies?