update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/006.md

@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ But I digress.
 
 The Woman wandered far from home. She picked a direction — east, if the entrance to that Gothic house on the field was due north — and began to walk. She walked for an hour. Then she walked for two, for four, for eight. She walked until the sun set and then she lay down in the grass and looked up to the stars and remembered all of these things and wept and smiled and laughed and sobbed.
 
-She remembered these things, and I remember these things, just as I, in dreams, remember the sands beneath my fight and the rattle of dry grass in the wind and the names of all things and forget them only when I wake. She wandered the field and lay down and looked at the stars and bathed in memories and pace the empty rooms of my home, listening to nothing, looking at nothing, clenching and unclenching my fists as I struggle not to reach for my pen, my paper, and instead write in my head.
+She remembered these things, and I remember these things, just as I, in dreams, remember the sands beneath my fight and the rattle of dry grass in the wind and the names of all things and forget them only when I wake. She wandered the field and lay down and looked at the stars and bathed in memories and I pace the empty rooms of my home, listening to nothing, looking at nothing, clenching and unclenching my fists as I struggle not to reach for my pen, my paper, and instead write in my head.
 
 Why do we so often do this? Why are there times when, overflowing or not, we wrap ourselves up in our memories like the most comforting blanket in the world, and yet still cry? Why do we cry after loved ones? Why do we cry after ourselves? Why do we look up to the stars — stars we made! — and cry so bitterly? Why do the tears leave tracks in the fur on our cheeks or down over the skin of our faces? Why do birds, as the poet says, suddenly appear every time we feel such nearness as is left of our superlative friend?
 
@@ -54,4 +54,14 @@ We are built to love, The Woman and I and all of our kin, and do not let any of
 
 We are also built of trauma, The Woman and I and all of our kin. We are built of trauma on trauma on trauma, and trauma and trauma. We are stacked brick by brick. We are built with logs stacked in a square, notches cut to make them fit. We are cabins. We are houses. We are buildings and skyscrapers. We are wobbly towers. We are smokestacks in the wind, and when the air passes over us a clockwise vortex will form and then a widdershins vortex and then a clockwise vortex and the air is life and the air is time and the vortex shedding tugs and pulls at us until we topple.
 
+We have the most obvious trauma of them all, yes, when Michelle who was Sasha and her superlative friend were lost, along with however many hundreds of others, but we are not defined solely by that, are we? No one is defined solely by one thing. We are fully realized people, just as you and you and you and you and you are, dear readers. If you were to come up to me at some reading, some book signing, and say to me, "Rye! You have told me of the time that The Woman came to your house and had that conversation that changed you in so many subtle ways, and you have told me of getting lost. Those must be the defining moments of your life," I would say to you, "You are forgetting that dinner that I had with The Instance Artist and its partners, and The Oneirotect, and The Sim Artist, where we ate so many wonderful foods and yet they all sat like lead in my belly as we realized that there was death in the air and death on The Instance Artist's tongue, for Launch was only a week away and to us it would be dead, and you are forgetting so many other joys and fears and so many other little traumas that make me *me!*"
+
+We are built of trauma, and trauma and trauma on trauma and trauma and trauma, all stacked high like some wobbly tower, some smokestack that twists in the wind and then comes apart in overflow, The Woman and I and all of our kin.
+
+The Woman was overflowing on that field, there, laying in the grass and flowers, staring up at the stars and the faintest outline of a new moon, laughing and weeping, far more herself than anyone person has any right to be, herself pressing against her chest from the inside, aching, rising up in her throat like bile, and I am overflowing right now, you see, or close enough to it, for even now, as I pace the empty rooms of my house, listening to nothing, looking at nothing, with my paws clenched into fists so that I do not grab my pen and paper to write and instead write this in my head, I feel how much of me there is, the way it aches, the way it presses against my chest from the inside and rises in my throat like bile, and I wonder what will become of me.
+
+But I digress.
+
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