update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/full.html

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                 <h1>Zk | full</h1>
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-                <p>Once upon a time there was–</p>
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+<p>Once upon a time there was–</p>
 <p>&ldquo;A king?&rdquo; my little readers will immediately say.</p>
 <p>No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a woman. She was not a fine woman, not a prize to adorn your arm or to set beside you at the head of a grand table, but a simple woman — the kind we pass on the street and imagine some plain home life for. She has a house, one might think. There are floors and walls and windows, there are tables and chairs and sofas and beds. There is a shower and a claw-footed bathtub. There is a creaky step — the eighth — that she always swears she will fix.</p>
 <p>We must imagine such a woman happy. We must imagine that she has friends and that she goes and drinks okay wine or maybe strange cocktails with them at the most absurd bars. We must imagine that she comes home, wobbling slightly with each step, with some other simple woman on her arm. We must imagine sharing their kisses, being happy together.</p>
@@ -73,6 +75,8 @@
 <p>This is why The Woman had so much trouble with clothing, you see. She would try to look deep within herself at her moods to see what it is that she felt and how it was that the day might go and she might come up with a pretty skirt that felt good on her legs and a lovely shirt she liked the look of, but then, some time later, the shirt would be puffy with fur and the skirt would not sit right with her tail.</p>
 <p>No rituals. No overflowing. Just peace. It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?</p>
 <hr />
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 <p>The Woman decided to go walking one day. Perhaps she was driven by restlessness. She had an errand to run, sure, but this day she decided to go out walking rather than perform this task at home or simply blip into being at her destination. Perhaps she was bored! I do not know. </p>
 <p>Either way, she was feeling good and she was feeling stable and she was feeling feline, so she found herself a nice set of slacks to wear over her legs, ones that looped up over the base of her tail in such a way that the same would be just as possible with a skunk&rsquo;s tail, and yet which would not fall down for those moments when she did not have a tail. </p>
 <p>She found herself a nice shirt that felt good on the fur and which would not look too weird if she poofed out into a skunk. It was not her favorite shirt, I am sure, otherwise maybe she would wear it every day, but it was good enough. It had the word &lsquo;fiend&rsquo; scribbled across it in angular, glitchy graffiti, and The Woman is absolutely allowed to feel like a fiend some days.</p>
@@ -163,6 +167,8 @@
 <p>My astute readers will surely have picked up by now that I am riding that edge here, in these words.</p>
 <p>But, ah! This story is not about me. I am not quite overflowing yet, and The Woman most certainly is not. She is reveling in the warmth of sunlight and the dance of bees and the tickling of dandelions against her ankles and the purringly soft touch of friendship.</p>
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 <p>The turn away from joy was slow and, at first, unnoticeable.</p>
 <p>The Woman did all that she could to hang onto joy whenever it slipped into her life. We all do, do we not? When I find a bakery that serves delectable treats, for instance, I will eat in the tiniest bites I can get away with — nearly crumbs! — just to let the joy of such a treat linger longer on my tongue. The woman did this with her own joy, you see: she would cook these lovely desserts for herself and her cocladists that she might store up joy in carefully sweetened and delicately decorated cupcakes or muffins or cookies or brownies. Joy, it seems, is stored in the chocolate, and so she doles that out to those who deserve joy — and The Woman knows that even she deserves joy.</p>
 <p>But even like me with my little tasty baked treats, The Woman&rsquo;s joy is parceled out bit by bit to herself and her cocladists and, just like my little plates of carrot cake — I <em>do</em> love a good carrot cake! — there is never an infinite amount, much as she might wish, nor, it always seems, quite enough.</p>
@@ -222,6 +228,8 @@
 <p>Once more, Her Cocladist rested her cheek carefully on her hand or paw or perhaps both. &ldquo;If there is aught else aside from our lot in life, I would desperately like to know. I am not sure I believe that there is. If the seventh stanza exists to provide us with therapy, then we exist to give them clients. If they need suffering to fix, then we must suffer.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>The Woman sat in silence along with Her Cocladist after that, and the house was as as silent as it ever was, and the only noise in the kitchen was the lazy bubbling of a pot on the stove wafting the scent of some mild curry throughout the kitchen, and The Woman wrapped herself up in that scent and took what comfort she could from it as she thought on Her Friend&rsquo;s words some days ago, all but confirming Her Cocladist&rsquo;s sentiment about the seventh stanza, and what it meant that such might also be true for her stanza, the tenth, and her thoughts bubbled as lazily as the pot on the stove and The Woman sat in that silence with Her Cocladist, and the house was as silent as it ever was.</p>
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 <p>The Woman lingered long on the words of Her Cocladist: <em>aught else aside from our lot in life.</em></p>
 <p>What <em>was</em> her lot in life? What was <em>a</em> lot in life? Was she limited only to one thing? Was she bound to stasis? And what, then, did it mean that a seed had been planted within her and had lately begun to sprout? What of her thoughts on eternal stillness? </p>
 <p>She knew where they came from. </p>
@@ -359,6 +367,8 @@
 <p>They lay together for hours after, talking and touching. They moved to the bed and The Woman who was a skunk or a human or a panther brought such pleasure as she had been given to Her Lover, and at last they slept, and the undefinable remained undefined. There was joy in that touch, in that remembered love, and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her — and she would let her — and that, too was a joy. And still, there between joy and fear&hellip;</p>
 <p>There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with touch and sensuality and sexuality was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.</p>
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 <p>Some of my readers may be wondering why it is that I know so much about The Woman. </p>
 <p>&ldquo;How does she know all of this?&rdquo; some might be wondering. &ldquo;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?&rdquo; Others might be wondering — and rightly so! — &ldquo;How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman&rsquo;s innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>My answer is that tired phrase: &ldquo;It is complicated.&rdquo; 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>
@@ -447,7 +457,6 @@ that this must be the case.</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>
 <p>I cried, and through it all, The Woman sat in kind silence.</p>
 <!-- -->
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 <p>When, now for the second time, I was able to sit up straight again, able breath slowly, able to look at The Woman instead of my paws as I covered my face, I bowed to her and said, &ldquo;Thank you for telling me these things. I did not realize just how much I needed to hear them.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
 <p>The Woman&rsquo;s simple question left me all the room in the world to admit that I did not know. I think that until she asked it, I was not quite sure why, myself. I <em>had</em> needed to hear those things but, yes: why? I do not think I would have been able to tell her as part of my statement, but that syllable forced my thoughts into order in a way that they are not as I write this, six years later.</p>
@@ -533,6 +542,8 @@ that this must be the case.</p>
 <!-- Warmth discusses art with EoE -->
 
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 <p>The Woman has always been The Woman. This is the way of the world.</p>
 <p>The Woman was born Michelle Rachel Hadje in 2086. On a March night, she was born. Anna Judith Hadje screamed and screamed and breathed and breathed and breathed and, with a gasp or sigh or groan or moan, Michelle graced the world, took a breath and, after a scant few seconds, wailed.</p>
 <p>The Woman does not remember this, for how many of us remember our first breath, our first wail? She does not remember, but the fact is unassailable. From that point, she <em>was</em>. </p>
@@ -618,6 +629,8 @@ that this must be the case.</p>
 <p>I dreamed, though! I dreamed of words like leaves and sentences like branches and stories like trunks, standing solid, with premises like roots dug into logic like earth and drinking of emotions like water. There was the tree, yes, for there was the green of the words and the brown of the story and the deep darkness of logic and emotion.</p>
 <p>And above was the sun which was also The Dreamer who dreams us all.</p>
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 <!-- Maybe this is just an interlude as she comes down from overflowing and not actually part of the tasks. That way it can keep its place. -->
 
 <p>When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.</p>
@@ -924,6 +937,7 @@ that this must be the case.</p>
 <p>What will become of me?</p>
 <p>Friends, I do not know, I do not know. Friends, all I can do is lock the door and make sure my mug of mocha will not empty and pick up my pen and put it to the paper and brush my cheek fondly against my graphomania&rsquo;s wrist and listen to its cloying words and simply dance. Do I need help? Should I seek out No Hesitation? Should I ask My Friend? Should I ask you, gentle readers? What will happen if I do? What will happen if I do not? What will become of me?</p>
 <p>I am full of wonder and I am full of terror and I am trembling and I am asking myself you The Woman Her Friend My Friend my graphomania my pen my paper my dear, <em>dear</em> readers: what will become of me, and am I born to die? And am I born to die? And am I born to die? What will become of me? And am I born to die? What will become of me? What will become of me? What will become of me? What will become of me? And am I born to die? And am I born to die? What will become of me?</p>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2024-07-12</p>