#I LOVE IT THOUGH. PHYSICAL PROOF OF WHAT HE'S SACRIFICED TO STAY ON EARTH. GET CONSEQUENCED BABYYYY

[gravelsong]

Optimus shaving off a massive chunk of Cybertron and not dropping it into the ocean was not a part of my bingo card for this issue

[icarianfate-blog]

Something that’s very important to me and I don’t budge on is Regulus’s continued attachment to his family and connections in the elitist pureblood society. There’s a few reasons for this, which I’ll go into here.

1. Life is Messy

Did Regulus grow thanks to his exposure to the darkest parts of his community, the reality behind their beliefs and his views become less bigoted over time? Yes. But the fact he no longer views muggleborns as filth doesn’t eradicate a lifetime of indoctrination, a need for human connection, a justified fear of rejection, still loving your family even when they’re awful, or utterly pragmatic needs like business partnerships. He’s not Sirius or Andromeda, for Regulus utterly removing himself from the society they were raised in is not an option. Life is messy and sometimes you’re the liberal-ish gay cousin at christmas dinner trying to fend off war flashbacks because your baby cousin just said the word “lake”. 

Regulus -- like Draco -- became a Death Eater at 16 and in canon died at 18. By the end of the second war Regulus is 36. He saw and did terrible things at an incredibly young age, then had to totally restructure his whole world view alone with no one to really talk to about it and rebuild his entire life-- all while dealing with the physical, psychological and social consequences of his actions. While it doesn’t take him long at all to mellow out, it does take him longer to defrag his ideology and figure out what the hell he does believe now and how to express those new beliefs accurately. Basically the man’s a mess and that’s really to be expected.

2. Portraying the Spectrum

I also feel it’s very important to have people who fall more on the “Bad Side” who are well, not so bad. While on paper these topics are very black and white in reality they’re not always so clean cut. Something I’ve always hated about Harry Potter is that until about the last 2 books there’s basically not a single “Good” Slytherin even mentioned let alone seen. Yes there are people like Severus who are there from the start, but he’s not revealed to be a “Good Slytherin” until the very end, the rest of the time he’s portrayed as one of the worst ones. This always just pissed me off so much, it’s just such an unnecessary and trite demonization of a whole group-- worse, a group of children. Yes it’s the most likely place for the Dracos of the world to end up, but that doesn’t mean every single child who was ever sorted into it is a Death Eater in the making. But we never see those Slytherins and it really, really pisses me off.

Regulus is not a “Good Person” in the sense he was always secretly good and eventually ~~broke free of the evil mind control and is now Pure again~~. I hesitate to even call him a good person honestly, even though his last and only canon acts speak to someone who is unwavering good and self-sacrificing. In his youth he genuinely believed in some truly terrible things but he had his own inherit limits and morals he could not sacrifice even for his family and their beliefs. That’s important, not everyone on that side is a Bellatrix, and while being less awful than Bellatrix doesn’t exactly earn you a medal it does speak to the spectrum. He’s not the best, but he’s definitely not the worst. 

By the time the first war is over Regulus is on a knife’s edge at the near perfect center of the spectrum between acceptance and bigotry. He’s proof that a Slytherin coming from the most stereotypical, toxic pureblood upbringing with all the classic Slytherin traits can still buck a lot of the script and actually manage to not be a complete bastard. 

3. Never Burn Bridges You Could Still Use

In true Slytherin fashion, we come to a manipulative, Game of Thrones-y  reason. This is one of the key reasons for him IC and also one of the things I think can be difficult for people to get or swallow. Where most people likely feel that the only correct option would be to pull a Sirius and disown the family-- that they themselves could never stomach putting up with all the heinous things these pureblood types say and cannot imagine someone who doesn’t believe it doing just that for any reason-- the fact is that’s not always the right move, and that there are people who can do it just fine. 

Regulus isn’t a fool. He’s the well-educated, intelligent son of a rich, prominent pureblood family with lots of connections all over the place in the wizarding community who got sorted into the “win or die trying” house. Publicly renouncing half or more of those connections is frankly a terrible idea for him to do on so many levels. He loses a LOT of power, access and leverage he could actually use to do things that could actually be a boon in the long run. While unlike Severus he wasn’t --and likely doesn’t become a spy ( though that is up for debate )-- those connections could be vital for his continued survival and provide a means of keeping tabs on enemies. 

Why on earth would he run around making enemies of everyone he could still use? How does that help anyone? Especially when he’s already mastered the art of placating and maneuvering these types of people.

4. Love, Sentimentality and Loyalty are just as Powerful Weaknesses as Strengths

Something we actually get from canon is that Regulus is an unquestionably loving, loyal and compassionate person. When he has Kreacher take him to the cave he drinks the potion, he sacrifices himself. This is not something someone who is not at their core compassionate, empathetic and loving does. He saw the effects the potion had on Kreacher, he heard what he had gone through, and when the time came he refused to make the elf go through that again. 

"And he order-- Kreacher to leave-- without him. And he told Kreacher -- to go home-- and never to tell my Mistress-- what he had done-- but to destroy-- the first locket. And he drank-- all the potion-- and Kreacher swapped the lockets-- and watched ... as Master Regulus ... was dragged beneath the water ... and ..."

"[...] that Regulus changed his mind ... but he doesn't seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus's family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all." "[...]  I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did ... and so did Sirius." [...] I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's ...

This core of kindness and empathy is both what ended up causing him to defect and also what keeps him tied to what family and friends he has left. It’s hard, especially when you are so loyal and loving to cut out people who you’ve known your whole life, who you love and love you back. Bellatrix is a monster she’s easy to cut out but Narcissa? How could he really cut ties with one of his only living relatives, who’s likely his favorite cousin? Who is herself a fiercely loving and loyal woman? It would take a lot for him to finally cut ties with his loved ones still in the purist community and it’s frankly one of his greatest failings. 

5. No One likes a Former Death Eater

The cruel fact of the matter is that regardless of your reformation most people will not accept or acknowledge it and treat you like you are still a monster. Regulus could try -- and does try-- to integrate more with the mainstream, but it’ll always be met with mixed success at best because he was a Death Eater. Unless he moved to a different country, it’d be difficult to really start over again completely with any real solid success. The majority of the wizarding world socially ostracizes him while still engaging with him on a business and political level because of his status. The only people who still want to have a cuppa with him are all in the same boat as him, bigots or purist sympathizers. 

He’s human, and however much he’d like to gripe about people and wanting to be left alone forever to become a hermit he craves interaction, especially since he himself is an intensely social extroverted person. If he cuts these people out of his life he basically has no one to talk to anymore and he’s left totally isolated, which would frankly lead to much worse and dangerous places for him. 

6. Someone here has to be the Voice of Reason

Having literally no one in that community who isn’t a total nightmare is asking for trouble. Not only because it allows the toxicity to stew and intensify unchecked but it also means no one is there to try and help the younger generations break free of the cycle. If he just left like Andromeda and Sirius he’s just making it worse by removing a more moderate voice from the communal discussion. It’s not even about trying to show them the error of their ways, that’s in fact a terrible way to go about things with people like this. It’s about diluting the toxic ideology, providing the less dangerous paths and laying out the framework that can act as the basis for someone else’s journey out of the quagmire. 

For example, when looking at cults and hate groups, the worst way to reach those people is by trying to point out everything wrong and arguing with them, it only entrenches them more. You make more progress by staying close and quietly slipping in the information and tools they need to work things out themselves. Telling someone they’re in a destructive cult will get you nothing, but telling them about this book you read about some terrible cult and all the signs of one you learned from it and isn’t that just wild? These people are bad news huh? Here give it a read yourself-- Is far more effective in the long run. 

By being there he acts as a moderate, neutral adult figure who the children can both model and look to for support. He’s much safer than most of their families and willing to be the sounding board for their own debates and give advice from a place of having literally been right where they are now. He can act as a mid-point between the extremely insular and toxic pureblood community, the mainstream wizarding world, and thanks to his time in hiding, the muggle world for purebloods looking to escape or just broaden themselves.

[dfroza]

eternal gold.

what are you striving to achieve in this temporal life, this short breath that you have been given in a physical body? you are here for a purpose.

and Paul writes of this as we see in Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the Letter of First Corinthians with chapter 9:

And don’t tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I’m perfectly free to do this—isn’t that obvious? Haven’t I been given a job to do? Wasn’t I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren’t you yourselves proof of the good work that I’ve done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can’t deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!

I’m not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don’t seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master’s brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don’t milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail?

I’m not just sounding off because I’m irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, “Don’t muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it’s threshing.” Do you think Moses’ primary concern was the care of farm animals? Don’t you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don’t we who have never demanded deserve even more?

But we’re not going to start demanding now what we’ve always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ. All I’m concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.

Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.

I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

The Letter of First Corinthians, Chapter 9 (The Message)

and in the paired chapter with this of Genesis 22 we read of an odd request made of Abraham concerning his son Isaac who was a promised seed given to him and his wife Sarah, although God provided an alternative sacrifice rather than allowing harm to come to Isaac, and in the process a mirroring (a foretelling) is seen of how God was willing to offer His Son as a sacrifice in the place of our sins, which is the significance of the cross that occurred in the same place many years later that culminated as a sacred act of grace.

[Genesis 22]

After a period of time, God decided to put Abraham to the test.

Eternal One: Abraham!

Abraham: I am right here.

Eternal One: Take your son, your only son Isaac whom I know you love deeply, and go to the land of Moriah. When you get there, I want you to offer Isaac to Me as a burnt offering on one of the mountains. I will show you which one.

Abraham did as he was told. Early in the morning he got up, saddled his donkey, and taking two of his trusted servants with him and his son Isaac, he cut the wood for the burnt offering and traveled to the place God had told him about. On the third day of the journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place far in the distance.

Abraham (to his servants): Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to meet you here.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and set it on the shoulders of his son Isaac to carry. Abraham himself carried the fire and the knife. The two of them walked on together.

Isaac (to Abraham): Father!

Abraham: I am right here, Son.

Isaac: Look, we have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

Abraham: God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

The two of them continued to walk on together.

When they finally arrived at the place God had shown him, Abraham took some stones and built an altar there and arranged the wood carefully on top of it. Then he bound up his son Isaac with rope and laid him on the altar on top of the stack of wood. Just as Abraham reached over to grab the knife that would kill his son, the special messenger of the Eternal One called his name from heaven.

Special Messenger: Abraham! Abraham!

Abraham: I am right here!

Special Messenger: Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to harm him. I know now that you respect the one True God and will be loyal to Him and follow His commands, because you were willing to give up your son, your only son, to Me.

Abraham glanced up and saw a ram behind him with its horns caught in the thicket. He went over, dislodged the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering in the place of his son. From that day forward, Abraham called that place, “The Eternal One will provide.” Because of this, people still today say, “On the Mount of the Eternal, all will be provided.”

The special messenger of the Eternal One called out to Abraham yet a second time from heaven.

Special Messenger: Listen to the solemn vow the Eternal One has spoken: “Because you have done what I asked and were willing to give up your son, your only son, I will reaffirm My covenant of blessing to you and your family. I will make sure your descendants are as many as the stars of the heavens and the grains of sand on the shores. I reaffirm My earlier promises that your descendants will possess the lands and sit in the gates of their enemies, and from your descendants all the peoples of the earth will discover true blessing. All this is because you have obeyed My voice.

Then Abraham returned to the place where he left his trusted servants. They traveled together—Abraham, Isaac, and his servants—back to Beersheba where Abraham lived on for some time.

After this happened, Abraham was informed that Milcah had also given birth to many children by his brother, Nahor. Uz was the firstborn, then came his brother Buz, Kemuel (Aram’s father), Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel. Bethuel fathered Rebekah. Nahor, Abraham’s brother, had eight children in all by Milcah. Not only that, but Nahor’s concubine (whose name was Reumah) also gave birth to Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

The Book of Genesis, Chapter 22 (The Voice)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Tuesday, february 18 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

[gedwimora-arc]

Reposting this instead of just reblogging this from Regulus’ main bc it’s Very Long and I originally made the choice to not cut it because of its importance, which was fine for his main but on here it’s a bit much imo. So naturally I’ve had to repost in order to cut.

Something that’s very important to me and I don’t budge on is Regulus’s continued attachment to his family and connections in the elitist pureblood society. There’s a few reasons for this, which I’ll go into here.

1. Life is Messy

Did Regulus grow thanks to his exposure to the darkest parts of his community, the reality behind their beliefs and his views become less bigoted over time? Yes. But the fact he no longer views muggleborns as filth doesn’t eradicate a lifetime of indoctrination, a need for human connection, a justified fear of rejection, still loving your family even when they’re awful, or utterly pragmatic needs like business partnerships. He’s not Sirius or Andromeda, for Regulus utterly removing himself from the society they were raised in is not an option. Life is messy and sometimes you’re the liberal-ish gay cousin at christmas dinner trying to fend off war flashbacks because your baby cousin just said the word “lake”.

Regulus – like Draco – became a Death Eater at 16 and in canon died at 18. By the end of the second war Regulus is 36. He saw and did terrible things at an incredibly young age, then had to totally restructure his whole world view alone with no one to really talk to about it and rebuild his entire life– all while dealing with the physical, psychological and social consequences of his actions. While it doesn’t take him long at all to mellow out, it does take him longer to defrag his ideology and figure out what the hell he does believe now and how to express those new beliefs accurately. Basically the man’s a mess and that’s really to be expected.

2. Portraying the Spectrum

I also feel it’s very important to have people who fall more on the “Bad Side” who are well, not so bad. While on paper these topics are very black and white in reality they’re not always so clean cut. Something I’ve always hated about Harry Potter is that until about the last 2 books there’s basically not a single “Good” Slytherin even mentioned let alone seen. Yes there are people like Severus who are there from the start, but he’s not revealed to be a “Good Slytherin” until the very end, the rest of the time he’s portrayed as one of the worst ones. This always just pissed me off so much, it’s just such an unnecessary and trite demonization of a whole group– worse, a group of children. Yes it’s the most likely place for the Dracos of the world to end up, but that doesn’t mean every single child who was ever sorted into it is a Death Eater in the making. But we never see those Slytherins and it really, really pisses me off.

Regulus is not a “Good Person” in the sense he was always secretly good and eventually ~~broke free of the evil mind control and is now Pure again~~. I hesitate to even call him a good person honestly, even though his last and only canon acts speak to someone who is unwavering good and self-sacrificing. In his youth he genuinely believed in some truly terrible things but he had his own inherit limits and morals he could not sacrifice even for his family and their beliefs. That’s important, not everyone on that side is a Bellatrix, and while being less awful than Bellatrix doesn’t exactly earn you a medal it does speak to the spectrum. He’s not the best, but he’s definitely not the worst.

By the time the first war is over Regulus is on a knife’s edge at the near perfect center of the spectrum between acceptance and bigotry. He’s proof that a Slytherin coming from the most stereotypical, toxic pureblood upbringing with all the classic Slytherin traits can still buck a lot of the script and actually manage to not be a complete bastard.

3. Never Burn Bridges You Could Still Use

In true Slytherin fashion, we come to a manipulative, Game of Thrones-y  reason. This is one of the key reasons for him IC and also one of the things I think can be difficult for people to get or swallow. Where most people likely feel that the only correct option would be to pull a Sirius and disown the family– that they themselves could never stomach putting up with all the heinous things these pureblood types say and cannot imagine someone who doesn’t believe it doing just that for any reason– the fact is that’s not always the right move, and that there are people who can do it just fine.

Regulus isn’t a fool. He’s the well-educated, intelligent son of a rich, prominent pureblood family with lots of connections all over the place in the wizarding community who got sorted into the “win or die trying” house. Publicly renouncing half or more of those connections is frankly a terrible idea for him to do on so many levels. He loses a LOT of power, access and leverage he could actually use to do things that could actually be a boon in the long run. While unlike Severus he wasn’t –and likely doesn’t become a spy ( though that is up for debate )– those connections could be vital for his continued survival and provide a means of keeping tabs on enemies.

Why on earth would he run around making enemies of everyone he could still use? How does that help anyone? Especially when he’s already mastered the art of placating and maneuvering these types of people.

4. Love, Sentimentality and Loyalty are just as Powerful Weaknesses as Strengths

Something we actually get from canon is that Regulus is an unquestionably loving, loyal and compassionate person. When he has Kreacher take him to the cave he drinks the potion, he sacrifices himself. This is not something someone who is not at their core compassionate, empathetic and loving does. He saw the effects the potion had on Kreacher, he heard what he had gone through, and when the time came he refused to make the elf go through that again.

“And he order– Kreacher to leave– without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home– and never to tell my Mistress– what he had done– but to destroy– the first locket. And he drank– all the potion– and Kreacher swapped the lockets– and watched … as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and …”

“[…] that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn’t seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus’s family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all.” “[…]  I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius.” […] I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s …

This core of kindness and empathy is both what ended up causing him to defect and also what keeps him tied to what family and friends he has left. It’s hard, especially when you are so loyal and loving to cut out people who you’ve known your whole life, who you love and love you back. Bellatrix is a monster she’s easy to cut out but Narcissa? How could he really cut ties with one of his only living relatives, who’s likely his favorite cousin? Who is herself a fiercely loving and loyal woman? It would take a lot for him to finally cut ties with his loved ones still in the purist community and it’s frankly one of his greatest failings.

5. No One likes a Former Death Eater

The cruel fact of the matter is that regardless of your reformation most people will not accept or acknowledge it and treat you like you are still a monster. Regulus could try – and does try– to integrate more with the mainstream, but it’ll always be met with mixed success at best because he was a Death Eater. Unless he moved to a different country, it’d be difficult to really start over again completely with any real solid success. The majority of the wizarding world socially ostracizes him while still engaging with him on a business and political level because of his status. The only people who still want to have a cuppa with him are all in the same boat as him, bigots or purist sympathizers.

He’s human, and however much he’d like to gripe about people and wanting to be left alone forever to become a hermit he craves interaction, especially since he himself is an intensely social extroverted person. If he cuts these people out of his life he basically has no one to talk to anymore and he’s left totally isolated, which would frankly lead to much worse and dangerous places for him.

6. Someone here has to be the Voice of Reason

Having literally no one in that community who isn’t a total nightmare is asking for trouble. Not only because it allows the toxicity to stew and intensify unchecked but it also means no one is there to try and help the younger generations break free of the cycle. If he just left like Andromeda and Sirius he’s just making it worse by removing a more moderate voice from the communal discussion. It’s not even about trying to show them the error of their ways, that’s in fact a terrible way to go about things with people like this. It’s about diluting the toxic ideology, providing the less dangerous paths and laying out the framework that can act as the basis for someone else’s journey out of the quagmire.

For example, when looking at cults and hate groups, the worst way to reach those people is by trying to point out everything wrong and arguing with them, it only entrenches them more. You make more progress by staying close and quietly slipping in the information and tools they need to work things out themselves. Telling someone they’re in a destructive cult will get you nothing, but telling them about this book you read about some terrible cult and all the signs of one you learned from it and isn’t that just wild? These people are bad news huh? Here give it a read yourself– Is far more effective in the long run.

By being there he acts as a moderate, neutral adult figure who the children can both model and look to for support. He’s much safer than most of their families and willing to be the sounding board for their own debates and give advice from a place of having literally been right where they are now. He can act as a mid-point between the extremely insular and toxic pureblood community, the mainstream wizarding world, and thanks to his time in hiding, the muggle world for purebloods looking to escape or just broaden themselves.

[katef-m]

California, month six | that great strong land of love

Apartment twenty, early January 2017. C arrives in a rainstorm, late the first evening, and we brew tea immediately. The new place is a mess: floorboards awash with scattered q-tips and dustballs and broken clothes hangers, strange objects huddled in corners (a china monkey money box, an elephant-shaped watering can, a half eaten bag of cough drops, a dented can of chopped green beans), the rooms heavy with the cloying odour of a four-week full bin. All day I'd cleaned and unpacked. I wiped, dusted, sprayed, filled bag after bag with rubbish, and swept the floors with a plastic orange brush I bought at the Japanese dollar store. When I'd arrived that morning, shoulders burning after carrying my bags up to the second floor, it took all my willpower not to sink into the bottom bunk's bare rubber mattress and sob. Everything was so dirty, and I was adrift in unfamiliarity again. But instead I put on some music, rolled up my sleeves, and got to it. By the time C's at the door, the rooms are a little more habitable, and when I hear her moving about in the living room, putting the kettle on, it already feels like home. Peace and sun, those first few days. Golden hour is ridiculous from the window of our new room. Last semester I could see the Sather Tower and used its hourly peals to structure my day; now I can watch the hills behind campus, the way they reflect the sun at dawn and dusk, the way the small houses at the top wink in the dark. Day trips to the city. Waiting for the bus with 7-Eleven coffee and donuts. Loafing at the top of Bancroft with thermos flasks as the sun dips. It's warm enough to sit outside, though you'll need a scarf. It doesn't feel like any January I know. Getting tangled in freeways on the first few half-marathon training runs. Saturday afternoon at the farmers' market. Everybody outside in warm blue. Herb bundles in bicycle baskets, a girl in dungarees with fruit under her arm, that sort of thing. Fresh bread and sunshine. So far, January in California feels like April in England, and I am very much ok with that.

When Trump's sworn in nobody wants to look. I'm at work, anyway, and I have to make smoothies for a bunch of Trump supporters. The peanut butter scoop shakes in my hand. Later we race down Telegraph towards Oakland to catch the tail end of the inauguration day protest. Police in riot gear wait along Oakland's peripheries as the protestors head towards the city centre, yet all is peaceful: downtown we're met with free pumpkin pie, not tear gas or stun guns. The air isn't charged the way it was on election night, not raw with pain, yet the voices are louder, more defiant. The following morning we make signs from cardboard boxes raided from the recycling bins. NASTY WOMEN UNITE. VIVA LA VULVA. GRAB 'EM BY THE PATRIARCHY. The San Francisco bus is full of students: it almost feels like a school trip: there's not much traffic on the bridge: a parade of children forced on a pro-life march drift past the bus windows and we all get angry: and then we're in a one-hundred-thousand strong crowd at Civic Center, a damp fierce knot of umbrellas and battered signs and fists. It's International Women's Day. In the dusky rain we march and sing, and are filled with hope. 'I refuse to call him president,' says the elderly lady sitting next to me at Caffe Strada a few days later. Solace, as ever, is sought in the words of my favourite poets. Thousands of miles away in Australia, Bruce Springsteen speaks out against Trump's Muslim Ban. 'America is a nation of immigrants,' he says, 'and we find this anti-democratic and fundamentally un-American'. And then there's Langston Hughes:

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed -- Let it be that great strong land of love

Alternative coping mechanisms are also available: homemade cocktails (White Russians and hibiscus gin), playing every song that ever existed, dancing on chairs into the wee hours. Federer winning the Australian Open, his eighteenth slam at the age of thirty-five. Saturday evening at the marina with friends, sitting on the rocks by the water to witness a sunset too beautiful to hold on to. Faces and hair lucent with golden light.

Most of all though, a visit from my mum. Spring semester is relentless. The workload is final-level-Tetris heavy. 'I don't know what I'm writing,' I complain to C one night. 'I'm two letters into a word and I don't know what it's going to be yet.' Classes almost doubled, I take the early morning shifts at work. The alarm's set for that pre-7am no man's land, but as a night owl, sleep is unavoidably sacrificed. I learn to survive on five or six hours, but this hallmark of adulthood won't stay with me long: as soon as school ends and life slows down in June, my nine hour nightly dosage resumes. For now, though, daily life has changed hugely. Yet the change itself occurred unnoticed, giant and silent in the corner of some room I might've walked through once. I no longer have time to burrow deep into the frivolous recesses of my brain; every scene passes by too fast, like trying to take a picture from the window of a speeding train. I think I like it this way, though. It's true: the busier you are, the more you do, and the more you do, the more you want to do. Mum arrives the night of the Milo Y riots. As I open belated Christmas presents in her Airbnb apartment we hear the rumble of helicopters over Telegraph. My social media feeds erupt with footage of fires and bangs. 'Berkeley's not always like this,' I feel compelled to point out more than once. The streets are scattered with debris and people smoke against makeshift wire fences, eyes bright, bodies still charged. Walking to work the next morning, the physical effects of the riots are clear in the cold eye of dawn. Anti-Trump graffiti embellishes the walls of the bank, a building made 'riot-proof' in the sixties. On campus, trees are singed black at the tips, the Amazon locker room windows smashed in, and the hulking jumble of burned tech equipment sits sooty in the middle of Sproul Plaza like some kind of contemporary art sculpture. Mum's staying in the 'Purple House', a wood-walled ground-floor apartment in Elmwood. I love staying there with her, love the non-student perspective on Berkeley life it provides. We shop in Whole Foods and cook together, finish morning runs with coffee. I show her the campus, the streets, the city across the bay. I introduce her to my friends and my favourite bus routes. She keeps me company on coffee shop study dates and buys me the enormous slice of apple pie I've been eyeing all year. It is a special twelve days.

After days of rain, the sun returns and Mum finally sees the California I've been raving about, the clear blue skies, the dazzle at the ends of streets and hilltops. We spend her final weekend in San Francisco. Resistance posters have appeared in windows both sides of the bay, and in the Mission District, Four Barrel's coffee cups come stamped with the words 'Resist Fear, Assist Love' in rainbow ink. Catch the bus to Haight-Ashbury. Get coffee at Stanza, or Flywheel, which sits at edge of the neighbourhood where Golden Gate Park looms dark. The Goodwill store is messy, and 80% junk, but if you hunt hard you'll find things at a tenth of the price of other Haight thrift stores. There's a real good bookstore somewhere along the street: you'll find it. Buena Vista is all steps, but catch another bus a little south, as the roads start to climb. It'll only take you halfway up; when you alight, follow Twin Peaks Boulevard as it snakes uphill, and eventually you'll reach the carpark and viewpoint at the top. Most people drive up to Twin Peaks but it's better to watch the view unfold gradually, angles and gradients shifting, until the rusted tips of the Golden Gate Bridge poke out above buildings and cloud to your left, and the entire city arranges itself around you, better than any virtual map could. You'll finally understand the confusing geography of San Francisco, how the multiple grid systems shuffle against each other, the dance of streets and hills. You'll note the physical relief of the landscape, from the smooth natural contours of the earth to the tall stubbed cluster of the financial district. The white buildings shine pristine in afternoon light, so that the entire city looks celestial. And all of it held by the water beyond. From the peaks of the city, move to its edges: ride the Muni all the way through Sunset out to Ocean Beach, and watch the sun sink softly into the water. Everybody will stand motionless on the sand to watch, as if it's a drive-in movie. Colours will drift about and alter the look of the water, sand, and air. Deep sky blue, viridian, turquoise, champagne pink, peach, apricot, tiffany, pale indigo. To heighten the liminal magic, you have the beach's routine haze and majestic scale: the height of the waves, the sand's expanse, how the scene looks both stretched out and zoomed in, like so much of the American landscape.

* * * Songs: month six Fluorescent Adolescent  /  Arctic Monkeys Get Lucky  /  Daft Punk Wild World  /  Cat Stevens Christmas in February  /  Lou Reed Pacific Theme  /  Broken Social Scene Stolen Dance  /  Milky Chance Mother & Child Reunion  /  Paul Simon * * *

California so far:

California, month one | in and out of the game

California, month two | the dust settles

California, month three | your lows will have their complement of highs California, month four | throw comfort out