#LETTERS FOR MARÍA MY BELOVED

[heleneplays]

sobbing my gay heart out over the ending to a fic i will never post:

No, soft won't ever be the right word to describe María.

But in her embrace, Helene is safe. With María, Helene finds home.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

María Casares (Ladies of the Park, Orpheus, Children of Paradise)—Spanish-born French actress María Casares was a distinguished star of French stage and screen, appearing in notable films like Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise, Robert Bresson's Les dames du Bois de Boulogne, and (my favorite) Jean Cocteau's Orpheus as the unforgettable enigmatic Princess/[spoiler]. She's one of those people who just kept getting more beautiful as she aged because the depth and richness of her personality and the interesting life she lead shows in her expressions. She had a long and stormy affair with Albert Camus and they wrote each other a lot of passionate and poetic letters that you can look up if you're into that sort of thing.

Lotus Long (Tokyo Rose, Last of the Pagans, Think Fast Mr Moto)— Look at those doe-like eyes! Her abundant hair! Her perfect Cupid's bow!

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut—spoiler for Jean Cocteau's Orpheus included, if you don't want to be spoiled don't click this]

María Casares:

In Orphée she's death and he falls in love with her. She also dated Camus and they'd write things like "My thoughts are the color of your hair. Monday and a few days thereafter, they will be the color of your eyes."

[cheesecake-clown]

I’ve got another angsty ggg timeline called Hiding!AU, where the gangs fucks up so bad they gotta hide away, fake names included. To make this easier for María, tho, they all get to share a week with her.

Gang’s fake names and occupations:

Ace: Giuliano Bassanini (bassist for a pub band)

Snake: Christopher McLellan (librarian assistant)

Grubber: Ignatius Halls (antique shop keeper)

Billy: William Wilde (animal shelter worker)

Arturo: Javier Buendía (hairdresser)

Mané: Aurora Robledo (mural artist)

María’s fake names to go with the gang’s ones:

Ace: Ester Pinciotti.

Snake: Isobel McLellan.

Grubber: Clementine Sanders.

Billy: Rosemary Wilde.

Arturo and Mané: Yolanda Buendía.

p.s: María usually receives trinkets and letters in the mail that say “for our lovely isobel. love, snake” “For little princess Yolanda with love, mami y papi” “From Grubber, with love, to our beloved Clementine” “FOR OUR LITTLE ROSEMARY XOXOXOXOXO BILLY” “For our little girl Esther xoxoxoxoxox ♠️”

I love how Billy keeps the William

That's lowkey cute how they keep the names in letters dude

If I had to have 5 separate names I would forget my own BAHHA ain't no way WHAT DID THESE BROS DO

Ignatius on Grubber goes so hard

[dsimsdecades]

My dearest María Isabel,

I hope this letter finds you well. It has been a while since we heard from you. We miss you all so much and are longing to see you again.

We have enjoyed a few productive seasons here at the farm, which keeps Antonio and the boys busy fulfilling orders for the tavern. Pretty soon, he will broaden further. I wish you could see him; he is thrilled with the business, and it brings me joy to see him so happy and fulfilled. He recently unveiled his latest wine blend for Ángela's birthday. It was delicious; he has outdone himself, and the customers have taken quite a liking to it, keeping us on our toes with a surge in orders. 

Now that Ángela is older, she helps more around the house, although her true passion lies in playing her violin. I wish you could hear her; she plays with such elegance. The house is always brimming with life and energy, with her music and little Andrés Rogelio running about. He's a rambunctious little boy, and he keeps Magdalena and Francisco quite busy. 

The house will soon become livelier, as Magdalena will give birth any day now. Francisco and her are anxiously awaiting to meet their new bundle of joy. I pray all goes well and that she gives birth with no complications this time.

Andrea will also bring forth another child soon. She is radiant; motherhood truly suits her. Please do write to her; I'm positive she would be over the moon to hear from you. Whenever we talk, she never fails to mention how much she misses her beloved big sister.

Meanwhile, Sebastián is lost in a world of dreams these days. Caroline Beaufort has returned to the island after many years away, and he seems quite taken with her. His conversations invariably revolve around her, and while it can be a bit overwhelming, it warms my heart to see him so elated. He plans to invite her to our end-of-season gathering, which promises to be the grandest one yet. I eagerly await the joyous laughter of all my children and grandchildren here at the farm. Yet, it won't be complete without your presence, my love. Please consider visiting us soon. We would all be delighted to see you. 

Please convey my affection to Alejandro and the children.

With all my love and affection,

Your Mamá,

Isabel Sánchez

Beginning | Previous | Next

[serafiel-jacobs]

I write sins not tragedies (Fanfic)

Murder Mystery Au 💌

The maid had entered her room to tell her that breakfast was ready and the scream was heard all across the mansion. María’s father rushed downstairs to see the commotion, to find the dead body of his beloved daughter, the blood filling her bedsheets, her blue eyes were still open staring at her chest, where a dagger used to murder her was still stuck to her body.

Gabriel Jacob was devastated, he held his daughter's body until the police came and he had to be removed from her body.

His daughter was only 23 years old.

Her body was so cold and stiff due to the rigor mortis.

The police analyzed the scene and they found the notes, or rather what remained of them, most of the writings had been burned but not all managed to be consumed by the flames. The notes that talked about the petrification disease, that mentioned the experiments, that mentioned the plans.

María Jacob was a young alchemist, she rose to the ranks so easily and swiftly that everyone saw her true potential, and how she could change the field of alchemy. But if you were to ask her loved ones, her true passion was writing, she would write letters to those she held closer to her heart.

Her now cold dead heart.

——

“Who was the moron that murdered her?!”

Simon was furious, one job, that person had one damn job and they didn’t do it right. “If I find out any of you send someone else to kill her ruining this plan, I swear I will make you wish for death”

Everyone in that room had never seen Simon like that, he was calm and collected, manipulative and sly. He had already found the information from the one who was supposed to carry her death, the man poisoned her, they had planted the fake suicide letter, and after hours of torturing the man who poisoned her, in the end, it was true. That all was according to plan.

Yet the suicide letter was never found.

Not only that but her Ergo had been extracted from her body.

So that means someone else went and killed her and the only ones that had a grudge against her were other alchemists.

This meeting had all high-ranking members of the alchemists present, as well as Laxasia next to Simon’s side.

“Please Simon we aren’t stupid,” Paracelsus said while rolling his eyes, but he could understand his frustration, there wasn’t enough evidence to convict any of them for their crimes but the police were now on their trail, if it was found out that they are responsible for the petrification disease…

“Don’t play games with me Paracelsus” Simon hates how that man never takes anything seriously.

“I’m not playing games… this time”

Simon was frustrated, he had worked so long for this, his life goal, his destiny to become a god and it could all be ruined because of this.

They needed to find out which alchemist was responsible for this, and they needed to do it fast.

——

“Father I’m home,” Carlo said, he was living with his father now that he graduated and was training to become a stalker, he wanted to find a place to live with Romeo but his father insisted on him coming back home.

Carlo could tell that his father wanted to fix their relationship, and Carlo wanted to try to fix things too, he does love his father but sometimes it’s hard, because of everything that happened.

Geppetto came out of his workshop.

Of course, even at home, his father is always working.

“How was training?”

“It was fine”

“Were you a good boy?”

“Father I’m not 10 years old anymore” Carlo was embarrassed but his father gave him a smile.

“Well, not everything was fine…” Carlo gave out a deep sigh, “I found out one of my friends died”

Maybe he and María weren’t that close but it still hurt to hear about her passing, worst of all was finding out how she died.

“Oh, I’m sorry son… which of your friends was it?” His father asked with concern in his voice.

“It was María” His father knew her, he had seen her on a few occasions. María was the daughter of an important Judge in Krat, last year was when both of them met her at an event that his father forced him to go to, and since then, they have seen each other a few times.

His father was quiet, really quiet. Carlo saw a few tears coming out of his eyes.

Carlo had shed a few tears as well, but he didn’t though his father was fond of her, their conversations were always so short, just simple greetings.

Geppetto took a deep breath and got closer to his son and gave him a hug, Carlo hugged him back for a few minutes before letting go.

“Sorry for changing the subject like this but, there is a faire coming next week, I was wondering if you wanted to go,” Geppetto thought that this would be a good idea for a father and son bonding time.

It’s an annual faire, his father had only taken him once when he was a child, other times he had sneaked out of school to go with Romeo; he was planning to go with Romeo this year as well but, Carlo could see that his father was making an effort and he could go one day with his father and another with Romeo.

“Sure, we can go”

“That’s great” Geppetto played with his son’s hair, and Carlo was embarrassed again.

When was this energy when he was a child?

“I’m going to be in my workshop if you need anything, I’ll come out to have dinner”

Seriously? Not even trying to have casual conversations anymore?

“Ugh, whatever the old man is trying,” Carlo thought to himself.

——

Geppetto was exhausted from all that work, but this was something important, something that he had to do.

He closed the box, he would have to continue later, for now, he would safeguard this project.

It was almost time for dinner, he should go and make something for himself and Carlo.

Before leaving, Geppetto picked up a piece of paper, a letter, and many more letters were stacked next to it, he had been reading those letters.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Geppetto my beloved, I understand your concerns, but I love you, I truly do.

I don’t care about the fact that you are older than me, I have fallen for you and I know that you have fallen for me as well.

Please don’t feel guilty about the love you hold for me, I was the one who confessed first, I was the one who looked for you.

I want to keep writing to you, I know our relationship must be a hidden one, but, isn’t that a little exciting?

Maybe we can’t be together, maybe this isn’t meant to be, but for now, let’s ignore that. For now, let me show you all my feelings with these writings.

I await to see you again with all my heart.

-With love, María ♡

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Geppetto buried his face in his hands.

He loved her, he killed her.

But he had to do it, there was no other choice.

[luthienne]

Hello honey, i'm Jacqueline.

Do you recommend poets or poems that talk about death, depression or grief and about love too?

I am in love, if I can call him that, with a boy that I met on the internet for more than a year, he lives on the other side of the world and he likes poetry as I do, he is in boarding school studying for a national exam , so my only way of communicating my words to him is through letters in the mail. I send him letters so often and sometimes he manages to secretly answer them because cell phones are banned there. In each letter I enclose korean poems because he is korean and I love korean literature, also poems that I love or see in my career. I have run out of ideas about what poems to send him this time, I don't want to be so obvious with my feelings towards him, I still adore his person, the way he is, I think I'm just a hell of a perfectionist and I'm scared to send him any poem of my liking without having paid total care to his interpretation, I hope can you give me some recommendations .Thanks for reading me.

hi ♡ i’d recommend marina tsvetaeva, anna akhmatova, rainer maria rilke, ada limón, aracelis girmay, alejandra pizarnik, dulce maría loynaz, mary oliver, mahmoud darwish, ilya kaminsky, alice notley, louise glück, emily dickinson, kahlil gibran, adonis, ocean vuong. a few excerpts:

You ask why I’m thinking of death but I’m thinking of you and it’s fleeting.

Alex Dimitrov, from “In the New Century I Gave You My Name,” American Poetry Review (vol. 44, no. 1, January / February 2015)

I know that each one of us travels to love alone,  alone to faith and to death.  I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.  Let me come with you.

Yannis Ritsos, from ‘Moonlight Sonata’ (tr. Peter Green, Beverly Bardsley)

To die for love to die of love to die in love to die with love to die over love to die without love to die to love to die in the mine and be a “mine” in the arms of someone’s chest wound, “Here I will die of the above.”

Fanny Howe, from Gone: Poems

“How would you like your death?” “Blue like the stars pouring through the roof.”

Mahmoud Darwish, from “They’d Love to See Me Dead” (tr. Abdullah al-Udhari)

“I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals.”

Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper

see you soon, my strange joy, my tender night my song, my fairy-tale my soul. my dear happiness, my lovely, my little music, hello, my life, my love, my happiness,

endearments in letters to véra (x)

Velimir Khlebnikov, The Collected Poems & Writings of V. K. “My Darling,”

“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

John Cage to Merce Cunningham, June 29 1943

“When I think of little flowers that grow in grass, and little streams and places where we can lie and look up at the clouds—Oh, I simply ache for them—for them with you.”

Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J.M. Murry, Feb 20, 1918

“And your letters, your sweet and dear letters—when I read them, I feel like a plant growing in light. And I forget my own shadows.”

Kahlil Gibran, in a letter to Mary Haskell, featured in Beloved Prophet

Once by mistake she tore a map in half. She taped it back, but crookedly. Now all the roads ended in water. There were mountains right next to her hometown. Wouldn’t that be nice if it were true? I’d tear a map and be right next to you.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Map”

[desertdollranch]

Does American Girl give girls middle names? If so, how do you think they are picked? If not, did you give your girls their middle names?

Let’s start with the historicals.

Kaya - none

Felicity Merriman - unknown Caroline Abbott - unknown Josefina Montoya - her first name is actually María and Josefina is her middle name. She was named for Saint Joseph, whose feast day is on March 19th, the day she was born. This would have been traditional in her place and time for girls to be given the first name María (to honor the Virgin Mary) and use their saint’s name as a middle name for everyday use. Her sister Francisca’s first name is also María, as seen when their father writes her and Josefina’s name in fancy script in Josefina Learns a Lesson. And the letter that came with Josefina’s wintertime set named her abuelita as Maria de la Luz Herrera de Romero. Naming conventions were different in colonial Mexico; married women typically kept their last names, as Tía Dolores points out in Secrets in the Hills, when she reminds the American man Roger Rexford that she is known as Señora Romero, not Montoya. But Abuelita uses “de Romero” as part of her name. 

Cécile Rey - as mentioned in her first book, her middle name is Amélie. Marie-Grace Gardner - as mentioned in her first book, her middle name is Rousseau, which is her mother’s maiden name, a common naming convention for her time and place. The name “Rousseau” is derived from the French word for “red haired”. Kirsten Larson - unknown Addy Walker - unknown. According to her first book, “Addy” is either a nickname for or is derived from Aduke, the name borne by her great-grandmother, who was taken from western Africa. The name Aduke is Yoruba for “beloved”. However, it’s slightly ambiguous as to whether that is her given name or if Addy is an anglicized version of Aduke.  Samantha Parkington - Samantha’s middle name is Mary, to honor her grandmother. Interesting contrast to Josefina’s name, right? This middle name is only revealed in her mystery, Clue in the Castle Tower.    Rebecca Rubin - unknown Kit Kittredge - “Kit” is a nickname her dad gave her, when she was a little girl and she liked to hear him sing “the kit song”, or “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag”, which he learned while fighting in World War I. Kit’s full name is Margaret Mildred. Margaret is her mother’s first name while Mildred is after Aunt Millie, who raised Kit’s father after he lost his parents. 

Nanea Mitchell - Nanea is her middle name. Her first name is Alice. “Nanea” is a Hawaiian name meaning “fascinating” and is still in use in Hawaii today.  Molly McIntire - On the American Girl Facebook page, they confirmed a customer question that the J on her report card stands for Jean. This isn’t supported anywhere in the text so take it for what you will. Since this is not included in the text of any books, but was provided by an American Girl employee in response to a question, it is another one of those things that may or may not be canon and therefore subject to change if the author has other ideas. (Just like Nellie O’Malley’s birthday--we had a discussion about that a while back, because it’s impossible to reconcile the date with the actual text). So until it does show up anywhere else in Molly’s stories, that’s what it is. Maryellen Larkin - unknown Melody Ellison - I had to check this with the Wiki because I had no memory of reading her middle name in either her main series or her mystery, but it turns out that in Music in My Heart: My Journey with Melody declares her middle name as Elizabeth. (I still need to read a few of the My Journey With books!) 

Julie Albright - I had to check this one as well with the Wiki, and it looks like a customer service rep from American Girl threw out “Marie” as her middle name. Just like Molly’s middle name and Nellie’s birthday, this may or may not be an on-the-spot improvisation by a customer service rep. But it doesn’t seem too farfetched--”Marie” is a very common middle name for white girls in America, and has been for a few decades. From my own experience, a lot of my childhood friends had that middle name.

Girl of the Year: 

The only two middle names we know are Jess Akiko McConnell and Chrissa Marie Maxwell. That’s probably due to the fact that they had a much shorter book series than the historicals. 

My own dolls

Since you asked: my four Truly Me dolls all have middle names. But I didn’t give middle names to the historicals or GOTY that don’t have canon middle names, as I don’t really see the point. 

[finita--la--commedia]

❤️

I presume that you are that anonymous who asked to recommend “any books” and this: ❤️ was the first that came out of your Soul. Here is a short list:

1.  Ivan Bunin, “Dark Avenues” 

2. “Love Poems by Jaime Sabines” 3. Dulce María Loynaz, “Absolute Solitude”

4. Marina Tsvetaeva, “Letter to an Amazon”

5. Lawrence Durrell, “The Alexandria Quartet”6. Alejadnra Pizarnik, “The Galloping Hour”7. “The poems of Octavio Paz”8. “The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai”9.   Maurice Blanchot, “Awaiting Oblivion”10. Vladimir Nabokov, “Letters to Véra”11. “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus“

12. “Luigi Pirandello, letters to Marta Abba”

13.  Marina Tsvetaeva, Florentine Nights. Nine Letters with a Tenth Kept Back and an Eleventh Received”

14. Alda Merini,  “Love Lessons. Selected Poems of Alda Merini”.

15. “Vasco Popa, Selected Poems”

16. Ivan Turgenev -- anything: “First Love”, “Mumu”, “The Unhappy Girl” etc.

17. The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli

18. Walter Benton, “This is My Beloved”

19. Adelia Prado, “The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems”

20. Richard Siken, “Crush”

[latristereina]

Isabella of Castile, the Catholic, was born on April 22nd in 1451, on Maundy Thursday, at the so-called royal palace of the village of Madrigal, called de las Altas Torres. At the moment the most important source about the birth is the letter sent by John II to the city of Segovia, on April 26th, 1451, informing them of such happy event: 

’I let you know that, by the grace of our Lord, past Thursday the Queen doña Isabel, my very dear and very beloved wife, gave birth to an infanta, which I let you know so you would give many thanks to God for the liberation of the said Queen, my wife, and for the birth of the said infanta, because of which I ordered Johan de Busto to go to you, who carries the present.’ 

That <<past Thursday>> coincided with Maundy Thursday hence could not be more important in religious Christian life, and she took responsibility to celebrate it during her whole life with her family and with her court. The chronicler Doctor Toledo will specify that she was born in Madrigal, on Thursday, on April 22nd, at 4:30 pm. Thanks to both sources, we have established the day and hour of birth. 

The same can be said about the birthplace, the cradle of the future Queen. It was at the royal palace of Madrigal, not a monumental building which was not for these places of residence, but a temporal residence in the itinerant life of the king and the court. Thus, its simplicity is understandable and its austere mudejár style can be recorded. It seems that house captivated the Portuguese (Isabella’s mother). The palace and the entire village were hers. She would go there to take refuge during decades, when her psychosis intensified, and there she would pass away. 

The newborn was not fed by her mother; it’s certain that Isabella’s wet-nurse was María López, wife of Juan de Molina, whom the queen will recall on March 3, 1495, granting her 10.000 maravedíes <<because the said María López gave her Highness her milk>>. This fact appears in las Cuentas (household accounts) and is indubitable.

- “Isabel la Católica: vida y reinado”, Tarsicio de Azcona

Isabel was born far inland, behind the lofty walls of Madrigal de las Altas Torres—Madrigal of the High Towers—in the heart of the meseta, the flat tableland at the heart of Castile. The forty-eight altas torres rising along the forty-foot-high walls ringing the town spoke of safety in a world geared to war, particularly war between Christian inhabitants and Muslim raiders. But those walls also spoke of paradox: made of brick and rubble, materials typical to mudéjar construction, they revealed an origin or an inspiration unequivocably Arabic. Madrigal, like other places on Spain’s central plateau, had been alternately occupied by Christians and Muslims until well into the eleventh century, and it was home to some inhabitants of Muslim culture afterward. In Madrigal too, in the great house abutting those walls called the royal palace, Isabel toddled under intricately worked wooden ceilings, artesonados, carved by mudéjares, Muslim subjects of Castile’s king. And tradition has it that she was baptized in Madrigal’s church of San Nicolás, in its baptismal font thickly encrusted with gold from Muslim Africa.

Only an occasional reference sheds light on Isabel’s childhood. At seventeen, she wrote to her half-brother, the king Enrique IV, accusing him of having treated her badly, representing herself as a semi-orphan raised in obscurity and kept in want by him. Her court chronicler, Hernando del Pulgar, was to state that her early years were spent ‘in extreme lack of necessary things,’ and that she was without a father and ‘we can even say a mother.’ Isabel was three when her father, Juan II of Castile, died. He had doted on her mother, Isabel of Portugal, his young second wife, and, rumor had it, come to resent the control exerted over him by his longtime mentor, Alvaro de Luna, who sought to regulate the king’s conjugal visits to his queen. What is indisputable is that shortly after Isabel’s birth, Luna was beheaded at Juan’s order. Within a year, Juan, whether through regret or because Luna’s restraining hand was gone, grew immoderate, it was said, in the pleasures of love and table, fell ill of quartanary fevers, and although believing prophecies that he would live to be ninety, died on July 21,1454, and the crown passed to his elder son, Enrique. Juan was forty-nine years old, the longest-lived king of his dynasty in five generations. Enrique IV was then thirty. He had had no children with his first wife, Blanca of Navarre, and his second, Juana of Portugal, would have none until Isabel was ten; until then Isabel grew up seeing her younger brother, Alfonso—born in November 1453 when she was two—as heir apparent to Castile’s crown and herself as second in line, as her father’s last will had stipulated. To the childless Enrique, the two children represented family and dynastic continuity, but also a potential threat. As for Isabel, after the death of her father, her circumstances were none too secure on several other counts she did not mention in that letter.

Her mother, the young dowager queen, Isabel of Portugal, who was twenty-seven years old at her husband’s death, then took the two children to live in Arévalo, a royal town consigned to her in Juan’s will. Shortly thereafter, according to the chronicler Alonso de Palencia, Enrique called on her accompanied by a favorite of his, Pedro Girón, the master of the military order of Calatrava; Girón immediately ‘made some indecent suggestions’ that shocked the recent widow. Palencia, who is generally vitriolic about both Enrique and Girón, went on to assert that the importuning by this overhasty, unwelcome (and, patently, not sufficiently noble) suitor threw Isabel of Portugal into a profound sadness and horror of the outside world, that she then ‘closed herself into a dark room, self-condemned to silence, and dominated by such depression that it degenerated into a form of madness.’

Another chronicler, who was more in touch with events at the time, confirms the reclusiveness of Isabel’s mother but dates it earlier, from her daughter’s birth. Whatever the cause or date, young Isabel grew up with a deeply disturbed mother. The child may well have dreaded becoming like her, and suffered tension between affection and fear. Surely too she was aware that her own birth was among the causes mentioned for her mother’s madness. It is tempting to conjecture that qualities that Isabel displayed as an adult—love of order and the striving for it; a no-nonsense, highly rational stance; and a sharply defined personality, were honed in reaction to her mother’s condition, and even to think that her desire for light in all its forms, and especially in its religious associations—her abhorrence of the forces of darkness, her determination to cleanse the body politic of impurities—was not unrelated to the circumstances of her childhood. Isabel grew up, then, in several sorts of obscurity, her childhood a sort of purgatory and a test of moral fiber she passed magnificently. Such was long the accepted version of her early years; it was her own version. It is neither strictly accurate nor complete.

Arévalo, fifteen miles from Madrigal and like it a market town, is remembered as the best fortified of royal towns. There, her mother’s condition notwithstanding, Isabel spent her early years in great stability and familial warmth. For when she was two and her mother again pregnant, her widowed grandmother, Isabel de Barcelos, arrived from Portugal. Tellingly, when first mentioned in the chronicles Isabel de Barcelos is in her forties and sitting, at King Juan’s request, in his privy council. Contemporaries, among them the chronicler Diego de Valera, recognized in her ‘a notable woman of great counsel.’ Valera affirmed that after the death of the king, Isabel de Barcelos ‘was of great help and consolation to the widowed queen, her daughter’; and he commented that her death, in 1466, ‘was very harmful.’ Pulgar adds that Isabel missed her grandmother sorely. Surely Isabel de Barcelos ran her daughter’s household. And she it doubtlessly was whom the child Isabel took as model. It is revealing that later, as queen, Isabel of Castile enjoyed keeping about her elderly women of good repute and good family.

From all accounts, Isabel de Barcelos was a formidable lady of formidable lineage. She came of royal Portuguese stock with a history of going for the throne and of doing it with claims far weaker than would be those of her Castilian grandchild. Daughter of the first duke of Braganza, Portugal’s most powerful noble and an illegitimate son of the king, Joāo I, she had married her uncle, Prince Joāo, one of five sons Joāo I had with Philippa, his queen consort. Philippa too came of redoubtable stock. Her father was John of Gaunt, the English king-making duke of Lancaster, and her mother, Costanza, was a Castilian infanta. This lineage meant that young Isabel carried in her veins the royal blood of Castile, Portugal, and England. Doubtlessly too, she took dynastic pride in her own name, Isabel, repeated through seven generations of royal women and originating in her ancestor Saint Isabel, the thirteenth-century Portuguese queen canonized for her good works and miracles. Isabel’s aya, or nurse-governess, in Arévalo was also Portuguese. She was Clara Alvarnáez, married to Gonzalo Chacón, to whom Juan II had consigned his children’s education. Chacón was also the dowager queen’s camerero, the administrator of her household. Oddly enough, Chacón had earlier filled the same post for Álvaro de Luna, Juan II’s former favorite. Even so, Chacón and Clara Alvarnáez remained close to Isabel throughout their lifetimes.

- „Isabel the Queen: Life and Times”, Peggy K. Liss

[loveinpanem-blog]

A Candle For The Caribbean: Charity Anthology

Titles and Summaries of Stories and Fanart

The outpouring of support from artists and donors has been truly inspiring. As of today, we’ve raised $1650.00 in funds, all donated directly to organizations supporting the ongoing relief efforts in the Caribbean.

We’ve received the first proof of the anthology, including the list of works being offered. For a minimum donation of $10.00 to any reputable charity supporting victims of Hurricane Maria, you can receive this collection in e-format containing all the creative works from The Hunger Games, Outlander and Overlander fandom, to be published on December 7th. We will continue accepting receipts through the end of January, 2018. Send these to titania522@gmail.com.

Below the cut, you will find a preview of all the stories and works being offered, including the titles, authors and story summaries or opening paragraphs of the works to be published.

We here at Love in Panem cannot express enough how grateful we are for the number and quality of stories and the number of people who’ve stepped up to contribute to this cause. This includes the wonderful banner makers and betas who have made this anthology a success.

Without further ado, find the list and summaries of artists below. A warning: It is quite a long list :)

Table of Contents

The Hunger Games

5 Winds by @lollercakesff

Summary: When the winds of fate blow, there is no stopping these emergency responders from rushing in. After five disasters and five collisions of fate, can they finally find each other?

Capitol Gym by @neverstopwhileyoureahead

Summary: Katniss would do just about anything for her little sister. It's why she reluctantly agreed to be her plus one to Capitol Gym. What she didn't expect was for a blue-eyed employee to make her suffering a little more bearable.

Como Duele by @mega-aulover

Synopsis: Katniss Everdeen world flips upside down after her beloved father dies. She takes on the responsibility to care for her mother and the Coffee Bean Hacienda. Everything goes from bad to worse when she is forced to marry Peeta Mellark. In the midst of a storm things take a dangerous turn when people who have crossed her end up dead.

Costra Nostra by @shesasurvivor

Summary: Katniss Everdeen is a performer for The Mockingjay, a hotel and casino run by mob boss Coriolanus Snow in Las Vegas. Peeta Mellark is the accountant who might be a plant for the FBI in The Mockingjay’s business office. The two are instantly drawn to each other, but how can anything possibly end well when they are on two opposing sides? Especially when the mob will have no problem harming Katniss’s sister if she betrays them. 1950’s historical AU set in mob-run Las Vegas.

Death, Time, Love by @elricsister            

Summary: verlark contemporary AU. Katniss has lost everything, she hates Peeta and just wants to be left alone. The visit of three strangers spanning 12 years will hopefully change that.

Forever, My Muse by @alwayspeetamellark

He needed new inspiration and fast. It was over four months ago he had his last exhibition and this creative rut had found him. Simply nothing was coming out right. He had tried everything, from taking a trip and getting away from things but to no avail. He still lacked the inspiration and when he put brush to canvas nothing came to life, as it should have.

From Peeta with Love by @PatriziaNordsee

July 2017 - Peeta / Lufthansa Flight 707 to Puerto Rico

10 hours is a long time. How will I spend 10 hours sitting in the economy class of a plane with nothing to do but wait? Nothing to do with my hands and nothing to think about but the reason why I left Germany and am now on a plane to Puerto Rico. Left the country I called home for such a long time.

Now flying into the Caribbean. 10 hours is all it will take to bring me from Frankfurt in Germany to Juan Santa María International Airport. 10 hours to transfer my soul from Germany to Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Force 5 by @thegirlfromoverthepond

Peeta was exhausted.

Or rather, he was beyond exhaustion.

He wished he could find solace in the landscape in front of him. The endless blue of the sea, marked here and there with little puffs of white, meeting the sky, in a never ending palette of blues. It would be breathtaking if he could take his mind of the disaster all around him.

Let’s Hurt Tonight by @katnissdoesnotfollowback

Summary: Inspired by (not based on) the film Collateral Beauty and the associated song, Let’s Hurt Tonight by OneRepublic, a short peek into the lives of the Everdeen women. Canon compliant.

Love Letters by @javistg

Summary: Katniss Everdeen learns about her past as she gets ready to face her future. Everlark. Canon-compliant (mostly), Post Mockingjay, Pre-Epilogue.

My Favorite Mistake by @titaniasfics

Summary: They begin as simple acquaintances who quickly become confidantes. When Katniss Everdeen’s friendship with a very-married Peeta Mellark morphs into something deeper, mistakes are made that will change their lives forever.

Panem Cruises by @alliswell21

Synopsis: Everlark meet in a cruise ship, where mishap after mishap brings them to a happily ever after.

Perhaps, Maybe by @everlarkingjoshifer

Weariness bore her sleep addled thoughts as Katniss leaned her head against the car window while rows and rows of unlit mast poles passed by. Blinking slowly she suppressed a yawn as yet another tree the length of a small apartment building whisked by. Furrowing her eyebrows, she tried to guess which kind it could be, but it passed by too quickly and her sluggish thoughts fogged her memory. Unable to conceal yet another yawn Katniss repositioned herself against the all too comfortable seat.

“Tired?” Peeta asked giving her a sweet smile.

‘No shit Sherlock,’ she internally said but thought better of it, choosing instead to just shrug nonchalantly.

Not With Haste by @llmarmalade

Summary: Prim and Peeta were never reaped, Peeta married Delly Cartwright who died and Katniss never married. The Revolution occurred naturally after President Snow died. Prim was killed in the City Circle bombing.

Redemption by @notanislander

She sits alone in the sand overlooking the bay. After pulling the overnight shift at the hospital, this is her favorite place to be. The sounds of the waves crashing and the gulls calling to each other gives her a sense of calm that she cannot seem to find anywhere else. The breeze softly blowing her hair soothes her. She’s glad it’s high tide though, sometimes the smells at low tide are a bit overpowering. She sits there, contemplating the past few days, contemplating her life, contemplating what brought her here to 4. And why she stayed.

Ride Through the Meadow by @savvylark

“Get back on the saddle. Just like riding a bike.” Johanna's words echo in my head as I ride my way through to short cut through the meadow to my favorite park. That’s the problem, dating is nothing like riding a bike. There’s a focus, you can see the terrain ahead of you and know what you’re facing. There’s a clear goal and destination in mind and, if you have a companion on your journey, you keep the same pace, there’s an understanding with the common goal ahead that spurs one another on.

Smitten With You by @litlifelover

These days Katniss enjoys her life as an editor for children's books, which can be stressful at times, but never to the degree of her former career as an event planner. She likes her quiet evenings and lazy weekends, loves that she can visit her family regularly and is able to spend time with her nephews. There’s even the flexibility to meet with Madge after a work day, enjoy a cup of coffee and talk about everything best friends talk about.

Someday by @norbertsmom

Summary: In this Everlark take on West Side Story, Katniss is a Puerto Rican girl living in the Seam neighborhood of the town of Panem. Peeta is a white baker’s son living in the merchant area. Their families each belong to rival gangs. Can the star crossed lovers survive when the feud comes to a head?

That’s How You Change The World by @geekymoviemom

I wake, shivering, in the dark of the night. Peeta is passed out cold, the morphling I shot into his arm nearly three hours ago keeping the worst of his pain at bay, at least for now. But it’ll be all too soon before he wakes again, startling with the intensity of his agony before he remembers that moving makes it all that much worse.

The Buzz Around Town by @florence68blog

Due to unfortunate circumstances, the relationship between Peeta and Katniss ended before it even began. Ten years later they meet again. However, the only thing Peeta is able to observe is that Katniss is even more unreachable than ever …

The Lucky Ones by @historywriter2007

West Virginia, December 1969.

“Peeta Mellark, you need to get back here and fix this right now.” Glimmer screeched.

Peeta stopped halfway down the walk to turn and face his fiancé. Her blue eyes were clouded with anger, he thought she would understand but obviously, he was wrong.

“There's nothing I can do, Glimmer. I got my draft notice, I'm not going to turn my back on my country.” Peeta raised the letter in his hand, his blood began to boil, how could she not see this was the right thing to do?

Too Familiar by @hutchhitched

Katniss smiled as she read the text messages that flashed on her phone screen. Her co-worker and friend, Peeta Mellark, and she had enjoyed a running commentary for the past few months—ever since they both begrudgingly admitted that they shared the same corny sense of humor. Katniss found him remarkably funny and had lost track of the times she’d (literally) laughed out loud at a quip he’d sent.

Unsafe Waters by @jobanana7

Sept 6th JFK international airport The day was finally here. After a month apart from his love, he was coming home and he was ready for it. Before his company asked him to go to New York to do this presentation that Peeta hadn’t thought would take so long, he asked her dad for permission to marry her before he left. Had she known he did she would’ve teased at him for sure but he was ready with his Grandma Sae’s rings on his person and a beautiful would be bride by his side. He was ready. He just hoped she would accept his proposal.

When You Kiss Me…by @chele20035

Dog trainer Katniss Everdeen got to help wounded vet, Peeta Mellark. Neither one knew what to expect when they receive invites to a special New Year’s Eve ball in London, England.

Outlander

Jamaica by @bonnie-wee-swordsman

Summary: A scene that we haven’t yet gotten in Outlander canon, even four books afterward: Brianna tells Jamie about the dream she had about her parents being in Jamaica. Based upon Voyager (Chapter 61) for Jamie’s side of the event, and Drums of Autumn (Chapter 40) for Brianna’s, so expect spoilers for both.

Memories Of The Moon by @phoenixflames12

He sits on the white boulder below the cave, gazing up at the moon. The cup of weak stew that Young Jamie had brought up that evening clasped between hands that are numb with cold.

Multifandom

Hackers Unite by @lilyaceofdiamonds

Alec Hardison sat at his computers a few days after the Irma and Maria hurricanes hit the islands in the Caribbean. Parker and Eliot were off buying supplies, they had just finished a job in New York. Hardison was just testing a program to search for any potential clients that Leverage, Inc could take on when his laptop dinged with a new email.

Sense8

Resist and Bite by @fiftyeightminutes

BPO has Wolfgang. The August 8th cluster have Whispers and Jonas. What is the cluster willing to risk in order to get back their missing piece?

Fanart

Jamie and Claire by @ombradellaluna

Gregor the Overlander by smokestarrules (deviantart)

Banner Makers

@akai-echo

@everlarkingjoshifer

@damndonnergirls

See you on December 7th!

[heleneplays]

María realizing she was falling in love with Helene during their college relationship years sparked such a panik™ she had to run away SO fast and that's the tea why she's soooo mean to her during relics 1

[heleneplays]

absolutely need to stop thinking abt this draft for a future AU of LfM bc I CANT STOP BEING ABNORMAL ABOUT IT.

Helene wakes up with her heart on her throat, panicked.

'Why hasn't Maia cried?' is the first thing that comes to her mind as she looks at the clock reading 3:35 am. 'Fuck. I fell asleep.' is the next thing, and she moves out of bed, instinctively to go to the bedroom turned nursery.

Quickly but quietly running walking, Helene arrives to the doors to the nursery. They're already ajar, and her heart leaps to her throat once more.

Stepping into the space where only the full moon illuminates through the wide windows, she's greeted by an unexpected sight. Her wife, sitting on the rocking chair, face guardedly pensive as she holds their 2-month-old daughter. Maia is sound asleep, her little face pressed into the side of the redhead's chest.

María's hazel eyes snap right into hers.

Helene is suddenly filled with a deep well of love.

[heleneplays]

Chapters: 2/? Fando: Hosted Games, Choice of Games, Relics of the Lost Age (Visual Novels), Relics Series - James Shaw, Original Work Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: María García Peréz/Helene Spillane, María García Peréz & Helene Spillane Characters: Helene Spillane, Spillane (Relics of the Lost Age), Female Spillane (Relics of the Lost Age), María García Peréz Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Post-Canon, honestly the period is just pre during and post i am including them all, Adding characters as I go, Also adding tags as I go, Once again I am out here inspired while completing School™ things, this is the result, Lovers to enemies to lovers, aka they are both fucking idiots your honor, Getting Together, Break Up, Mutual Pining, Getting Back Together, i am taking it all and rubbing my small gay hands all over Series: Part 1 of María x Helene Summary:

“Turns out there’s also several passages unaccounted for.”

“Old homes usually do. How many have you found?”

“There’s one passage in my room straight to the kitchen, a hidden staircase to the library, and this tunnel which I haven’t gone around to going into yet.”

“Yet? Didn’t peg you for backing out from an adventure, Helene.”

“Oh shut it, just keep on the lookout!” Helene huffs while María smirks, accepting the challenge.

OR

María, finally, finally, finds it in herself to live with one (1) Helene Spillane in their newly acquisitioned estate, and finds a secret worth more than its grand halls.

[heleneplays]

this or that | tropes n stuff

tagged as blorbo in their notes by @pimenita on my main, @h-doodles but i like to answer them here on my side blog which has. a semblance of a tag system 🤡 so mrrp thank <3

MOVING ON PLEASE I AM SO EMO ABOUT TROPES CATCH ME WEEPING:

slow burn or love at first sight (BARK BARK BARK BARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!) // fake dating or secret dating (I would honestly like either but secret dating tops far than fake dating because bruh. being rather private individuals and running around the friend group my beloved) // ENEMIES TO LOVERS or best friends to lovers (PLEASEEEEE. LITERALLY I AM OUT HERE WITH A DEEP LOVE OF ENEMIES ESP IF THEY'RE UNREPENTANT, REDHEADS WOMEN WHO CAN KICK MY ASS 🤡) // oh no there’s only one bed or long-distance correspondence (BARKING SOOOOO BAD FOR THIS HONESTLY) // hurt-comfort or amnesia (IT'S ABOUT THE TRAGEDY TO MEEEEEEE I WANT A DEEP GOOD CRY AND GET THEM BLORBOS TOGETHER) // fantasy au or modern au (I AM PERSONALLY BITING BC YES. I DO LOVE ME MY AUs) // mutual pining or domestic bliss (ENEMIES TO LOVERS ACTUAL PINING IDIOTS TO CLUMSY GETTING TOGETHERS TO DOMESTIC BLISS SLOW BURN ALWAYS. ALWAYS!!!!!!!!) // smut or fluff (watch me read smut with a stone cold expression on MY face and blush like a bitch reading fluff the next <3) // canon-compliant or fix-it (fanfic exists as a love letter to canon but at this point the fandoms i've been in. THEY ARE A HATE LETTER to the creators who frequently sidelined chemically stable potential wlw and other lgbt ships and rep. which is honestly a very very different experience with James Shaw. anything I create for the Relics Trilogy is a love letter of thanks not only to him but to my beloved fictional group of blorbos <3) // reincarnation or character death (pls character death???? i LOVE it when done properly!!!! NOT TO MENTION THE ANGST....... MMMMM YES THE ANGST,,,,,, but REINCARNATION... LITERALLY TRANSCENDING TIME AND SPACE WITH A LOVE THAT LASTS... AND FINDING THEM BECAUSE ONE LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH-- I AM SO EMO ABOUT IT!!!!!!!) // one-shot or multi-chapter (writing wise i WISH i could keep my ideas as oneshots but as a reader PLS. LONGER THE BETTER and this is why i am die whenever i find a long fic that is both compelling AND finished bc. good godddd you cannot imagine the pain of seeing the date of the last update. yes i will comment completely about the fic gushing with praise but thats just abt it) // kid fic or road trip fic (PLEASE DOMESTIC BLISS WITH THEIR KIDS,,,,,,,,,,,, SCREAMING SHAKING CRYING) // arranged marriage or accidental marriage (listen i could wax poetic all day abt these two in fics but AUGHHHHHH mawwiage 🥺) // high school romance or middle aged romance (I COULD GO WITH EITHER but rn i am sooooo emo abt María so am going with this one) // time travel or isolated together (covid fucked me up about being isolated and i think i would have so many problems so catch me whip and naenae) // neighbours or roommates (oh my god.... and they were roomamates!!!) // sci-fi au or magic au (once again i am out here with AUs and honestly at this point idc i am just hoarding all the AUs and thats the tea) // Body swap or Gender bend (but only provisionally)  // ANGST or crack (AW YISSSSSSS GIMME THE SPICY ANGST I NEED TO SCREAM AND SHAKE AND CRY AND THROW UP ABOUT IT OR BUST,,, but honestly i also LOVE crack actually <3 wish fulfillment of OP and BAMF MC) // apocalyptic or mundane (rn?? looking for peace and i am out here)

---

tagging the blorbo in my notes (if thats okay and you too, would like to answer): @jamesshawgames @haniiebeedraws @mira-shard @twins-born-in-a-new-moon @sylencr @slytherincursebreaker @sateenkaari-dragon @catohphm

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the blank template:

slow burn or love at first sight // fake dating or secret dating // enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers // oh no there’s only one bed or long-distance correspondence // hurt-comfort or amnesia // fantasy au or modern au // mutual pining or domestic bliss // smut or fluff // canon-compliant or fix-it // reincarnation or character death // one-shot or multi-chapter // kid fic or road trip fic // arranged marriage or accidental marriage // high school romance or middle aged romance // time travel or isolated together // neighbours or roommates // sci-fi au or magic au // body swap or gender bend  // angst or crack // apocalyptic or mundane

[luthienne]

Hey, dear! Let me be one [more] follower who asks a few quotes about some things. Could you compile some (just a few, just a bunch) about silence and/or introversion? Thank you dearly. ♡

a compilation v close to my heart ♡

“Solitude: liberation from even the expectation of being seen.”

Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City: Poems; “The Telephone”

“For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of — to think; well not even to think. To be silent, to be alone.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“I thought of you—wished you were here with me but I get a keen sort of exhilaration from being alone…”

Georgia O’Keeffe, in a letter to Cady Wells, featured in Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life

“But I love such days—rare lonely days. I love above all things, my dear, to be alone.”

Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J.M. Murry

“I am, oddly, happiest when alone for weeks on end talking to no one there, talking in my mind to the imagined listener who perfectly hears, perfectly understands, and talks back with equal truthfulness.”

Martha Gellhorn, from Selected Letters

Amélie, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)

“For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by reverberations after even the simplest conversation.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.”

Herta Müller, from The Hunger Angel

“I don't see much of anybody these days—I feel rather funny with other people—even those whom I care for. While one's heart is being transformed into a little world, one wants to be alone.”

Kahlil Gibran, in a letter to Mary Haskell, from Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal

Bella Akhmadulina, Fever and Other New Poems; “Longing for Lermontov” (tr. Geoffrey Dutton, Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin)

“Perhaps I am addicted to solitude and feel safe and easy in it,”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

“…because there was too much silence within me. In those days I was alone,”

Clarice Lispector, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector

“My current silence interests only me. It touches too many parts of my personal life for me to explain it to you.”

Albert Camus, Notebooks (1951-1959), Vol 3.

“People love talking, and I have never been a huge talker. I carry on an inner monologue, but the words often don’t reach my lips.”

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“And what were they anyway, sprigs of grass, things of blue? For a long time I wanted to use words, then didn’t.”

Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

“What words? What words can I trust to convey this fragile heart?”

Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries

Keaton Henson, from “How Could I Have Known”

“So much of what we live goes on inside– The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches Of unacknowledged love are no less real For having passed unsaid. What we conceal Is always more than what we dare confide. Think of the letters that we write our dead.”

Dana Gioia, Unsaid

“But I cannot help it. I only want to be alone. I want to be myself and alone and free to breathe, live, look upon the world and find it however it is…”

Martha Gellhorn, from Selected Letters

“… Perhaps love is to give one’s own solitude to others? For it is the very last thing we have to offer.”

Clarice Lispector, Selected Cronicas; “The Gift”

“I’ve never been afraid of loneliness because I’ve never felt the need to justify my feelings to myself. I accept the muteness of feeling too. I have huge respect for my own silence. I let it speak. I allow time to do its trick and lead me back to myself. I don’t want just anyone to share life and myself with me.”

Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955

“Don’t allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Preserve your solitude. If the day ever comes when a real friendship is bestowed on you there will be no conflict between your inner solitude and this friendship. On the contrary, that is the infallible sign by which you will know it.”

Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge

“…the most precious thing of all: solitude.”

Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star (tr. Benjamin Moser)

“She naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel herself for ever and ever and ever alone.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Harold Pinter, Old Times

“Le Notti Bianche” (1957) - Luchino Visconti

“Solitude itself is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt. And that is why solitude is never static and never hopeless.”

May Sarton, Plant Dreaming Deep

“O you—my sacred solitude!”

Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems; “Solitude (from Rilke)”

“It is curious for one who has been much alone—this sinking back into silence.”

Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J.M. Murry

“…I have backed up / into my silence / as inexhaustible as the sun”

Fanny Howe, The Lyrics: Poems; “O’Clock”

“All I want is silence, for myself and for the selves I used to be, a silence like the magical cottage in the forest that lost children find in fairy tales.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness (tr. Yvette Siegert)

Allison Stone, “Persephone’s First Season in Hell”

“…and the heart took shelter behind a parapet of silence;”

Dulce María Loynaz, Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems; “Poema XLV” (tr. James O’Connor)

[Original: “…y el corazón se encastilló en un muro de silencio;”]

“I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.”

Peter Høeg, “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”

“Solitude as necessity, demandable, honorable. Not sinful, indulgent, wasteful, undeserved.”

May Sarton, from a journal entry dated October 18, 1993

“And in that silence, what grace.”

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems; “Savonarola’s Cape”

“and my chest appears translucent, / heart in its center, / cathedral of dust / and silence”

Milagros Terán, Las luces en la sien (tr. Fiona Griffin)

[Original: “y el pecho lo llevo traslúcido, / corazón en medio / como una catedral de pólvera / y silencio”]

Emily Dickinson, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain”

“I want to meet no one; I want to say nothing; / I want to go down and rest in the black earth of silence.”

Robert Bly, Eating the Honey of Words; “Depression,”

“You would rather have gone on feeling nothing, / emptiness and silence; the stagnant peace / of the deepest sea,”

Margaret Atwood, from “Eurydice,” Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986

“I don’t know about birds / nor do I know the history of fire. / But I believe that my solitude should have wings.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, Tree of Diana, tr. Joseph Mulligan & Patricia Rossi

“For language to have meaning there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance.”

Thomas Merton, “Disputed Questions”

“I have a need of silence and of stars. / Too much is said too loudly.”

William Alexander Percy, from “Home”

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“—a space of virgin silence, a place of rest where I wait for myself.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, “A Night Shared in a Memory of Escape” (tr. Yvette Siegert)

[dsimsdecades]

The following day the ladies head out to town to purchase the fabric needed for the new dresses. There's a knock at the door, and Antonio goes to answer it—it's Alejandro.

Antonio: "Hello Alejandro, how do you do. My wife and daughters are not in at the moment.”

Alejandro: "That's quite alright, we came here to see you."

Antonio: "We?" Just then Alejandro's father joins them.

José: "Hello old friend.”

Antonio cannot believe his eyes. All of the childhood memories he had with Jose seemed so recent, now that Jose was in front of him.

Antonio: “José how many years has it been? I never thought I'd see you again…”

José: “It's been too long…come here, brother.” Antonio and José embrace each other, overwhelmed.

Antonio: “Please come inside and make yourselves at home.” Antonio and José tell their sons all about their adventures in Spain. They share so many memories and laughs. Both of them are flooded with wonderful memories of their youth.

A few hours later the ladies are back home. Antonio introduces his dear friend to his wife and daughters.

Isabel: "It's nice to finally meet you, Señor Fernández. I've heard so many good things about you.”

José: “The pleasure is all mine. Please call me Jose.”

Isabel: "We've been gone all day. You all must be famished—I’ll go prepare some food. You must stay for dinner.”

José: "Thank you kindly, madam.” As Isabel heads to the kitchen to prepare supper, Alejandro and María Isabel head outside to talk.

María Isabel: "I still can't believe our fathers know each other…what a small world.”

Alejandro: "I’ve heard about your father since I was a boy. Those two got into all sorts of trouble when they were kids.” María Isabel chuckled.

María Isabel: "Sometimes it’s difficult to picture my father being a little troublemaker, but there are also times when I can still see a bit of youth peek through in him. I got your letter by the way…I too cannot stop thinking about you, Alejandro." María Isabel was now looking deeply into Alejandro’s eyes.

Alejandro: "Oh my beautiful María Isabel, I am utterly and completely mad about you.”

Alejandro holds María Isabel closely for a while. They sit there in silence, looking at the night sky and enjoying each other's company. Then Isabel calls them in for supper.

They all enjoy a delicious meal and pleasant conversations. After a few hours, the Fernández men take their leave. "Thank you for the most wonderful evening, I hope we can repeat this soon before my departure back to Spain,” José says, feeling content. "Of course, we shall brother,” replies Antonio. Alejandro hugs his beloved goodnight and whispers in her ear, "I shall dream of you this evening.” María Isabel went to sleep that night with Alejandro’s sweet words replaying in her head.

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