diff --git a/content/notes.md b/content/notes.md index 9b97e65..d7bff10 100644 --- a/content/notes.md +++ b/content/notes.md @@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ I spoke of this with writer friends, and one of them, the ever delightful Seras Now here I am, once more coming down from my overflow, once more feeling somewhat grounded, the world around once more made of things which are not yet more words, and I have to contend with the reality that this remains, for the most part, a funny little note, and that this story no longer quite reads as that real-boy-to-inanimate-tree pipeline, tired trope that I am sure it is. +Instead, I must hope that The Woman has indeed escaped such a cycle, and I must hope that those along her way were in some roundabout way the bodhisattvas in her life. + ## Part 2 #### \[...\] *am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?* @@ -147,7 +149,9 @@ Cf. Slow Hours: > Incontestible,\ > Unmoving and always changing. -#### 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. +## Part 5 + +#### *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.* Cf. Dwale: @@ -160,12 +164,28 @@ I will admit, my friends, that I had considered penning in the rest of this poem And I am raw, far too raw, to tell it. -## Part 5 - #### On The Child's paintings I have written extensively on these hyper-black shapes that The Child paints and more about her besides in [*Motes Played*](https://motes-played.post-self.ink). A little book for little skunks, yes? For she deserves her story told --- and just so! Just like this! A tale written in a style befitting her --- as much as does The Woman. +#### \[...\] *all the world's a horror.* + +Cf. Shakespeare + +> All the world's a stage,\ +> And all the men and women merely players;\ +> They have their exits and their entrances \[...\] + +"As You Like It" act II scene VII + +#### \[...\] *through a glass darkly.* + +Cf. 1 Cor 13:11-13 (KJV) + +> 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. + +((Maybe more from the chapter? I also had a thought about A Scanner Darkly but forgot)) + ## Part 6 #### *Why do birds, as the poet says, suddenly appear* \[...\] diff --git a/content/prelim/005.md b/content/prelim/005.md index f1ac5c6..0e2dd0a 100644 --- a/content/prelim/005.md +++ b/content/prelim/005.md @@ -319,8 +319,169 @@ I nodded. "I would agree with that, yes. You speak of a way of being. You speak We sat in silence for a minute or so, simply enjoying our mochas — readers, by now you must know that we are nothing if not ourselves — while we each considered the direction of our conversation. It is not comfortable for me to be unable to address a thing that I feel I ought to be able to. When presented with a problem that even sounds like it *might* be within my bailiwick, if I cannot, it is in some key way dysphoric to me. The best I can manage, as I did then, was to recast the problem into a conversation. It does not remove the dysphoria, for I still have not solved anything, but it has set it aside, perhaps just in the other room. There is a selfishness in me. At last, I said, "Would it be alright if I were to invite over Warmth? It is my beloved up-tree, of course, but ey also has thoughts on this that may help us find inroads to your fulfillment." + +The Woman smiled and nodded. "By all means, please do." + +We are the most of us not tall women, just as Michelle who was Sasha was not tall: just a little over a meter and a half or, as our literature professor described her in class after she read some saccharine ode by John Keats, "Miss Michelle Hadje, five foot four." + +That *most* that I have written just now is doing much work, however. Several of us are taller. Why, I remain just an few centimeters taller than Michelle who was Sasha stood, but I might just as easily be mistaken for her when she appeared as a skunk, so similar are we. Oh! And The Oneirotect's sometimes-partner, Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know, towers over me by a head. + +Several of us are shorter. The Child, as you will see, is understandably shorter. My little readers who sit cross-legged on carpet squares, perhaps you can picture her, for she is precisely as I have named her: a child. + +The Oneirotect, my beloved up-tree, is not a child, and yet she is small. I think she is small enough that some would perhaps confuse her for one in the same way that The Child is a child, and I think that this may indeed be a little bit of transgression in which ey revels. She is tiny, perhaps even smaller than The Child, perhaps only one meter high! + +It also has within it a level of energy that may well contribute to this childlike nature. It zips and zooms and careens off walls as easily as does The Child — easier, perhaps, for even if she is only a few centimeters shorter, she is far more slender, far more lithe, borderline wiry, and she embodies the jitteriness that one might assume were I to call her 'critter'. + +But no, ey is not a child. The Child owns that identity for herself. She leaned into the youngest sister of the fifth stanza, she owned *youngest* as meaning childhood, as was her choice. The Oneirotect, however, is simply the most recently claimed line, and is thus the youngest of all Odists with a snippet our superlative friend's words to call its own. Ey lack the being-a-kid-ness and dwell instead in eir own transgressiveness: their fur is mussed and seemingly perpetually stained with the colors of grass and dandelions, her personality is as untameable as the unruly mane atop her head, and its care is as boundless as its emotions. + +They are *all* of our youngest sibling and she is my beloved up-tree. + +*"Warmth, my dear, would you be able to spare a fork to join me for a conversation with End Of Endings?"* I asked via a sensorium message. + +*"Oh!"* came the immediate reply. *"Oh, of course! I have not spoken with her in too long. Right now?"* + +*"If you have the bandwidth, yes."* + +Rather than reply to my message directly, ey simply blinked into being in the entryway of my little townhouse. Had I some other guest over, perhaps it would have skitter-scattered and bounced around as it at times did, but you will remember, dear readers, that The Oneirotect was well acquainted with the tenth stanza, and knew well that they dwelt comfortably in calm and quiet, and so she simply stepped lightly toward us, forking as ey went to pad up to both of us and give each us both hug. I leaned down to give a kiss between the skunklet's ears, ruffled up its already quite tousled mane, and smiled as she quit. + +"Hi, End Of Endings," they said, smiling up to The Woman. + +Once she had straightened up after returning the hug, The Woman smiled back down to them. "Warmth In Fire, it is lovely to see you, as always. How are you keeping, these days?" + +((Warmth answers. Perhaps they are dreadfully earnest. Perhaps it is evasive, and quickly asks about the conversation.)) +I asked my beloved up-tree, "Perhaps you could speak to what it is that you actually *do* my dear. What is it that you enjoy?" + +"I am an oneirotect," it answered. "A construct artist, if you must be such a bore. I think of myself most of all as ((a nostalgia something or other))." + +The Woman tilted her head in that way so familiar to us. + +"Nostalgia? Is there a draw to that for you, or is that something you find others hungering for?" + +The Oneirotect, ((clearly delighted by my question)), brought its paws together ((over the table)). "*Yes\!*" + +It let ((the humor of that comment)) stew for a moment before ((actually answering my question)). "In the first decades of the System, it was necessary to create the *stuff* that makes up our consensual dream, yes? We desired to eat, but none had yet dreamt of food; we wished to surround ourselves with cherished *things*, but even the platonic form of such did not yet exist. + +"I find joy in creating these constructs — these ((examples/hendiatris)) — but most of all I enjoy the research that ((such work requires))." + +"I see," The Woman said. "So you worked on early foods, then? On staples, or on more beloved things?" + +"I see you have done your *own* research, my dear." It offered a little bow, beaming up at The Woman. "I favor culinary constructs *now*, but that has only become the case since I met Codrin. ((Something something "Why not REDACTED? Aren't they the fancy chef?")) + +"That said, I *did* begin with ((obscure \[this choice of words is too white for someone with Warmth's background to be indulging uncritically\])) fruits\! Most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the time I began exploring oneirotecture, but there remained numerous ((gaps in the available selection of constructs)). That experience was *most* formative." + +"I suppose this is where the nostalgia comes in, then, yes? Reaching back for the things that others loved, rather than simply ate out of necessity?" + +The Oneirotect tilted its head, ((cute ear lopping over etc etc)). "It is not as if none before me had dreamt of food ((like grandma used to make)), but what I offered was particularly attuned to that, yes." + +"You speak of research and gaps in selections and beloved meals," I said. "It sounds like you speak most of all of making things for others, or for *all*, rather than for yourself." + +"For others, then. ((I love you,)) Rye, but that bit of ((communalism)) did not come until *much* later. No, instead I drummed up interested parties from the feeds ((commissions, Rep still meant something back then, nostalgia, food unfamiliar to Warmth, etc))" + +"…These foods were unfamiliar to me, you see, and that is where research ((comes into play))…" + +"…For commission; Reputation still meant something back then, of course, and I was still dipping my toes into instance artistry before Dear forked, yes?" + +((Somewhere in here: Note on System as Artistry)) + +There was a moment of silence as The Woman parsed this, her gaze distant. When her focus returned, she said, "'Before Dear forked'? Am I to infer that this is when you were Rye? Or am I missing something in the cladistics?" + +"I am not the first to be named Warmth In Fire," it answered with a note of melancholy. + +There was such a pang within me that I had not felt in ages, for The Oneirotect was right. There was some years back, some centuries back, another Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. And then, one day, there was not. ((Rye maybe goes on a bit about her feelings on this)) + +The end result, however, was that she was lost to us. She was gone from us. Her art *took* her from us, it *killed* her. Such is the danger of art, dear readers: it takes as easily — more easily\! — than it gives. + +((Present-day Rye has a moment about this)) + +"Ah," The Woman said, her expression falling subtly — nearly too subtly to notice but by this point, I was quite focused on everything about her. "Right. I remember hearing of a death within the clade early on. Systime ((X)), was it?" + +I nodded. "But by then, ((it who would become)) Dear had been forked, and so ((Warmth filled that vacancy))." + +((EoE remembers this? "Ah, right.")) + +((Warmth struggles to speak at first, caught up in emotion. It was Dear at the time, and watched as who-was-Warmth as she descended into despair and, eventually, quit.)) "I am that which was left behind when Dear chose to forget the Name." + +"I sat with a good book while it took that dire walk between skunk and fennec, and when it returned, it had become something unrecognizable to me. I could see the direction it took, but not the road it followed; it had become something alien, and the prospect of disappearing after that felt rather a lot more like *dying* than *becoming*, and so I chose to yield my name to it — for that Dear was that of me who had *already* become, yes? — and spent some months working to earn the name Warmth In Fire." + +((Warmth adds some detail to what is already known to EoE, i.e. that Dear forked from it, that it was the backup fork, that it took on the name Warmth In Fire because that line had been vacated by another up-tree of Rye's.)) + +The Woman furrowed her brow in that ineffably still way of hers. "I remember that there was talk within the clade about names, yes, and the general shape of what had happened, that there was some furor about the fact that a down-tree might accept a later line than an up-tree, though I never did understand the import that some placed on that." There was a smile, a hint of a bow, and a quiet addition: "You are so incredibly yourself, though, I cannot picture you as a Dear, and certainly not as a fennec." + +((Warmth visibly masters a note of annihilation upon hearing this. It hurts to hear, *and* EoE is completely right)) "When I stepped from that sim, I did so with the commitment, both to myself and to it, that *what* was Dear had changed, and that *who* was Dear must embrace that." + +"I am unsure, however, that I have ever quite addressed the fact that, often when I hear about Dear from others, there is a rankling within me. Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly bad about myself, I feel like it stole my very name from me. I feel like a leftover, a shadow on the floor of the stage of my own show." + +"The clade will ever be as it is," I said, tagging along with that thought, "which is a bunch of crotchety old creatures with a fixation on names that borders on neurotic. Do not doubt that this applies to our stanza as well." + +The Woman laughed. + +"There were those within the clade who fussed and fussed and fussed, and I would be remiss if I did not say that we had — and, as Warmth mentions, continue to fuss — about the role that names play in identity. We will ever be who we are, though, yes? + +((convincing the clade to let her become new-Warmth despite all the bitterness of such)) + +((Warmth spends some time pensively structuring its thoughts, trying to reclaim some sort of agency before it falls into a negativity spiral; that topic is always especially difficult to stumble across, and it had already started to recite some of those familiar phrases it so often repeats)) "You have come to Rye and I searching for ((joy and creativity)). I wonder: What do you imagine yourself to be, End Of Endings, other than the only one living there I get to call *kitty* from time to time?" + +((Note for editing: How is Warmth showing their affection for/familiarity with the tenth stanza in particular here? How is it grappling with the awareness that EoE is here seeking something other than em dumping its life story on her?)) + +The Woman laughed — and what a blessing a laugh is in comparison to a smile\! — and, with no effort expended on her own part, fell right into that very shape: a kitty. Kitty\! And what a delightful little name. You will remember, my friends, that not every instance of her changing shape was occasion for weariness or discomfort; she fell joyfully into felinity, into this pantherine shape. "I *like* that you call me kitty, my dear," she said, still smiling. "And I am always happy when I think of becoming such as occasion for you to do so." + +((something?)) ((It beams, smug and sly, *not* very Dear — it is very *Warmth* because while it inherited that quippiness, it lost Rye's motherly warmth; Warmth In Fire did not. Here is Warmth being warm. Here is Warmth being insightful and supportive. Here is Warmth taking control for End Of Endings's sake. Here is Warmth looking for some way to stop traumadumping on EOE and start guiding her closer towards self-understanding, towards a resolution, towards peace.)) + +"But no, I imagine myself being other than just She Who Is Kitty From Time To Time. I imagine myself as someone who has found a purpose within her life other than, as Rejoice put it, simply being one who is built to suffer. Suffering may well be inescapable, but would that I were aught else than She Who Suffers." + +"Is that what you feel you are now, my dear? Do you not find joy in each day? Each hour? You, and all the others in that melancholy home of yours, have committed to perhaps the world's direst bit, but it is *worth* it, in the end, is it not? There is still tomorrow, and the opportunity it offers, is there not?" + +The Woman sat with this in thoughtfulness, her expression perhaps now distant, perhaps now curious. Her gaze drifted from my beloved up-tree to me, and then somewhere over my shoulder, out toward the far wall, toward the door, and then panned once more over toward the windows, where the leaves of spring fluttered in a pleasant visual static. + +When once more her eyes returned to us, her expression had settled into what, I do not know exactly. Pensive? Introspective? I cannot say, dear readers. I cannot say. + +"I do feel joy, yes. I think that one of the things that sparked this train of thought was actually one such case of joy. I visited No Hesitation for a simple coffee date, and from there I was left with joy that lasted. It was a comfort to me." The faintest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth. "No, it was not just a comfort, it was a thing I clung to jealously, and when I felt that it was being slowly parceled out to others at home — for they too deserve joy — and when I was asked about it by Ever Dream, I felt as though it was slipping away from me with no recourse. Is joy to always do such? Is every time I receive such joy, is it only to slip away?" + +((Warmth seems uncomfortable with this sentiment, that joy is fleeting. It has worked *so* hard to become able to appreciate the joys it has, despite the equally-ephemeral agonies it suffers at the hands of perfectionism and impostor syndrome.)) "It will always be true that you shared that comfort together, End Of Endings," ((she said, my own maternal concern echoed in its voice, so many hours spent helping hold eir head above water while they wallowed in a spiral of self-loathing.)) "What is it that slipped away?" + +"The…" The Woman started, then immediately fell off into silence. There was a frown on her face, though it was one of concentration rather than consternation. "What it feels has slipped away is the possibility of the permanence of joy, or even joy that lasts longer than suffering. I suppose that is what I am seeking in this exercise. I am seeking joy that lasts. Even if not forever, I am seeking joy that lasts. I am seeking intentionality in joy. I am seeking agency in joy." + +((Warmth is along for the ride up until the word *agency*, when it scrunches up its face and rears eir head back as if someone had pressed on the tip of her little nose. How often has ey struggled for its own agency? How often pawing feebly at a thing for years and years and feeling as if nothing it made met its own standards? How often wallowing and feeling helpless but to wallow? How often caught in a spate of ineffectual pining, of disinterest born of despair, of the sort of pain that festers and festers until she broke down into tears and overflowed?)) "Is the pain as well not itself as fleeting? Does it not fly away in the wind when a gust of joy blows your way? Does despair not crumble at the feet of relief, euphoria, pleasure? Is it not dashed away on the rocks of even one moment of the right kind of comfort?" + +((Warmth falls silent for a moment, gaze drifting outward towards those very same leaves as caught the Woman's eye.)) "It is still worth it, is it not? It *must* be worth it, or else all the world's \[sic\] a horror." ((something something we all go quiet while Warmth grapples with its silently tearful emotions.)) + +Here, my friends, I must explain something. I must explain the Warmth In Fire before The Warmth In Fire. I must explain The Sightwright who is no more. + +It is as my beloved up-tree says: we also suffer. Have I not spoken of such? Of course I have\! I cannot but\! I cannot help myself in this. + +The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman does((did?)). It was so long ago that they left us, left me, and though I remember, I remember through the lens of centuries, through a glass darkly. They suffered because of their art. They suffered because of the world around them. They suffered perhaps because we are all built to suffer. + +They suffered as do my beloved up-tree and I, but they also suffered as did — I must explain, also, or perhaps remind — Death Itself and I Do Not Know. + +They quit. + +They suffered too much. They *were*, and then they *were not.* + +I must explain and I must remind to set before you the context of what The Oneirotect said next. ((we'll edit it in post)) + +((Warmth's tears do not ebb before ey speaks. No, in fact, they flow and flow, a cascade of emotion trickling and then creeping and then washing across its face.)) "There has been enough of death in the clade, my dear," ((it plead, wiping its eyes to no avail. Ey pulled eir paws away from eir face, looking appalled at the strands of spit and snot and salty tears.)) "Please tell me that you do not intend to quit," ((it croaked through another sob.)) + +The Woman smiled, and this smile was not a blessing but a benediction, and it was not for me but for solely The Oneirotect. It was my job only to witness this smile, this validation of pain. "No, dear one. I do not intend to quit." She let these words hang there in the air before us, a monument to such an intent. "No, I am seeking not just meaning but purpose. I have explored meaningful things and pleasurable things, but now I wish to explore direction." + +((Warmth is not the Child, but my beloved up-tree is also my very own little one. \[not enough here. elaborate\] So overcome by the gross reality of a good, hard cry was it that ey could not help but laugh at emself.)) "Oh, good\!" ((she managed, sucking back what ick she could.)) "I will hold you to that. If you quit, I will wipe this snot all over your headstone\! It will cake itself between the grooves of your epitaph. It will dry there in the cracks and no dandelions will grow upon its stony bed; it will be the *worst*\!" + +((Naturally, we wonder who the Warmth before Warmth was. What did they do? What were they like? Did they suffer? Is this something we omit to keep the reader salivating because Idumea is not about Warmth?)) + +((Rye tells us about this so that we have context for Warmth's guess. For what Warmth says next. Warmth points out the elephant. "Are you planning to quit?")) + +((Now we are getting into Samsara vs. escape, the question of whether joy is worth the pain, the question of whether EOE is willing to be content with what joys she has in exchange for occasional suffering)) + +((A bit more coziness)) + +"A reminder, that art is not strictly joy, but also suffering," I cautioned most gently. "With art comes fear. There is suffering of a sort in failure. There is suffering in falling short, as well; even if you succeed in an endeavor in your own eyes, you may feel the pain of lack." Despite her expectant silence, I held up a paw as though to forestall comments, for even movement is communication. "You are strong, End Of Endings, and *I* know — I think *we* know — that you are up to such a task, but I must remind you as well." + +((Art is suffering — we know that The Woman wants out of suffering)) + +((What does it mean for Warmth to fail? Callback)) + + -----

Notes