<p>Some of my readers may be wondering why it is that I know so much about The Woman. </p>
<p>“How does she know all of this?” some might be wondering. “Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?” Others might be wondering — and rightly so! — “How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman’s innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.”</p>
<p>My answer is that tired phrase: “It is complicated.” Of course I do not know her innermost thoughts. I think it is a me thing to take abstract ideas and pretend they look like pretty baubles or hot coals or little statuettes to be placed upon a dresser. I cannot read minds, and I do not have any memories from The Woman. I do not even know quite what she is anymore! I would not know if she quit, since I am not down-tree from her — her down-tree instance is dead now, these last six decades, remember — and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can. No, I do not know anything so intimate.</p>
<p>What I do have, though, is a story. I have the story I learned from The Woman’s Friend and Therapist and Cocladist and Lover, the one I learned from The Blue Fairy. I have all of that story that I learned, and I have that story that I lived.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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 <em>quite</em> stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am <em>not;</em> 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?”</p>
<p>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 <em>HaShichzur,</em> the day that Lagrange was restored after the Century Attack.</p>
<p>And now here she was, standing in the little courtyard created by the set of townhouses in which I and others within the ninth stanza live, with her paws clasped before her, bowing.</p>
<p>“Yes?” I said. I do not know why I asked it like a question, but that is what I did.</p>
<p>“I would like to ask you about your writing.”</p>
<p>“Ah! Of course, my dear. Please, come in.” I stood out of the way and gestured her inside, and this was the first time I saw her ritual of brushing her fingertips against the jamb of the door.</p>
<p>My place is clean and minimal. It is not clean because I am necessarily a clean person, nor is it minimal because I have any particular attachments to minimalism or its trappings. Friends, you have surely gathered by now that I am quite a bit more focused on writing than I am on most anything else. My home contains a simple kitchen and a simple dining table. There is a den in which there is a couch and a coffee table. There are two bedrooms, one of which contains a bed and the other of which is empty. The only room that is of any interest is perhaps my office, but even that is probably too minimal for most people’s tastes! I have a desk. I have paper and pens and a keyboard on which I can type when that is the mood. </p>
<p>That is not to say that it is a boring place — at least, I do not think so! I have some paintings on the wall, some landscapes interrupted by hyper-black squares painted by The Child. There are several little decorations scattered around, as well; little objects that my up-tree has made in its explorations in oneirotecture and oneiro-impressionism. The most meaningful of these sits on my writing desk, and takes the form of a wireframe polyhedral fox about the size of my paw. While it is silver in color, it does not cast any shadows on itself and has constant luminosity, and so it looks like a two-dimensional shape that changes as your perspective does. </p>
<p>Ah, I am digressing again. My thoughts and words wander.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>I nodded, feeling a wave of relief. “I am pleased you think so! Can I get you anything?”</p>
<p>“I would not say no to a glass of water.”</p>
<p>While I fetched us both such a glass, I said, “What is it that brings you here? I hope that Praiseworthy had nice things to say about me.”</p>
<p>“Quite nice, yes, though I find her a very curious skunk. She is elusive, perhaps? Not in that she is hard to find, but it is hard to pin down her mood or her thoughts.”</p>
<p>“Oh, very much so. I remember being her, yes, but that was nigh on three centuries ago, and I do not quite understand who she has become, myself.” I handed over the glass of water and gestured toward the couch, where we sat on either end, half-facing each other.</p>
<p>“She was still pleasant to be around, at least,” The Woman said. “She said that I should seek you out, along with Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress, And We Are The Motes In The Stage-Lights, and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps. You are the last on my list.”</p>
<p>“That is curious. What was the reasoning for those names?”</p>
<p>“A writer, an actor, a musician, and an artist. I have been having some thoughts on joy that I would like to explore with each of you.”</p>
<p>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 <em>incredibly</em> 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.</p>
<p>“So, your goal with visiting is to read?”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “I have already read. That is why I was sent to visit Slow Hours. She is a very quiet person, and very comfortable to be around, as you are. You are inexact mirrors of each other, are you not? She reads and you write. She loves poetry most while you love prose. She is human and you are a skunk. She is a bit frumpy and tousled, and you are quite neat and put-together.”</p>
<p>I will admit, friends, that I looked down at my pajama pants and t-shirt and laughed. “I do not feel put together.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps one never does,” she said, “and yet you exist so well contained. The whole of you exists within the person sitting before me. You are Rye, the author. You are Rye, the sincere. You are Rye who is kind. You are these things and you are none other.”</p>
<p>My readers will know well that I have too many words in my. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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? But that 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.</p>
<p>“Thank you, my dear,” I said at last, bowing.</p>
<p>She smiled — another blessing! — and nodded to me.</p>
<p>“Tell me about your reading, then.”</p>
<p>“I visited Slow Hours in her library,” she began. “I know that it belongs to the whole of Au Lieu Du Rêve, but she has inhabited it quite thoroughly, has she not?”</p>
<p>“She has, at that,” I said.</p>
<p>“We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading <em>is.</em> She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“And Warmth In Fire came over, too, so that it could sit at our table and weep rather than eat. Ey wept, and then asked to retreat, and we guided her up to Should We Forget’s room so that they could lay in her bed for a while in silence. When it came back downstairs, ey thanked us kindly and left, and when we went back upstairs to look, there was a flower wrought out of some subtly glowing metal left on Should We Forget’s pillow. It lays there still.”</p>
<p>“I remember that day,” I said. “I will admit that I only met Should We Forget a handful of times, and always mediated through Warmth, so I do not have the context for that grief, other than the fact that ey was left in pain for some time after the restoration.”</p>
<p>“That was performative grief,” The Woman said. “That was grief that, through its expression, was made real. Warmth In Fire’s grieving allowed us to grieve as well. Ever Dream and all of those who sent us flowers performed a grief that was only intellectual. I appreciate them for that, but I love Warmth In Fire for what ey gave us.”</p>
<p>We as a clade cry easily, and it is a thing that we all like about ourselves. I like the fact that I can cry! I like that I can cry over my own writing, go back and read a scene I wrote wherein a character experiences too many feelings or some form of growth and cry along with them. </p>
<p>So it is perhaps no surprise that I cried then, and that, for the third time, The Woman sat with me in silence.</p>
<p>When I was once more able to speak, after I had taken a moment to clean up, I asked, “You went into this experience with Slow Hours to explore joy, yes? What did you find, in the end?”</p>
<p>“I did not read only this one poem. I read several more with her that day, and took home several books to read in such a way. Slow Hours talked me through the joy of stories — even the small ones — and left me with some assignments. </p>
<p>“I did not like all of the books, but Slow Hours instructed me to read them anyway, unless they started to make me truly bored. None did, however, so I finished every book I took with me.</p>
<p>“Of the five books I brought home, one made me quite upset for how viscerally uncaring the protagonist was. I found them acting for reasons that I did not understand, as though they were a being solely of habits and not of thoughts or emotions. One made me cry for the way the protagonist was torn down and yet built herself into someone new. The other three books I found quite enjoyable, and they were all engrossing to greater or lesser extent.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“There <em>was</em> 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“You do not seem too pleased with this as an outcome,” I said.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“I ran into a similar sensation, however. I <em>did</em> 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.</p>
<p>“Beholden’s concept album, when I listened to it thus, left me in tears.” She laughed quietly, and I felt comforted that I was present to hear such. “This is perhaps obvious, yes? A concept album surrounding the Century Attack, where we lost so many of our very own?</p>
<p>“There were no lyrics to this album, though, so it was not the words that made me cry. I was not listening to words, but I <em>was</em> listening to voices. I was listening to the voices of her up-tree, Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres, and her partner’s up tree, A Finger Curled. She had delved into her sample library and pulled together all of the clips that she had recorded of those two and built about an hour’s worth of music out of them. A Finger Curled, who was lost in the Attack, and Beholden To The Music Of The Spheres, who quit out of despair one week later. It was her threnody. It was her wailing song.”</p>
<p>Readers, I am not ashamed to say that I cried again. How could I not, after all? I had met Beckoning and Muse, before, myself. They had invited me over some few years before the Century Attack to let me research their gardens. They had fed me a dinner of pasta with zucchini, and a desert of zucchini bread, for their harvest was too large by far. We had sat out on the deck and looked out over the grass and the little raised beds that Beckoning had tended for a century or more and, although my paws itched to return home to write, we spoke until long after the sunset on our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears.</p>
