every injured soul needs a silent hand to hold

I visited Mirror at long last, for the art installation It Was a Blur.

This has actually been up for three weeks now, but I've been so busy the past few days. I needed some quiet.

This? Is that quiet place you seek. This is that still center point. This is a blur--of motion, of time, of decision.

Static.

In some places there are poses. In some places there are things to buy, things to look at.

There are a series of notes, each more or less in a spiral, walking outwards. They're small, and you can pick them up and take them with you.

I plan on scattering mine on a small isle I know...

I know I will need to come back again. I've been there twice, to that distant, vague space, suffused with white and grey. I'll need to return at least once more.

There are birds, there are boxes, there are clouds. There is mist. There are lit bricks along the pale path. There is industry and evaporation. There might be music.

There are two figures, standing in the haze. One carries the other. Are both looking up, or only one? It's hard to tell.

I stand behind them, peering through the cold, pale mist. I read the words, endlessly rotating, around the procession of figures.

Don't be afraid..

Okay.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, "Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself." This is that space. This is that moment.

There is a tattoo for sale, on the ground, as all the items are, moments of slightly brighter color against the white. It says, Everything's going to be all right.

I bought it, even though I only wear one tattoo, and have nearly since I arrived on the grid. But it seemed important to own.

Everything's going to be all right. Yes. But right now...it's a blur.

Become part of Blur while it's here; you have until the 16th of August. Then remember it when it's gone. All good art touches us, and then departs, or we depart from it. This one, I have a feeling...will linger.

and I need your love the most when I least deserve it

So many in my life promise impossibility. They know it, I know it, but I accept it every time. And it slices deeper every time it happens--"I hope I never let you down" from one; "I will always love you" from another; "I will never leave you" from a third. On and on it goes, ringing through changes and variations, where the core of the offering is always We cannot be parted.

And it's not just rejection and revolution, anger and deceit, regrets and lost causes; sometimes, the shock is in the severance. One day there, in my heart or in my arms; the next day gone by flood or lost to ammunition, keen and cutting, or overwhelmed by their own personal losses as they watch their life spiral crimson over bone.

And I admit, I have been waiting, breath perhaps only in secret held, for the words to be said: "You are my only love" or "I will always be there" or any similar variation.

Tonight, the analyzing machine that comprises part of me turned in the initial report of many months of observation: that none of my current loves have ever said this. That most of them, when asked, admit the possibility of leavetaking. That there is acknowledgment that things happen, in a life, that circumstances change, that we could drift in differing directions...in short, that life may happen in our lives, and even parting must be provided for in its own time.

The closest any have ever come to ringing through those particular changes? "I don't intend ever to give you up, if I can help it." Which admits to strong intention, but also subtly acknowledges (at least, to my thinking) that intention may not match action.

There is a curious purity, a moment of crystalline comprehension, when the wall of the glass heart is tapped just enough to shimmer the air with that piercing, ringing tone of understanding. I can accept this, I think to myself, deep in the shrouded shadowed places where I think. I can believe this. This much is true.

There may well be partings to come, of one or two or all, but that will be dealt with in time. The small somber sliver of spirit, soberly standing guard (hah) can relax, at last, and accept this with such grace as we know how to express. This, also is new ground; new and uneasy territory for me, for I am profoundly unused to standing and unsuspecting in any way.

But I will learn. This, also, I will learn: how to simply love, and know that love returned, and not fear dissolution.

A toast, then, to personal growth. And perhaps, just perhaps, a wee dram of the good stuph kept reserved for growing up. It has taken me far beyond far too long for this.

and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head

when I'm done with thinking, then I'm done with you.
when I'm done with crying, then I'm done with you.
when I feel so tired, then I'm done with you.
everybody feels this way sometimes, everybody feels this way--

The night's dark, and it's cold. I stand on the streetcorner and I look up and watch the moon go dark. I remember nights where this bothered me. I remember nights where I rejoiced. I remember nights where I never gave a thought to it, I was busy with other things.

It happens so often. Anyone can get distracted. Not notice. Be occupied with something else in the life. It's life, after all. So much goes on in a life.

and I do.
you can't hear it, but I do
you can't hear it, but I do

The night's dark, and it glitters. The lights dance around me, red, hot orange, bright green, glowing blue. We dance, through the colored lights, moving to the beat which compels us to move faster, moving until sweat runs from our limbs like rain and the drums command every heart to beat in pattern. We are together in this, the flame crackle is what all our ears hear, the night song moves us all as the drums beat and the dancers step to the pattern we all know.

The dance is life. The dance is survival. The dance is the choice to live again.

you're trying to convince me that what I've done's not right.
I get so frustrated, I stay up every night.
you ask me for an answer, and I'm so tired and I'm up in the air,
I'm up in the air
you know, everybody feels this way sometimes, everybody feels this way--

Light and shadow, dark and bright, we are all these things. I say I live in the shadows, out of the light, and that's largely true. That doesn't mean where I live is wrong. That doesn't mean where I live is evil. That doesn't mean I spread out from the heart of it, corrupt and indistinct, pretense of love gone viral, pretty mask hiding damnation.

No one's damned, unless they want to be. There's always a choice.

and I do.
you can't hear it, but I do.
you can't hear it, but I'm feeling this way
just because you say:

And yes, sometimes that choice hurts. Life hurts. Sometimes life deals us greater hurt than any single entity could ever do; and it takes time to come back from that pain, more time to reach the point where inhaling doesn't feel like drowning, where movement isn't agony.

But it can be done. Day by day. Hour by hour, if need be. And we, we social creatures we, we living members of the same consciousness, we cannot do it alone. We die if we try.

Though that, that is our choice, too.

I will be ignored.
I will be denied.
I could be erased.
I could be brushed aside.
I will get scared, and I will get shoved down,
but I feel like I do because you push me around--

And I go to Morgaine to remember how to breathe. I go to Rivula to remember how to smile. I go to Penzance to remember decisive action. I go to my loves to remember how to heal.

And everywhere, everywhere I go, I carry with me what I know, what I don't know, what I'm learning, what I've forgotten. And I've left the train wreck behind.

I'm starting to ignore you, I've doubted you so long.
I'm tired of over-thinking, I know you don't belong.
now I'm asking questions--no one pushes me around.
everybody feels this way sometimes, everybody feels this way--

I know it's there, it won't leave. It's too much a part of me. I know it will roll down the tracks again, at some point, if for no other reason than it's the largest symbol I have in my arsenal symbol-set, all those ideas and concepts and broken dreams.

But it's not rolling now. It's not moving. I'm moving. And I'm moving forward.

You may not see it, but I am. You may not understand it, but I am. You may not approve, but I am.

And you're only left behind if you want to be. You can choose to travel and learn--with me, or learn by yourself, or learn from others on the same path. Or you can stay and nurse your hurts where the hurts started.

It's your choice. It was my choice, too.

And I chose to listen to pain for far too long. Now I listen to the world.

and I do.
you can't hear it, but I do.
you don't seem angry, but I do.
I do.

(Lyrics are from Lisa Loeb's song I Do.)

straighten up and fly right

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings..."

Shakespeare said this, through the lips of Portia, in The Merchant of Venice.

On occasion, mercy is withheld, and blistering sun besets us all, to torment with burning zeal.

Ever so often, though, the weather changes, the clouds gather, the mists rise, and mercy rains.

I am ill-enough used to such places, I breathe carefully in them, anxious not to disturb, lest all cool mist on places burnt and burned is blown away.



I have much to write on, much to think on, much to reflect on. It may take me days to organize it all.

But in the meantime...I sit here, for my reflections.

It is a very, very good place. It is a healing place. It is a gift.

And it's mine. Mine, and my architect scientist's, my creator of automated toys; mine, and my fellow shapeshifter lady, my well of quiet strength.

The train wreck?

Never came close to here.

back from a far horizon

Sometimes, when things shift, it's hard effort--straining against another language, and suddenly losing to it, and rising from where one was thrown, touching everything, and hearing another name for it. Wrestling with ideas, trying to force them into pattern, and suddenly having the pattern become clear.

Sometimes the shift is paradigm.

I count the hours
you count the days together
we count the minutes in this passion play
walk dusty miles
and I ride that train
on a first class ticket
just to be with you again

Thrown up on the far shore, and the train moved against all expectation for the broken thing it had become. It moved slowly, to be sure, chugging nearly painfully into the mountains, laboring into the heights.

It's not going to be easy, I think, and I'm not wrong. I could get out and walk faster. But we keep going, it's important, essential, vital in some sense, this current psychopomp.

picking up tired feet
back from a far horizon
cleaned up and brushed down
dressed to look the part
fresh from God's garden
I bring a gift of roses
to stand in sweet spring water
and press them to your heart

I cling to the struts, fighting for reason, fighting against sleep, fighting until we find a good resting spot, and begin trying to slow the train down from "ridiculously slow" to "barely moving" once I see the sketch against the mountains that might be, just might be, a refueling station.

We crest the curve of the hill like cresting along the wave, and I'm hoping for a slow descent to shore, rather than crash. Never know with trains, but we're slowing, we're slowing, we're coming to a stop...in time.

like the Kipling cat
I walk alone
never inviting trouble
never casting the stone
but this badge of honour
is of tarnished tin
light your guiding beacon
to bring this fisher in

Endless pained hours later, it turns out I was right. Small little town, looking abandoned, but there's the refueling station, and I see water and coal, and anything else, I can work around. Empty, but it doesn't bother me, I've been alone before.

There's always a work-around.

picking up tired feet
back from a far horizon
cleaned up and brushed down
and dressed to look the part
fresh from God's garden
I bring a gift of roses
to stand in sweet spring water
and press them to your heart

More hours to live through, endure, accept, crawling the town for repair metals, hissing at the touch of bare iron on my skin. Wood and copper, ivory plates under the counter of the tea house, wire and leather straps from the stables, corset lacing from the mercantile.

It'll be patchwork, but ironically, that's appropriate. I set to work.

I count the hours
you count the days together
we count the minutes in this passion play
walk dusty miles
and I ride that train
on a first class ticket
just to be with you again...

The day's set, the moon's out, new day explodes into bright light again, before I'm close to done. Wiping sweat off my forehead with the sleeve over one arm, it's hard work. Grueling in spots, and some spots are going to be open for a while yet, simply because I couldn't find enough pieces. And the structure's weaker for it, but maybe that's all right, too.

I don't have to be strong for everything. Train still rolls. We're good. We can rest the day and pick up travel tomorrow.

I put the hammer down on the sheet of copper I was curving around a strut. I'll get it later. Now, it's time to find a bed, and I think the old hotel will do me fine.

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Caution and revelation both. Absolution granted, responsibility given. We'll get through this.

I track down an old quilt in a hope chest, dragging it over me on the least bedsprung bed in the place, wrapping around myself the smell of old cotton and cedar. I lay my head on the goosedown pillow, breathing becoming slow and deep in the late afternoon sun.

I may dream. I may not. But the nightmares are gone. For now, I'm very thankful, and not thinking beyond that for now. Time enough to work out the details later.

Always time. With faith and trust. Always time...

(Lyrics are "A Gift of Roses" from Jethro Tull. And of course, the sonnet...is Shakespeare.)

what are you doing New Year's Eve?

(The following is a press release from Radio Riel. Yes, it's a press release, but it also sounds like great fun, do come if you can.)

The Caledon Gaiety Company, Prim Perfect Magazine, Radio Riel and Riel Events cordially invite you to celebrate New Year's Eve in the Independent State of Caledon at the:

Gilded Age Masqued Charity Ball

It will be held at the Gaiety Theatre in Caledon Penzance, the sim I'm proud to name as my second home on the grid.

Join us--I say us, I'm working as a host for two of these events!--for an all-day extravaganza of formal balls, live auctions, silent auctions and "best dressed" contests! Let's celebrate the new year and give to a worthy cause - "Gardens of Hope"!

* 4:00AM - 6:00AM SLT - Sydney/Melbourne New Year's Eve Ball
* 2:00PM - 3:00PM SLT - Live Charity Auction
* 3:00PM - 5:00PM SLT - London New Year's Eve Ball
* 8:00PM - 10:00PM SLT - New York New Year's Eve Ball
* 10:00PM - 11:00PM SLT - Live Charity Auction
* 11:00PM - 1:00AM SLT - San Francisco New Year's Eve Ball

The Silent Auction will run for 24 hrs starting at 1:00AM SLT December 31st. You can view, and bid on, the items for the Silent Auction in the glass pavillion just south of the Theatre.

Attire: Formal gowns and suits from 1850 - 1910 with masques
Or whimsical, yet tasteful, Victorian period costumes with masques

L$500 awarded to both Best Dressed Lady and Gentleman at each event!

The event hosts are donating all auction proceeds to "Gardens Of Hope", an organization that builds greenhouses, tree nurseries, and more in Lesotho, Africa. These gardens are then used as a source of food, firewood and income for several communities in this Southern African nation.

For more information visit Better World Island on the grid, or Gardens of Hope on the net.

In case of Sim crash or unbearable lag, we will have Coughton Court in Caledon Carntaigh open for the event as well. Guests can enjoy the simulcast of the event, view pictures of the Silent Auction items, and dance free of lag!

Do attend! It sounds like grand fun. I'm working the four to six ayem gig, and then, because I thought it was on the first and got confused, working during New Year's Eve, here. Oops. Ah, well. :) Still fun for all!

preach all you want but who's gonna save me?

Okay, this is serious. I need an old priest, and a young priest.



Talk about your out of body experiences...and then, I lost my arms.



Beyond strange adventures on pose stands, it's been fairly quiet. I had some time today and spent it building, getting four new items--three variations on one facial piercing, and one pack of all three--up on Kartiny, so I have this tidy little sense of accomplishment now.

I admit this--I need to talk about change, I need to talk about consequence, and above all, I'm nearing the middle of the month where I need to start thinking about rent, which is the why behind the spurts of building, but...I have this...peace, and I don't want to disturb it.

Eleven months I've been on the grid, eleven months I've been learning, exploring, interacting, surviving, and...I've never had peace. I've been happy; I've been in love; I've been giggly and playful and exultant and content.

But this...this peace...deep and spreading through me, the pool of still clear water, nourishing me down to the roots I no longer acknowledge, and...I just want a few more moments, where I am on absolutely steady ground, before everything lights on fire again.

That's all I want.

But instead, I get Exorcist moments in sandboxen. Go figure.