#borrowing grief from the future ;p | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vanchlo · 3 years ago

Text

The Partner / Chapter Fourteen, "The Ten"

Word Count: 5.9k words / Story Masterlist / Read The Assistant / Read on Wattpad / Warning: Sensitive and upsetting topics

I wasn't sure what had brought me here. It had felt like yesterday since I'd shut this door last, even if weeks had passed since. I'd never been able to shut it on that day and I knew that I wouldn't be able to, not fully.

"Babe! Are you ready to go? We're going to be late for the meeting," a voice calls from down below. Gulping hard, my heart stays stuck in my throat at the sight before me. It hadn't been the only one this morning that was hard to swallow.

"Coming!" The upstairs guest bedroom door closes behind me. I can't help but look at it over my shoulder, still unsure of why I had come up here. "We're not going to be late, Harry! When was it that you started to become so anal about being early?"

Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he doesn't attempt to hide the way his eyes roll at my remark. They finally settle on me, registering my eyebrow raise I challenge him with.

"Since you take fricken forever to get ready in the mornings, and the boss needs to be early," he tuts, nodding his head towards the front door. I hadn't noticed before how he holds it open, but now, the spring sunshine is unmistakable. "Come on already. I put our stuff in the car while you were dilly dallying upstairs. What were you doing up there anyways? It took me a few times to get your attention."

We'd long ago passed the time of saying 'thank you's for holding doors open, but habit aside, I still say it. Pulling the seatbelt across my chest, I ruminate on his question as he messes with the radio beside me. I'd become a master at being able to tell when his eyes were on me, and right now was no exception, because when I glance over at him, he's doing just that. The words hesitated on my tongue because at times I still found it hard to talk to him about her. We shared her and the grief around her. There was nobody else in this world who could know how I felt about her besides him, but the struggle persisted.

Avoiding his eyes had been my go-to when I didn't want to answer him. I did it now but it didn't serve me well, because of what I find instead. It seemed that nearly every time my eyes came upon it, it was impossible to not trace the curves of ink. It had lived on the inside of my wrist for over two weeks now and I still hadn't gotten used to it. When I thought that way, I realize I was never one to get used to things. My mother's abuse. Harry's coldness towards me in the beginning, only to be changed into sporadic softness. Then we became friends and something more, and it was hard to wrap my head around. He got hurt and I almost lost him, and it was something I still couldn't believe. It was a recurring theme in my life, especially as of late.

The permanence on my skin is interrupted by the soft edges and lines of his hand. A relief is kissed onto my skin when his fingers lace with mine, his thumb paying attention to the capital letter P in his handwriting on my skin. I don't know what does it but suddenly, I'm looking at the melancholy lifting his lips.

"I don't know but I wanted to look at her things in the nur- guest bedroom. The sonograms and clothes . . to remember that she was real and ours when . . when today I feel like I need to pretend that she wasn't," the words tumble from my lips as my throat feels tight with remembering. "I miss her."

"I miss her too," Harry says with a softness saved for times like these, which seemed to be quite often lately. It speaks louder when his lips press a kiss to the top of my hand. "But we don't have to act as if she never happened, Becks."

"I want to though. Not to act like- I'm just not ready to talk about her with people at work yet. It's almost been two months and I feel like I should be ready by now."

Repeating in and out inside of my head didn't help to steady the breaths trying to swim into my lungs. What did succeed was letting myself live in the unending sage color of his eyes, wondering what the flecks of gold would feel like if I swam in them.

"That's okay too, honey. People know not to ask and I said not to. It's more so something that you bring up yourself if you want to," he murmurs, thumbing at the escapist tear that got through my guard. "Are you sure you don't want to stay home another day? I can work from home whenever I want, you know."

"I'm sure," he had barely put a period to his words and I was insisting. His nod was fast but I could read the hesitancy in it. I tried to push it out of my mind as the car began to move, my thumb occupied by the same traces of ink on the inside of his right wrist, a P in my handwriting.

It wasn't how I thought I'd be living my life today, carrying the memory of my daughter in my heart and on the inside of my wrist, instead of in my arms in a few months.

I had thought at once that it was a sight for sore eyes, but now I couldn't be more sure that it wasn't. Still, I wasn't certain how I felt about it now. Seeing it had brought forth a nostalgia I yearned for, wanting to go back to a time where we were so naive and unknowing of what the future held for us. It also dug up a pain that could be unfathomable, because I knew how different things were the last time I stood outside his office door, looking in. Our happiness had been unmatched and upon realizing that, I felt my throat grow dry.

He looked more handsome than ever with the short beard he'd come to keep, one that swims into view upon turning around. I'd been caught.

"Hi, bug," Harry says, a smile making the dimples dive into his cheeks. It was small but it brought a glow to his face that I'd missed. "Are you heading out?"

Nodding was all that I could do as I stepped foot in his office. Even if it wasn't the first time today it still stung. Everything I missed was what I thought of when I stood in here. It was the framed sonogram missing beside his desktop, the space behind the guest chairs where I'd showed him the pregnancy test, and on the couch where we spelled out potential names with Scrabble tiles. That was only the beginning of what stabbed at me like knives, even if things had gotten better. It had only been two weeks since we'd started to talk and I had come to feel so much better, almost like myself again. I wasn't sure if I'd admit it but he was right. I'd come back to work too soon and it had been too much. I couldn't decide when I would tell him that I had cried in the bathroom twice today because of it all. He'd wonder when that had happened since I had been at his side all day helping him start on his new case, but I'd thought about her all throughout. I hadn't known that coming back here would stir up so many thoughts about her. How could I?

"Becks?"

"Y-Yeah, soon," I belatedly answer, grateful for his bookshelf in front of me. I know that he knows the truth, but it could seem as if I was lost in reading his titles, instead of consumed by my thoughts. No, Harry was smarter than that. He knew that I had perused his bookshelf more times than fingers I had on one hand, more than one normal person would. "You're sure it's okay that I take the car?"

"Of course. I'll just catch a ride with Myles. We still have a few things to go over anyways. We're not sure if we're sold on that one guy for the new hire or not, so we have to figure out what to do."

I couldn't find it in me to make a comment. Today had taken so much more from me than I had anticipated. I knew that there would be awkward interactions and maybe the curious looks. I didn't know that the team meeting right off the bat would let everybody stare at me to their heart's content, and let me catch them in the act.

"How was today?" his voice comes, interrupting my thoughts. I had come to welcome it, knowing how it broke up my mental web of danger. He had to have known too. "Rate it."

A title catches my eye, replacing the Pain-O-Meter we'd come to adopt since it'd happened. Plucking the book off the shelf, I flip it open to find the familiar title page and a message written in black ink. I'd have a good shot at reciting it without needing it before me even as the words came to blur before my eyes.

"Pass," I mumbled, daring the tear at my nose to fall onto the paper. Brushing it away before it can, I let the words in front of me swim through my mind yet another time.

March 2024

Harry,

I couldn't count how many times I've heard you speak of this case and all that it's taught you, even inspiring you to become a lawyer, you once said. I guess maybe I should have kept it for myself seeing as how you know next to everything about it, but maybe you won't know some of this 'never before seen' stuff. I call dibs on being the first one to borrow it from you, seeing as how it's a new release. I hope that one day we can bring justice and right a wrong like seen in this landmark case. Book aside, I couldn't ever find the words to tell you how grateful I am for you and even though it hasn't been a month yet, how much I love you, Harry. If there's a God, I'll be thanking them forever for bringing me back to you and to your firm to work beside you, and to fall in love with you all over again. I can't wait to hear you talk so passionately about this case and all of the others you look up to when we have our nightly goodnight call. I'll try not to fall asleep the next time.

Love,

Your Becks xo

"Becks?" There had been a time when I'd hated that name and how he'd mistreated it. It wasn't long after that I'd missed it deeply and wished to hear it despite being scared to. "There's no passes."

"Since when? Why can't I just for one time not have to rate my pain, Harry," I almost retort, my chest heaving when I turn to face him. His face remains stoic, that is if you were anybody but the few people who could read his face right now. The shock is clear as day and brings my hands to my mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to explode on you."

"It's okay," he assures me, stepping forward. His hand on my wrist is ginger and reassuring. "What one have you got there? Ah, the good old Glensheen murder. One of my favorite cases."

There hadn't been many times anymore that I couldn't unravel the emotions hiding on his face. Except for now, he locked it up good as he thumbed at the page, nostalgia lifting his lips into his cheeks. It made the sting louder inside of me as his mouth relaxed into its former line, a wetness clinging to his eyes.

"I'd started to think about how I'd tell our kids how I became a lawyer and it always started with this case here," unlike before, a dullness lept into the curling of his lips, a smile dipped in sour memories. "I thought of it with P, telling her how Daddy became a lawyer because of Glensheen . . but I can't do that anymore. It's too hard to think about."

A hastiness filled my actions, first with my hand on his forearm. The velvet button down he'd picked for today felt like butter beneath my fingers, but it was the only easy part about this. No, the wetness spilling onto his cheeks only made it harder and so did prying the book from his hands. It wasn't any smoother looking into his eyes as mine welled with what filled his.

"I'll rate today if you will," my gentle words came, volumes different from mine that had come before.

"Eight and a half," Harry said dryly, clearing his throat afterward. I knew how he craved a glass of water to soothe the cracks in his throat. If only it could do the same to the heart.

"That's your first eight in a week and a half," I note aloud and his acknowledgement is absent. That is unless you count his eyes falling away from mine, focused on dragging his finger along the letter on my wrist as if he could do it forever.

"What's yours?" his question is quiet, but I could hear his voice in the loudest of darks. It was what had dragged me out of my lowest of lows, afterall.

"Nine . . and a half."

It was my turn to stare at my hands and avoid the gaze of the other. I could feel his as I tried to swallow past the heart shaped ball in my throat, trying to forget how quickly his head lifted.

"You haven't had a nine in weeks, bug," Harry remarks and I don't bother to nod. What would be the point? I don't want to make it any more real than it has to be. "Becks, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"When you say nine . . do you mean a ten?" his question made sense but I didn't want it to, because that would mean I'd have to come up with an answer. That wasn't something I could do.

Waiting was something I had done a lot of recently and what joined it was my feeling of something being amiss. I had blamed it on losing Phoebe and how it had upset my entire life, but standing here now, both rang too true. I couldn't put a finger on why I hesitated opening the door, even though I had been here just the other night. It had been Harry and I's first double date back with Asher and Skye. We had played Cards Against Humanity and sat around the old rinky dink deep fryer whilst picking our cards.

Leaving that night, my stomach was full from the pizza rolls, cheese curds, steak bites, and more that we deep fried, but that wasn't why my gut felt off. Skye had been acting weird and I couldn't put a finger on it. Sure, things had been different since losing Phoebe, but I knew it wasn't that. Tonight, I hoped it would come to light. If only I'd known now what I would later, I would have never come at all.

There was no answer when I knocked on the door, so I let myself in like usual. Our favorite chicken bacon ranch pizza Skye had promised me wafted from the oven where it cooked. After a quick glance around the open apartment, I find that I'm alone. That's odd, I think to myself, remembering running into Asher in the parking garage on my way from leaving work today. Their cars were parked out front and Skye's purse and keys are scattered across the island. Just like the old times, I muse silently as I begin to toe off my shoes until I stop.

Loud voices carry from down the hallway and immediately I recognize them as the two blondes I'm looking for. Removing my shoes is forgotten as I inch my way into the apartment, trying to listen. Normally, I'd feel guilty eavesdropping and so I don't often do it, but that went out the window when I heard my name. It sounds like they're fighting, but what about? Does it have something to do with me? Why would it? The questions bloom behind my eyes as the sound of their arguing grows when I come closer.

Stopping outside my old bedroom door, I felt more than uncomfortable, but it only grew as I waited. It had been weird at first finding out that Asher and Skye moved into my old bedroom, but knowing that it was the biggest, it made sense. Something inside of me tells me to stop and that I shouldn't be stepping into such a private moment of theirs. If it were the other way around I wouldn't want somebody to eavesdrop on me and Harry talking, and least of all a fight. But I can't stop after I hear my name for a second time.

"Skye, you have to tell Becky. You can't wait any longer."

"Don't you think I know that, Ash? I've been trying to think of how to say it, but for the life of me I can't," my best friend sighs. A whining sound follows her words, presumably after she plopped down onto the mattress. But when it comes a second time, I realize it's drawn from her lips.

"It'll be easier the sooner you tell her, babe. You know that." An unmistakable sigh whooshes from my best friend's lips on the other side of the door. "It can't wait any longer. Maybe you should tell her tonight."

"No! She just went back to work earlier this week and Harry said that she's doing better. I don't want to ruin any of that by telling her."

"She'll understand, Skye, and I know how much you want to tell her, to share this happiness with her. It was all I could do the other night to not talk about it, because I'm excited too," Asher admits with exasperation. Another sound tells me that he's joined her to sit on the bed.

"Of course I want to tell her, but how do I tell her about . . "

I hadn't known how I had gotten here. That's stupid because, of course, I did. But sitting here now, the steering wheel of Harry's car slick with my tears, I still wish I hadn't heard what I did. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't erase it from my memory, and no amount of tears could make it better. Each breath I took sent shoots of pain through my chest as it shook with fitful sobs. The engine still ran, rumbling softly even through the steering wheel my head rested on.

I had lost track of how long I'd sat here after pulling into the driveway. I knew that he would hear the garage door if I pulled in, so I was waiting. He didn't seem to hear or see the car yet, something I was grateful for. I wasn't ready yet, but would I ever be after what I just learned? Just as much as she didn't know how to tell me, I had no idea how I could tell Harry.

The laugh track of a TV show is what I hear first upon opening the door, followed by a wisecrack from Joey on FRIENDS. My heart squeezed at the sound of Harry's subsequent giggle, and knowing how I was about to take it away. I closed the door softly as I could and still knew that he would hear it. It's instantaneous how quickly the TV is turned down and how my unrelenting crying replaces the sound.

"Becks? You're home already, love?" my favorite voice murmurs from the living room before alarm is racing in it. "What happened? Is everything alright?"

I could count the seconds before I hear his rushed footsteps coming my way, and then stopping in front of me. Harry's molasses voice rushes to say my name a few more times but he succeeds in one try to pull me into his arms. Taking my spot sitting against the front door, I melt inside of his arms.

"Baby, please. What's wrong? You're scaring the shit out of me," it was hard to make out the concern in his voice amidst the spinning of my thoughts. It was there but I knew that had things been normal inside of me, I'd be able to hear the panic and fear living in his voice. "Are you hurt?" hurrying to ask, his hands run along my body, as if checking for injuries.

His neck smells sweet with vanilla from his cologne and then woodsy all at once, a smell that used to calm me in seconds. No, not now. Inhaling, I try to focus on his voice and the feeling of his fingers in my hair, but it's more than hard. It's only after snaking my arm out from around him and my fingers into his, do I find my bearings. His chin was sandpapery against my head and although he'd wake me up with the weird feeling, I welcome it now. It's what roots me to the spot and brings me back to him.

"Becks honey, talk to me . . Don't run away from me again," sorrow leaked from his words that began to break on his lips. "Please."

"Harry," his name came out in a sob deep from inside of me. The second I'd heard those words drop from Skye's lips I had wanted him . . needed him. I had known that's the only thing that could ever make it better, but could it after I utter the words that had been spinning webs in my head? "S-Skye . . . "

"What, is Skye alright? Did something happen to her? Did-."

"Skye's pregnant, H-Harry."

What woke me wasn't the feeling of his fingernails dragging along my arm, raising goosebumps. It was a nightmare that I couldn't place once I'd opened my eyes, but that didn't matter because I'd woken up to one. The night before came flooding back to me, making me remember why my throat burned and my eyes stung. It was from the screams I shouted in the car where nobody could hear me, not even God who they were meant for. No, I doubted he heard me or saw the way I chased breaths between sobs.

"Morning, bug," Harry rasped in his voice dripping with extra honey.

Something unspoken hid in his words and in the way he covered my face with loud kisses. I didn't laugh or even break a smile. It was impossible after the newly awake ignorance washed away seconds after waking. I felt the hesitation in his movements, the way his chin now tucking my head to his chest moved when he was going to speak only to stop. He wanted to ask how I slept or what I dreamt about. It was the usual stuff but I knew that he was choosing his words carefully after all of the ones that were said last night.

I felt lost in my own, not knowing what to say. It was almost as bad as before when a chasm broke through our lives, carrying us away from each other. Almost but not quite. The thought made me cling to him with fear, never wanting to lose him ever again after all of the times that I had already.

"Shhh, I'm here. I-I know it's not okay right now, but it will be eventually," he cooed to me, fingers nimble and gentle where they dragged through my snarled hair.

"How, Harry? How am I going to be okay seeing her have what I want? I have to watch my best friend have a baby when- when I should be pregnant with her too. I-I . . ," no other words are possible as I begin to shake in his arms. Again.

"I know, buggie," is all that he says, speaking volumes more through his fingers drawing shapes into my back.

"How many times have they called?"

His hand pauses, frozen in a soft claw against my spine, "How'd you know? I thought you were asleep."

"I was but I know h-how they are . . She was so upset, Harry. I still feel so bad for how it happened."

"They each called about ten times already since last night between our two phones. I've gotten a few texts as well but I don't know how to answer them," he murmurs and I can only nod. His calming humming begins against my hair, some tune by The Paper Kites that he caught me listening to when I was his assistant, saying it was a favorite of his too. "Skye already said a hundred times that she understands that this is hard for you . . It's what all her texts and voicemail said."

"How can she say that she understands wh-when she's never lost a baby?" out it comes and I can't take it back, despite all of the times that I had thought it. His words of comfort begin but I'm too quick to shut them down. "But I should be happy for her and Asher," I whisper into his chest, the familiar warmth of his necklace against my cheek.

"You don't have to be anything you don't want to be, Becks. We don't get to choose how we feel . . However you're feeling is okay and it's understandable," Harry says, tracing circles under his t-shirt he pulled over me last night when I couldn't get dressed myself. "To be honest, I'm quite pissed at the world at the moment and somehow at them too. It doesn't make sense but feelings never do . . I had the hugest crush on you when we met and I had a girlfriend. It didn't make one bit of sense to me."

All that I can muster is a hummed acknowledgement before words find me, "You fought it and it didn't go away though. I want this to go away. I don't want to be jealous and mad but . . I don't know how I can't be. It's not fair, Harry."

Any licks of morning light is doused out by black when I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing that was the trick to keeping the tears in.

"I know, honey bug. Life is never fair, unfortunately . . but we're going to have our own family one day. It'll happen for us when we're ready again . . And if you can't do it, watching Skye become a Mum, then you don't have to. I don't want you causing yourself any more pain. You've already been through so much."

"But she's my best friend, Harry, ever since first grade."

"Then give it time, babe. Healing doesn't happen in a day . . We both know that."

"How can I heal if everyday I'm reminded of it, Harry? Sh-She's going to have a baby and I'm supposed to be there as her best friend, like we've always planned. The best friend plans the shower and is there for the birth, and her bump is going to get bigger. I-," he stops me before I carry on and eventually implode from the feeling bursting from my words.

"You can only do so much, and however much that is - big or small - is okay. Skye will understand," he insists from above, nudging his nose against my temple. "Shhh, shhh. It's going to be okay, babe. I promise."

Harry's words ghost over my face, smelling of the minty toothpaste we use. If my body wasn't shaking with waterfalls of tears, I'd try to care what time it is and why he isn't at work. Part of me wants to ignore it and that's the one I listen to, letting him rock me back and forth inside of the safety in his arms.

"Thanks for staying w-with me," I blubber against his neck, finding purchase with my hands cupping his shoulders.

"Always, my love. Thank you for doing the same. I know it seems like we keep getting hit down as soon as we get up."

"No kidding," I hiccup.

Trying to focus on the Elton John song he sings to me instead of the danger concocting inside of my head is no easy task. It was one of our favorite songs but it still couldn't stop me from thinking about how it should be Skye and me pregnant together. We'd dreamt out loud how many times since we were six that we'd be mothers together and our kids would be best friends. Now, that will never happen, I think miserably, wishing that things could be different just like I had thought for the last two months. Those thoughts spun back into how I'd have to stand by her side through it all, pretending that I wasn't insanely jealous and resentful. That sentence in itself makes me cry louder against his bare chest, because she was my best friend and how could I be so mad at her for something that was so amazing? I can't but I am.

It was the very same thing I'd said last night after the bedroom door had opened, all of our mouths agape. I'd tripped on my own feet, or their news had knocked me off them, I suppose. It had sent one of their plants onto its side and profanities from my mouth.

"Ree . . Oh my god," Skye had gasped, a hand to her mouth, of course. The face I had known for so many years, watched change over and over, had paled so that it almost matched the wall behind it. "Please. I'm so sorry. I didn't want you to find out this way. I promise I was going to tell you, I just didn't know how. I-."

"I can't do this, Skye. I'm sorry but I-I can't. I don't know how to," I had muttered hastily, my wet eyes already painting my face only moments before hers.

It was only seconds later that Asher had exclaimed my name for there to be no response. Moments before slamming the door, I heard him call after Skye whose footsteps trailed behind me.

"Ree, please! I'm sorry!" she had shouted after me, in a voice that snagged on the fresh crack in my heart.

"Skye, don't. She'll be okay, just give her time."

With a pained sob just before the door closed, I heard her choke out, "I never wanted to hurt her."

"Is there anything I can do to take your mind off it, bubs? It's not healthy to keep replaying it over in your head, and I know you are," Harry's murmur comes, trying to shut the door on the memory. One that is still too fresh and new, too much like the puddle of red I sat on in this very bed that morning. We'd made our way back into our bedroom and into our old lives, thinking things were going back to normal. Little did we know. Shaking my head does little to erase the thoughts, no matter how many times I do it.

"Your head's not an Etch A Sketch, bug. Stop, baby, please," he insists, bringing a hand to my head, trying to make me stop. If only I could erase the thoughts like the old toy we played with as kids. Skye and I would fight over who used it, even if we both were terrible at it. "Please, just tell me what I can do to make it all better."

"You can't always fix it, Harry. Thank you for t-trying, but . . "

Puffing, the crack in my heart widens at the pain held in just his sigh. "I wish more than anything I could, Becks. I'm the husband, the d-dad. I should be fixing it."

"Don't. You can't a-and that's okay," I say with a voice colored with the very opposite, because it really isn't okay.

"Even though it's not . . okay."

Nodding my head quickly into him answers that then and there, as if the tears loud from my eyes didn't say that already.

"I see now why you've never rated your pain as a ten before today . . ," he didn't need to finish his thought because my mind knitted it up for him. Because I need to save it for when it could be nothing else but a ten.

"I miss her. I never even met her and I miss her so much it hurts," my voice trembles, colored with memories that had just become bearable to recall. Now, I feel as if I need to find the key to lock them back up in their box because they're too painful to think about. "I just want her back, Harry."

"I know, sweetheart. So do I," his lips brush against my temple with his words, pressing a kiss there that stays. At least I have Harry. I can get through anything with him by my side. I find it in me to take a full breath at that realization, holding onto him tighter.

What now, I thought silently but the words spoke volumes. Underneath me the mattress squeaked when I tried to get comfortable. Tugging at my shirt, my eyes fell to my legs clad in a fresh pair of jeans. It felt bizarre to be wearing them. I hadn't gotten dressed in four days, because I could barely get out of bed. It was too much like the last time and it scared me to no end, because I didn't want to lose everything like before.

I didn't want to get dressed today or to take a shower for the first time since I'd heard about Skye, but I did. Harry gave me time and didn't push me, but when he left for work this morning, again without me, I found it in me to do it. My body had already gotten used to the baggy feeling of Harry's oversized shirt and sweatpants. Now, it wasn't sure about these jeans or the warm black and brown Argyle sweater I'd found in his closet. Dragging a brush through my snarled hair seemed like the most work I could do all day, let alone warming up leftovers after it. This time, I hadn't lost myself completely, but I still didn't feel like me. Knowing what I did changed everything once again, and I didn't know how to do it.

Staring back at me, the meticulous plans Harry and I had made seemed impossible now. The blinking cursor nagged at me to type in the shared Google document, knowing Harry would see it. The top listed the logical need to know things and then the places we'd go, followed by the costs and smaller details. It had only been a week since we'd looked at our wedding plans together, but it had seemed much longer now. Seeing the dress decorated with lace and sewn flowers in our closet pained me, making me wonder how I'd get my best friend to do my hair and makeup now. I knew that she would come, even if I hadn't answered any of her texts or phone calls since it had happened. But how could I do it?

#harry styles #harry styles fanfics #harry styles wattpad #one direction fanfiction #harry smut

7 notes · View notes

mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

Text

10.07: Girls, Girls, Girls.

ROWENA! At the very beginning of her long, long journey. And :') she has come so far now. Imagine coming from this, and now she's practically a Winchester.

I also love this, because it apparently takes place immediately after 10.06, as they're driving back to the bunker from Connecticut and they detour to this town just so Dean can meet up with the first woman who apparently responded to his dating website profile. Since we've literally never seen him use this app before or since, I've always assumed he HAD installed it because he was looking into those cattle deaths and caught wind of the "demonic brothel" operating in town... because he wasn't so much surprised as disappointed when Shalene turned out to be trading sex for souls. But even more importantly, NEITHER WAS SAM. They just moved on from that without Sam ever ONCE teasing him for being so gullible as to fall for that scam, you know? He may have done so BEFORE they met up with Shalene, and this seems like the kind of thing that Sam would've absolutely used for taunting purposes throughout the episode if he'd actually been in the dark about the hunt from the start. So... logic dictates it was their plan from the start.

The other interesting thing about this episode is the whole concept of Raul's Girls. I mean, we're talking about DEMONS here, who literally can possess whatever body they want. And yet the demons themselves choose not to possess the hookers, but the pimps. They only acted as middle men, having to step in just to sign the contract and then let the human women do the deed. And honestly? WHY wouldn't they just possess the women themselves and save the hassle of having to manage all these women? I mean, to do a crossroads deal, demons just need to seal the bargain with a kiss. They wouldn't have needed to "pause the action" just to bring in some mook in a suit with a stack of legal paperwork to sign. Just... tempt the john into sealing the deal on the spot without having to go through all that other distraction. I wonder how many dudes just decided at that point it wasn't worth waiting around for some other idiot to witness their shame, you know? How desperate for sex would you have to be to sit there waiting for a girl's pimp to come by and kill the mood with legal documents? Tres unsexy, if you ask me. But in the end, Raul and his demon flunkies weren't willing to do the actual deed themselves. They couldn't even convince any of their friends to possess the hookers, you know? Kinda... sad, really. Which makes me 10000000x more in love with Rowena and the mission she chose in killing these particular demons. :P

Unfortunately, Rowena ends up showing just as much disdain for her new friends as Raul did, literally using them as attack dogs to make her escape, knowing the girls would fight for her until her spell burned them up and left them dead...

So much manipulation.

On the other side of the story, we have Hannah's journey with Cas. They're apparently making progress on returning the rogue angels to Heaven, and she's becoming more comfortable in her human vessel-- until she's confronted by her vessel's husband and feels the truly human anguish over what Hannah says and does with her body to convince her husband that she doesn't want him anymore. I mean... it's horrific, and she's overwhelmed and actually experiences doubt in the righteousness of her mission for the first time.

Cas compares her anguish to his over having taken Jimmy's vessel from his family, TWICE. But their situations are in no way comparable, imho. Hannah is CHOOSING this mission. The fate of the world doesn't depend on her rounding up these few angels who are intent on experiencing humanity for themselves. She believes they should all willingly return to heaven and resume their roles as they always had, but so many angels and their human vessels have died rather than return, and she's only now beginning to wonder if she might be pursuing the wrong mission... even though Cas has come onboard with helping her with it. Because Cas still hasn't begun to understood that there's something for him to live for outside of his own chosen mission. At least he has experienced true free will for himself, in his very own body and not a human vessel occupied by a separate human soul. But he's still struggling with what his mission should be, because he also knows he has a limited time left before his second dose of stolen grace will begin to fade and burn out again. He's not yet living for the future, you know? He believes he's living on borrowed time. Which will prompt his first chosen "solo mission," to attempt to at least ensure Claire's future security after what he'd done to her father. And I LOVE this whole entire arc for him.

Just as Hannah left Caroline to go back to her husband to make things right (and heck how do you even begin explaining the truth there?), Cas chooses to do what little he can to make things right for Jimmy's family, even though Jimmy himself is more than six years dead at this point. He might not be able to return Jimmy to them, but he can do whatever he has in his power to at least check in with them and do right by his original vessel's loved ones. It's a promise too long broken, and he can at least make that right before he dies.

HANNAH: It's hard letting go... of a story, a mission. But what of the humans whose lives we sacrifice in the name of that mission? CASTIEL: What of them? HANNAH: We always said the humans were our original mission. Maybe it's time, Castiel -- time to put them first. CASTIEL: Where is all this coming from? HANNAH: Being on earth, working with you, I've felt things. Human things -- passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin... to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him. Her husband -- his anger and his grief. And Caroline was inside of me, screaming out for him, for her life back. These f-feelings, they aren't for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it's time to step aside. [Hannah smiles, leans forward and kisses Castiel on the cheek. Castiel nods.] Goodbye, Castiel.

Because Cas is only beginning to recognize that within him, in this body built at least three times over JUST FOR HIM, at this point, he feels both the Human Things and the Angelic Mission, but there's no separating out the two. They are ALL HIS OWN FEELINGS. And he's been trying to force himself to be the angel only, taking stolen grace and pushing aside his own human emotions and desires, convincing himself the mission comes first and everything else can be ignored. Until he can't anymore. And his first step is going to look for the Novaks. (the rest of his human feelings are still far too dangerous for him to even ponder yet)

And ugh ugh ugh, nobody likes Cole, but we can't deny his role in this episode. If only it had been played by anyone else >.>. But he is a representative of Dean's own past come back to haunt him, and Dean has no choice other than to address it with real words. Not like he did as an unfeeling demon, but after he's been partly cured of his supernatural ills (still got the mark, after all). But his entire conversation with Cole functions as a conversation with his own younger self-- driven by a "mission" for revenge, lacking so many crucial facts, and possibly bungling things he couldn't even BEGIN to understand at the time because of his single-minded focus on his mission.

Yes, this also serves as a reflection on Cas's current state, as well, because how often have angelic Orders and his Mission been justification for his lack of understanding of the bigger picture? "Have Faith" and "the mission is just because it comes from Heaven" were catch-alls to cover what he didn't know, and what he didn't know ended up hurting them all (but also ended up becoming the foundation for them gradually understanding the bigger picture on every level of the story, and through every turn of the narrative spiral).

So Cole stumbled over Dean about to take down Rowena in her first full episode, and at the time it was like GODDAMMIT YOU MORON NOW SHE GOT AWAY! But now? After 37 episodes of watching her character bloom like a rose, watching her journey from pure adversary to trusted family? I have to grudgingly give Cole this one... this one turned out for the best.

But it also gave us Dean saying things for Sam to hear, probably for the first time. He may have been saying these words to Cole, but they were at least as much for Sam, standing directly behind Cole and watching this scenario play out. Their issues since 9.01 had revolved around broken trust, and Sam's belief that Dean only cared about himself, so:

DEAN: Cole, hey, right here. We're talking, okay? COLE: How can I believe you, huh? {shouts] How can I believe you?! My whole life, I've been... DEAN: I get it. That was your story. Look, man, I got one of those, too. Okay, but those stories that we tell to keep us going? Man, sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places --the kind of place where I might beat the crap out of a good man just for the fun of it. The people who love me, they pulled me back from that edge. Cole, once you touch that darkness... It never goes away. Now, the truth is... I'm past saving. I know how my story ends. It's at the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun. So, the question is, is that gonna be today?That gonna be that gun?

And dang if you can't just put Cole's words into Sam's mouth here... and this is effectively Dean explaining to Sam that yes, he does understand that feeling Sam's told him he's had since he was a child, that "impurity" he's told Dean about for years having been tained by demon blood as a baby and never feeling like he could truly be clean, truly be the hero. Now Dean understands exactly what that burned felt like, and Sam can't deny it anymore. Sam, who relies on common experience to truly make a connection with others (as the narrative emblem of sympathy), now finally understands this aspect of Dean on a level he never could've before Dean actually said it out loud like this. And Dean (as the narrative emblem of empathy) knew Sam needed to hear it stated this plainly, and finally stopped shying away from actually manning up and saying it.

I'm gonna call it progress.

#spn 10.07 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #winchester family dynamics #sam sympathizes and dean empathizes #rowena #castiel winchester #you learned it from the goats #the scheherazade of supernatural #because 'the people who love me' in this case are both sam and cas #breaking the codependency #using your words #spiders georg of the tnt loop

14 notes · View notes

ladyherenya · 6 years ago

Photo

Books read in April

Holidays are an ideal time to find oneself with a pile of library books to read. The downside to having gone away with a pile of books is having too many books to write about afterwards.

I also reviewed the short stories I listened to: “Intro to Prom” and “Semiramis” by Genevieve Valentine, “The Shipmaker” by Aliette de Bodard and “When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller.

Favourite cover: Stand in the Sky!

Reread: Once again, didn’t get to the book I’d planned to reread.

Still reading: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee.

Next up: Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYa Anthology. A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II by Elizabeth Wein. Maybe Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear.

(Longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also Dreamwidth.)

Pride by Ibi Zoboi (narrated by Elizabeth Acevedo): Seventeen year old Zuri Benitez is proud of her family, her Haitian-Dominican heritage and the community of her Brooklyn neighbourhood. She’s unimpressed by changes like gentrification or the wealthy Darcy family moving in across the street. This contemporary YA remix twists the events of P&P fit Zuri’s context, allowing the story explore cultural identity, class and dealing with change, and for Zuri’s relationship with Darius makes sense for 21st century teenagers. It’s a cute teen romance but most powerful as a love-letter to Zuri’s hood. The audiobook brought it to life even more vividly.

Stand on the Sky by Erin Bow: Achingly beautiful. It kept making me tear up because while it’s only sometimes sad -- while this is a hopeful and joyous story -- it captures twelve year old Aisulu’s emotions so intensely. When her older brother is taken to hospital, Aisulu is left behind with their herds and relatives and throws herself into raising an eaglet. A fascinating insight into nomadic Kazakhs living in Mongolia and into the challenges and the rewards of eagle-hunting. I love the prose, sense of place and characters; I love Aisulu’s relationships and the way this is her story -- her journey.

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser: Caro has grown up on the river with her father, a wherryman and a smuggler. She’s offered her first job in exchange for her father’s freedom -- to deliver a crate, unopened, to Valonikos. But when she opens the crate, its occupant has other ideas about their destination. This YA fantasy shines the strongest in the skills and knowledge Caro has about sailing and about river life. I enjoyed the rest, but some things happened a bit too quickly for me to feel invested.

Undying by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner: I wasn’t very enthusiastic about Unearthed but this sequel was a lot of fun to read. High-stakes and satisfying. There’s escaping and travelling across Europe incognito and trying to save the world. And it got to build upon what had previously been established, so there’s more nuance and it all felt more believable. After reading these authors’ other books, I was confident that everything would turn out okay. I’d have liked the ending more if the authors had surprised me and there had been a higher cost -- but this is a YA novel and teenage-me certainly wouldn’t have wanted that.

Cobalt Squadron by Elizabeth Wein (narrated by Kelly Marie Tran): I didn’t find The Last Jedi very satisfying but I’m a fan of Elizabeth Wein, so I listened to this story about a mission that Rose, her sister Paige and the rest of Cobalt Squadron are involved with. Knowing that the Tico sisters survive lessened the tension somewhat, but I liked getting to know them better. (I also know that Wein is capable of writing more complex and harrowing stories but that’s not what this one is aiming for.) The audiobook includes Star Wars music and sound effects. I’d love to see music and sound effects used in more audiobooks.

A Question of Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro: Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson are attending an Oxford summer program before they start university. Charlotte is asked to investigate a mystery involving the drama society. It’s a quieter mystery than the preceding ones but I am not going to complain about that. I’m happy to read about mysteries at Oxford! Towards the end Charlotte makes a decision which I thought needed to be foreshadowed better and then the epilogue rushed over some things, and I wasn’t totally satisfied. I also found Charlotte’s references to things like “fall”, even though she’s living back in the UK, jarring. Minor-ish quibbles?

The True Queen by Zen Cho: The companion to Sorcerer to the Crown. This took a while to hook me, but once the story got underway, I enjoyed guessing where it was all headed. It is a delightfully diverse Regency fantasy, with some satisfying twists. If I have any quibbles, it’s that I wanted a better resolution for something -- and maybe also just more of the ending? I don’t quite know... I didn’t spend much time analysing my reaction and it was now over half a dozen books ago.

Scorch Dragons by Amie Kaufman: In the sequel to Ice Wolves, 12 year old Anders and his twin sister find themselves on different sides of the conflict between wolves and dragons, but they work together with their friends to prevent a second war. The riddle-solving and questing for a hidden objects reminded me of Deltora Quest, which I enjoyed when I was Anders’ age. A very satisfying sort of adventure.

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss (narrated by Kate Reading): In the sequel to The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, Mary Jekyll and Justine Frankenstein set off for Europe to rescue Lucinda Van Helsing at the request of Mary’s former governess, Mina Murray, and receive help and hospitality from people like Irene Adler and Carmilla. I particularly enjoyed the Athena Club’s interjections and digressions in the narrative, and interactions with each other. They make a great team. Kate Reading does a great job with all the voices and accents, which made the story all the more engaging. Even at 1.5 speed (due to 20+ hours of audiobook to get through!) it was easy to keep track of who was speaking.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: I liked it! It’s engaging, intriguing and doing some surprisingly-similar things to Ancillary Justice (which I loved), such as: a first-person narrator who neither human nor omnipotent but has greater awareness and abilities; an interesting use of pronouns -- Eolo’s actions are described in the second-person; and a story about the past eventually collides with the story about the present. I completely missed that this is ALSO themes and variations on Hamlet. That might explain why I found the ending incredibly satisfying for the first-person narrator but I was expecting something more from -- for? -- Eolo.

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black: I borrowed this because it has a delightful map by Kathleen Jennings, it’s a finalist for the Lodestar Award, and I liked the last book I read by Black. It’s an interesting exploration of what it means to love terrible things, with a clear-sighted awareness of their flaws, but I spent most of the story thinking “I hate faeries” and wishing Jude could escape them. Then the plot did its thing, and I had to admit that this is a successful piece of storytelling, if still not quite my thing.

The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker: Parker’s fourth romance about actors from the West End -- in which Freddy accepts the role of Lydia Bennet in The Austen Playbook, a televised, audience-interactive murder mystery theatre production -- is a lot of fun. Having an interesting setting and plot outside of the romance definitely enhances my enjoyment of the story. This had Jane Austen and Harry Potter references, rehearsal tensions, important family relationships, a mystery involving a (fictional) play, banter, and a lively actress and a grumpy theatre critic who are honest with each other.

The Place on Dalhousie by Melina Marchetta: This is about Jimmy Hailler (from Saving Francesca), now in his mid 20s. But it is equally about Rosie, who meets Jimmy in a Queensland town during a flood, Rosie’s stepmother Martha and the house built by Seb, Rosie’s late-father. It’s a powerfully moving story about grief, friendship and finding family. It’s shorter than Marchetta’s more-recent novels and I finished it feeling oddly disappointed, like it needed to be longer. Then I reread the book the following day, and reconsidered. I’d like more, certainly, but it is a satisfying story as it is.

From Clarkesworld Magazine, narrated by Kate Baker:

“Intro to Prom” by Genevieve Valentine (Issue 133): About four teenagers for whom prom is like a game they play, a way to pass the time. It is intriguing but bleak.

“Semiramis” by Genevieve Valentine (Issue 57): This is Valentine-ishly bleak and yet satisfyingly so?

The worst thing about being a sleeper embedded somewhere long-term was that inevitably, eventually, you started to care. The worst thing about being embedded long-term as an administrator at the Svalbard Seed Vault was that when you inevitably started to care, you started to care about things like proper political geo-temperate arrangement of seeds, and there was just no one else in their right mind who was going to care about that with you.

“The Shipmaker” by Aliette de Bodard (Issue 124): Set in the same universe as The Tea Master and the Detective. It is intriguing but sad, and I wonder if I’d appreciate it more if I read more of de Bodard’s stories and understood the context better.

“When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller (Issue 145): This has been nominated for the Hugo for Best Novelette and I can see why! It’s a hopeful story about survival, questioning what society teaches and finding a way to a better future. There’s also an AI with feelings.

Once, I might have felt out of place, an unwelcome disturbance. But I had left my fear of ghosts behind like an old skin a long time ago, and what I had found instead was the unforeseen, and sometimes pure beauty.

#Herenya reviews books #Melina Marchetta #Erin Bow #Elizabeth Wein #Lucy Parker #Amie Kaufman #Meagan Spooner #Ibi Zoboi #Sarah Tolcser #Brittany Cavallaro #Zen Cho #Theodora Goss #Ann Leckie #Holly Black #Genevieve Valentine #Aliette de Bodard #Simone Heller #Pride and Prejudice #Charlotte Holmes

1 note · View note

cladeymoore · 4 years ago

Text

Around the Block #8: The promise and potential of synthetic assets

Coinbase Around the Block sheds light on key issues in the crypto space. In this edition, Justin Mart explores the synthetic asset landscape as well as other notable news in the space.

Today, most Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications look like copies of traditional financial products. You can swap one token for another, borrow or lend a token in a money market, and even trade on an exchange with margin and leverage.

But DeFi can go much further. Blockchains are open, global platforms that carry programmable value at their core. It’s only a matter of time before DeFi produces something truly unique — with no corollary in the traditional world.

Enter the first possible example: synthetic assets

What are Synthetic Assets?

Synthetic assets are a new type of derivative. Recall that derivatives are assets whose value is derived from a different asset or benchmark. Things like futures and options, where buyers and sellers trade contracts that track the future price of an asset.

DeFi simply adds a twist: synthetic assets are tokens that are digital representations of derivatives. Where derivatives are financial contracts that provide custom exposure to an underlying asset or financial position, synthetic assets are simply tokenized representations of similar positions.

As such, synthetic assets carry unique advantages:

Permissionless creation: Blockchains like Ethereum empower anyone to construct synthetic asset systems

Easy access and transferability: Synthetic assets are freely transferable and tradeable

Global pools of liquidity: Blockchains are global by default, anyone in the world can participate

No central party risk: There are no central parties with privileged control

What are some examples?

To start, synthetic assets can tokenize physical assets, bringing them onto a blockchain and imbuing them with all the advantages listed above. Imagine anyone in the world buying a token that tracks the S&P 500, and being able to use that token as collateral in other DeFi projects like Compound, Aave, or MakerDAO. The model can be extended to commodities like gold or grains, equities like TSLA or indexes like SPY, debt instruments like bonds, and anything else.

Consider that last piece — this is where it gets exciting. We’re not far away from exotic, novel instruments like pop culture markets, meme markets, personal token markets, etc, that can be traded through synthetic assets.

And the implied market size is substantial given that any asset can have a synthetic version brought onto a blockchain. Just as one reference point, the total global equities trading volume Q1’20 is ~$32.5T, which theoretically could be replaced in part by synthetic versions that trade on a global pool of liquidity with open and free access to anyone.

A specific example: Poop Exchange

In late 2019, a few developers had an idea and released a prototype — what if we had a synthetic asset that tracks the frequency of poop sightings in San Francisco? Token holders profit when more poop is sighted, and the token issuer profits if poop sightings decrease, using an oracle that simply reports the number of poop sightings.

This poop token market could align incentives for local SF government. If the city of SF issues poop tokens, they are incentivized to clean up the streets in order to profit. Conversely, citizens could purchase poop tokens as an emotional hedge, ensuring that at least they make money if the streets don’t get better. A simple example, but showcases the potential of synthetic assets and markets for anything.

What types of Synthetic Asset platforms exist today?

Universal Market Access (UMA)*

UMA is a synthetic-asset protocol that allows anyone to recreate traditional financial products, exotic crypto-based products, and more. Through UMA, two counterparties come together to permissionlessly create an arbitrary financial contract that is secured through economic incentives (collateral), and enforced through smart contracts on Ethereum. Given Ethereum’s global, open nature, the barriers to entry are significantly reduced, creating “Universal Market Access.”

Today, UMA community members are focused on first building tokenized yield curves (e.g., yUSD), but the platform can be used by anyone to create any manner of financial contracts. Just some examples:

Crypto-based contracts: Crypto futures tokens, yield curves, perpetual swaps, etc.

Tokens that track cryptocurrency or DeFi metrics: E.g., BTC dominance, DeFi TVL charts, decentralized exchange (DEX) market share charts, or any other metric.

Traditional financial products: US & Global equities (e.g., a TSLA or APPL token), private pension plans, insurance and annuity products

Exotics: The poop.exchange example, pop culture, meme markets, etc.

UMA is positioning itself as the protocol for the long-tail of exciting and creative financial markets. As with poop.exchange, some of these contracts might be used to fundamentally realign incentives — a zero-to-one innovation!

* Note: UMA is a Coinbase Ventures portfolio company

Synthetix

Synthetix is a protocol for creating global liquidity for synthetic assets on Ethereum. Synthetix facilitates the creation and trading of numerous asset classes including crypto, equities, and commodities, all on-chain.

Tokens that track the price of these assets can be bought and sold natively within the Synthetix ecosystem, which uses a combination of collateral, staking, and trading fees to operate. Notably, the Synthetix ecosystem is transitioning to be operated entirely by a structure of DAOs, where the SNX token is central to the entire ecosystem. SNX can be staked to provide collateral backing synthetic asset positions while accruing trading fees in return, and act as a governance token in the DAOs.

As the leading synthetic asset platform in DeFi, Synthetix has currently issued over $150 million of “Synths”. Chief among them is sUSD, their platform’s stablecoin, which is approaching $100M in market cap.

Today, Synthetix mostly offers crypto-based synthetic assets like sETH and sBTC, as well as index-tokens like iDeFi and iLINK that track a basket of assets. Much of their traction can be owed to their unique market design, where assets trade against an oracle price and therefore suffer no slippage when buying or selling.

Others

Several other synthetic asset platforms are being built with unique tradeoffs and design decisions. Non-exhaustively, consider Morpher, DerivaDEX*, FutureSwap, DyDx, and Opyn, Hegic, or Augur.

* Note: DerivaDEX is a Coinbase Ventures portfolio company

Conclusion

Synthetic assets are new primitives made possible by the maturation of Ethereum and the DeFi ecosystem. But we are just at the beginning, and should not be blind to the inherent risks:

Smart contract risk: Exploits in smart contracts are possible, and synthetic assets could be strong targets

Governance risk: These platforms are mostly often governed by their decentralized participants, which remains relatively untested at scale

Oracle Risk: Many synthetic assets rely on oracles to function properly, which carry their own trust assumptions and failure modes

Platform risk: Ethereum and other underlying blockchains may struggle at scale, and perform worse the moment you need them most. Fee markets can be inefficient, and frontrunning or griefing attacks could be challenging.

However, balance the downside with the potential. Synthetic assets represent open and global access to existing financial markets, itself an important primitive. But cut deeper and you can see the innovation behind markets for anything.

We can potentially use these primitives to construct novel, new financial markets that can fundamentally align incentives and change the way we live our lives.

To participate in the emerging cryptoeconomy, sign up for Coinbase today.

Quick Hits: Commentary on Notable News

DEX Volume Continues Strong Growth, Helped by Novel DeFi Monetary Experiments

DEXs have historically struggled with traction, doing just ~$3B collectively in 2019. However volume has exploded in 2020, with >$20B YTD and $15B in just the past two months. This growth trajectory accelerates the DEX adoption curve and ushers them into the spotlight.

This volume comes from ~200K active addresses over the last month (where Uniswap alone records ~160K, but likely some crossover between platforms). Uniswap is dominating DEX market share with ~45% YTD (and 70% in the last week). Other popular DEXs are Curve and Balancer with ~16% and ~7% YTD market share, but on the horizon are new entrants Serum, Sushiswap, and more.

Key to DEX growth is the emergence of several DeFi projects pioneering novel monetary models, and typically launched through “fair launches” — where there are no previous owners and no outside funding, a fixed supply, and distribution solely through yield farming. As such, they represent a layer of experimentation and game theory never seen before. Some examples:

Ampleforth (AMPL)

The pioneering example is Ampleforth (AMPL), which has an economic model that aims to keep the AMLP token near $1 by automatically adjusting supply in response to demand, a process known as rebasing. Quite simply: when AMPL is above $1, everyone’s balance increases in order to drive the unit price down. Conversely, when AMPL is below $1, everyone’s balance decreases in order to drive the price up. Note that despite rebases, your market share will stay constant.

As we can see, the AMPL price is anything but stable. The monetary experiment instead seems to produce a rapidly oscillating price and market cap with whipsaw volatility, surpassing $600M in market capitalization at one point.

Yams (YAM)

Yam was a surprise launch on August 11, supposedly built in 10 days by borrowing code from several battle tested DeFi projects. It functions nearly identical to AMPL, but with some differences:

A rebase mechanism nearly identical to AMPL, targeting $1

A treasury controlled by YAM holders, funded by allocating a portion of rebases to purchase stablecoins

Governance contracts that enable community ownership of the treasury, where votes determine how the treasury is used

Fair distribution with no team or investor token allocations. Tokens are entirely distributed via yield farming

What followed was a modern-day DeFi story; the inaugural version of YAMs unfortunately shipped with a bug in the rebase contract and the governance contract. The surprising juxtaposition meant that attempts to fix the rebase contract were hindered by the bug in the governance contract, and ultimately resulted in a broken system with $750K of stablecoins permanently stuck.

The fallout? YAM V1 is broken, but the community rallied, forked the code, and is in the process of launching YAM V2.

Following AMPL and YAMs, other tokens quickly arrived with their own unique flavors:

Spaghetti.Money: A yield farmed token, but with no governance (to avoid the fate of YAM), and deflationary (1% of every transaction is burned)

Shrimp.Finance: A yield farmed token with no rebase. Shrimp chose DICE and CREAM as two less mainstream tokens to use as staking, demonstrating a novel mechanism to reach different communities

Zombie.Finance: A yield farmed, rebasing token with an added rule eliminating tokens holders with less than 1 ZOMBIE after a rebase

$BASED: an economic game of chicken which started with yield farming and will soon transition to rebasing

And who knows what tomorrow will bring. These experiments are being played out in real time, with real value, and for now are traded predominantly on decentralized exchanges.

News from Coinbase

Borrow cash using Bitcoin on Coinbase

Marc Andreessen and Gokul Rajaram join the Coinbase board of directors

Numeraire, UMA, BAND, and Celo launch on Coinbase Pro

Marcus Hughes joins Coinbase as GM for Europe

Coinbase publishes ERC-20 token listing guidelines

Manish Gupta joins Coinbase as VP of Engineering

News from the Crypto Industry

FTX acquires Blockfolio for rumored $150M in bid for retail expansion; and hires Robinhood’s former head of crypto

Aave’s U.K. entity granted E-Money Institution License, eyes fiat rails

Blockchain.com raises interest rates on interest-bearing accounts

Binance announces DeFi savings product, touts 14.8% APY

Institutional Crypto News

BitMEX set to require KYC for all accounts

SEC updates the accredited investor definition; Hester Pierce sworn in for second term

Fidelity launches inaugural fund for wealthy investors

Former Prudential CEO George Ball advises wealthy investors to buy Bitcoin

News from Emerging Crypto Businesses

Uniswap fork Sushiswap reaches $700M TVL less than one week after launch

FTX partners with Solana to launch Serum, a new DEX

Wrapped BTC continues to grow with minting rate surpassing mining rate

ETC hit with 3rd 51% attack this month

ETH 2.0 testnet Medalla encounters headwinds

The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors who may be associated persons of Coinbase, Inc., or its affiliates (“Coinbase”) and who do not represent the views, opinions and positions of Coinbase. Information is provided for general educational purposes only and is not intended to constitute investment or other advice on financial products. Coinbase makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability, or validity of any information on this website and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. Unless otherwise noted, all images provided herein are the property of Coinbase.

This website contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only (“Third-Party Sites”). The Third-Party Sites are not under the control of Coinbase, and Coinbase is not responsible for the content of any Third-Party Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Site, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Site. Coinbase is not responsible for webcasting or any other form of transmission received from any Third-Party Site. Coinbase is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by Coinbase of the site or any association with its operators.

Around the Block #8: The promise and potential of synthetic assets was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Money 101 https://blog.coinbase.com/around-the-block-8-the-promise-and-potential-of-synthetic-assets-9fbb15c2b24e?source=rss----c114225aeaf7---4 via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

bigyack-com · 5 years ago

Text

Stock Markets in Asia Cautious Ahead of Earnings Announcements: Live Updates

Stock market rally falters, with Asian markets mixed.

A global stock market rally showed signs of faltering on Tuesday, ahead of a slew of corporate earnings announcements that are likely to reveal further damaging effects from the coronavirus outbreak.Japanese shares were trading lower as of midday, while other Asian markets were flat or only mildly positive. Futures markets predicted downbeat openings for Wall Street and Europe as well, one day after the S&P 500 rose nearly 1.5 percent.Companies like Ford, Merck and Starbucks are scheduled to report financial results for the first part of the year on Tuesday. While many companies are taking cautious steps to reopen, the earnings reports may further cloud the hopes for a healthy global recovery.Underscoring the unease, prices for U.S. Treasury bonds, often seen as a safe place to put money in times of trouble, rose during Asian trading, sending yields lower. U.S. oil prices continued their plunge from Monday and were flirting with $10 a barrel at midday in Asia.In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was down 0.2 percent. The Shanghai Composite index in mainland China was flat. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.5 percent. South Korea’s Kospi index and Taiwan’s Taiex were up 0.2 percent.Minutes after a $310 billion aid program for small companies opened for business on Monday, the online portal for submitting applications crashed. And it kept crashing all day, much to the frustration of bankers around the country who were trying — and failing — to apply on behalf of desperate clients.Some irritated bankers vented on social media at the Small Business Administration, which is running the program. Rob Nichols, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, wrote on Twitter that the trade group’s members were “deeply frustrated” at their inability to access the system. Until the problems were fixed, he said, “#AmericasBanks will not be able to help more struggling small businesses.”Pent-up demand for the funds has been intense, after the program’s initial $342 billion funding ran out in under two weeks, stranding hundreds of thousands of applicants whose loans did not get processed. Last week, Congress approved the additional $310 billion for small businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Bankers were expecting the money to once again run out quickly, and so on Monday at 10:30 a.m., when round two opened, they were ready to go.But for the second time in a month, the relief effort, called the Paycheck Protection Program, turned into chaos, sowing confusion among lenders and borrowers. A centerpiece of the government’s $2 trillion economic stimulus package, the program offers small companies — typically those with up to 500 workers — forgivable loans of up to $10 million. The S.B.A. is backing the loans, but customers must apply through financial institutions.Employees at TAB Bank in Ogden, Utah, spent last week pulling all-nighters to finish preparing loan applications from 1,100 customers. When the S.B.A. began accepting applications on Monday morning, they started trying to submit their files. But the S.B.A.’s computer system stalled, froze and crashed repeatedly. Five hours later, the bank had gotten only seven loans processed.“I’m beyond frustrated,” said Curt Queyrouze, the bank’s president, who also shared his experience on Twitter. “We wanted to update all of our customers this evening on the status of their applications, but right now, there’s not a lot of good news to give them.”

Stocks rose Monday as investors looked toward reopening.

U.S. stocks rose and global markets rallied on Monday as governments around the world discussed when and how to reopen businesses and get their economies back on track.The S&P 500 rose more than 1 percent. European benchmarks rose 1 to 3 percent after a broadly higher day in Asia.European governments, including Italy and France, have been discussing ways to reopen in recent days. New Zealand is loosening restrictions on retailers, restaurants, construction sites and schools after only one new case of the virus was reported Monday.In the United States, governors in Colorado, Georgia, Michigan and other states are deciding how and when to start easing some social-distancing restrictions. Any opening will be slow and painful, but investors signaled optimism that the recovery could begin soon.The clearest signal of this on Monday was a rally in companies that stand to gain from the lifting of restrictions on travel and public gathering. Department store Kohl’s rose nearly 18 percent, while shares of Nordstrom and Gap were also sharply higher, for example.Hotel operators like Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International also jumped.

The shortage you haven’t heard about: sympathy cards.

Many celebrations and milestones have been delayed, but grief is in abundance, and the greeting card aisle offers a snapshot of the virus’s wicked toll. Sympathy cards are nearly all sold out.CVS, one of the nation’s largest sellers of greeting cards, said that it was seeing “higher demand for sympathy cards than most other types of greeting cards during the pandemic” and was experiencing shortages in certain stores. Shoppers across the country have posted on social media that their local Winn Dixie or ShopRite was running out of cards.Some of the shortages have been caused by distribution problems. Pharmacies and grocery chains, focused on keeping their shelves stocked with household staples, are not allowing card companies to come into the stores and restock regularly.With stores running out and people unable to leave their homes, many card sales have moved online and are at record levels, suppliers say. On Etsy, the online marketplace for crafts and jewelry, searches for sympathy cards more than doubled from March 1 to April 17 compared with the same period a year ago.Before the pandemic, the greeting card industry had experienced declining sales. Some big retailers recently cut back on the aisle space devoted to cards. The parent company of high-end card retailer Papyrus declared bankruptcy in January and closed all of the brand’s stores. But virtual communication has its limits, especially in times of grief. With many people unable to attend funerals or drop off food for a grieving neighbor, or even offer an embrace, mailing a sympathy card seems more necessary.Barbara Macchiaroli’s longtime companion died of the virus the day after Easter in a nursing home. He was 90. They haven’t had a funeral, but the cards — 34 so far — have been arriving at her house every day. The senders have written memories about his beautiful singing voice, his devotion to the local Kiwanis Club and his love of Ford Model A’s.“The cards have comforted me in a way I never expected they would,” she said. “I think it is because I can’t be with people right now.”

Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.

Amazon may have violated federal worker safety laws and New York State’s whistle-blower protections when it fired an employee from its Staten Island warehouse who protested the company’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a letter the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, sent the company last week.JetBlue announced on Monday that it would require all passengers to wear a face covering during travel starting May 4. The mask must cover the nose and mouth throughout the entire journey, from check-in to deplaning. JetBlue did not say whether it would provide masks to its passengers.Boeing plans to resume operations in South Carolina next week, bringing several thousand employees back to work on the 787 Dreamliner about a month after sending them home. Those who can work remotely will continue to do so, and managers will tell the recalled workers when to return to Boeing’s complex in North Charleston, the company said.Reporting was contributed by Karen Weise, Gregory Schmidt, Michael Corkery, Sapna Maheshwari, Niraj Chokshi, Stacy Cowley, Carlos Tejada and Daniel Victor. Read the full article

0 notes

kristie-rp · 5 years ago

Text

monster - lyle/josé

In the dark, in the dark it can hear when I breathe Now it’s closing in on me

it’s getting louder now, it’s getting louder now ((now))

It would be easy, he thinks, watching the drunk stumble in the alley. The man is overweight and staggering, and he knows he was just thrown out for putting his hands on the performers at La La Lace without consent. He doesn’t respect woman, at a glance, and he doesn’t have friends who come out to check on him.

No one will miss him, says a voice in Lyle’s head. It’s the voice that sounds like a terrifying hybrid of everything he’s running from, his mum and his dad and his younger brother and his baby sister, dark and twisted and selfish. His life is worth an end to this goddamned agony.

He spins away from the guy, forces himself back into the run he is on. He stopped to down half the water he’s brought with him, but he shouldn’t. Every time I stop lately, I think like that. It’s not worth it. Just keep running.

So he does, feet pounding on the pavement, shooting stabbing pain up from the balls of his feet. It shakes through his legs and is lost in the throbbing and aches the rest of his body has settled into. The pain is a constant, and running is rarely a relief, but he needs to do something to try to burn out the thoughts, the cravings, the twitch of his fingers and the way his blood thrums in his veins.

It isn’t like it’d be hard to kill him, the voice starts up again, louder and reaching for attention. This is his brothers voice.

His fathers voice adds: it was our idiotic ancestor who caused this, not us. Our guilt is pointless when it’s clearly their fault.

His mother: There is no reason I should be feeling pain when a little drop of lifeblood will make it all go away.

Lyle pushes himself harder and faster, refusing to look at anyone he passes on the sidewalk. If he does, the thoughts will become more directed, more like planning. If he plans, he is terrified he will lose control. If the temptation gets too much, or he stops to think even passively about a plan, then he’ll be able to feel the desperation and desire for a reprieve clawing at his veins.

I will not be like them, he thinks desperately. He will not kill more people for no reason at all. He will not take a life. He will not become what he fears and hates, a soulless coward afraid of his own pain. He can own it, he’s been owning it for years. He’s only slipped up twice, and the guilt each time tears him apart almost as badly as the pain he’s in now.

I will not be like them, he tells himself, but he knows the thoughts about how to make this fucking invasive agony s t o p are just waiting for him to slip up for a second to claw their way to the top and take control of his life again.

don’t make another sound (I can feel it coming to life) ((then – the first))

“You knew this man was a killer,” she accuses. She is crackling with energy, rage and grief battling for dominance on her delicate features.

“I had no proof, I only suspected. He had not yet been caught in the act.” Ioseph sounds bored, defensive and blunt; he has no interest in defending his decisions, but considering he is on the cusp of receiving accolades for stopping a mass murderer, he has no choice but to listen.

“You killed him,” she says, very slowly, “only after you saw him kill my daughter?”

There’s a flash of guilt at this, but Ioseph steels himself quickly. “What is one life in the face of the countless I have saved, now? Without putting myself at risk of angering the courts? Witnessing a murder warrants a kill. Suspecting a prior crime does not.”

“You will pay for your hesitance to kill him,” she spits, acidic, and storms away.

Ioseph dismisses her claims easily, and focuses instead on his work.

it’s getting closer now, it’s getting closer now ((then – the witchdoctor))

The pain is debilitating enough that Ioseph struggles to move, but it is his infant daughter who worries him so. He has pain bad enough to keep him awake and on the cusp of howling from it constantly, now, whereas before killing the killer, he was healthy and fit.

His infant daughter, Melanie – she screams constantly, does not sleep, refuses the food he and his partner can offer her. His wife is sleeping poorly, as well, complaining of a constant ache in and around Melanie’s screams.

He is desperate for a cure, and it is that that brings him to the witchdoctor who calls herself Devi. She works with all kinds of ailments, it is said. The townspeople whisper that she can solve anything.

“It is you who let Elizabeth die,” she says bluntly, opening her door to him. She is brewing him a cup of tea as she says this. “What would you have me do?”

“I have had pain ever since shortly after that,” he says, “a constant pain that will not abate. It was a struggle to get here; I thought I would collapse with every step. The clothes I am wearing are too much pressure, too heavy to be comfortable, and I am not sleeping. That is at least partly because my daughter – she is less than a year old. She has been screaming ever since this pain started.”

“And you didn’t bring her to be looked over?”

“She screams louder when touched,” he explains, exhausted and guilty and miserable.

“Hm,” Devi says, placing a teacup before him. The liquid is a dark brown initially, but after he takes a sip and puts it down, swallowing despite the terrible taste, the liquid has turned a vibrant violet, more at home on a flower petal than in this cup.

He stares at it for a moment, then glares at the witchdoctor. “You have poisoned me,” he accuses, annoyed and on edge.

“I have diagnosed you,” she corrects, dumping the violet liquid into the fire and busying herself putting together something else. The flames gutter and shoot upward, and he is instantly confused and annoyed. “And now I am offering you medicine, and a cure.”

Ioseph watches intently as she produces a small phylactery of what looks like blood, rich and dark red, from the midst of her cupboards. She empties it into a cup, and gives it to him without adding anything else. “This is blood,” he says, convinced without checking.

“Drink it and I will explain,” she orders, and he does so. He stares at his hands as the ache recedes, just enough to be manageable. Enough to eliminate the shaking. “It’s vampire blood,” she says, “mixed with the blood of a human child.”

“That’s disgusting, and you’re insane,” he says, scrambling to his feet.

“That is not the treatment, and it will wear off by midnight,” she retorts, brow raised. “Besides, the treatment I have in mind would help your baby. I have a theory.”

“A theory,” he echoes, horrified and morbidly curious. What medicine involves human and vampire blood? What cure can help Melanie?”

“Vampire blood, from the source, for now. That will be enough until she becomes a woman,” she says. Devi the witchdoctor has a reputation for being insane and offering outlandish cures – but the thing is, the whispers say it will work. “For you and for her, when she’s older, though – well. Blood is the best cure I can offer.”

“Drinking it?”

“Eh,” she says, “touching it would be enough, were it lifeblood.”

He’s quiet for a long while, as he processes the implications of this. Lifeblood, not just blood? Murder, not injury. Unforgiveable crime. “It wouldn’t be once and done, would it.”

“No. It’d be quite regular. More regular for your descendants.”

Ioseph does think about it. He thinks about the blood on his hands for agreeing to this, of how he could end the line and end the problem. Of how he killed a man for murdering a single girl, but that this is infinitely worse. That if his family continued to have this curse, then he is technically responsible for every person they kill in the future. And then the thinks of his daughter, tiny and fragile, screaming her agony to the heavens. He sighs. “I have to protect my daughter,” he says quietly, devastated but strong. “How do I arrange this – treatment? The blood of a vampire?”

The witchdoctor smiles grimly.

it’s gonna run me down (I can feel it coming to life) ((then – it hurts))

José has curled in on himself and is holding very still, fighting not to move. The trembling defies him, makes him a failure, and he worries that he might shake out of his skin. The last time he experienced pain like this – well. He doesn’t think he has, ever. If it gets bad, his dad says, the key is to take something from someone else.

The ‘something’ is their life.

He’s not stupid. José is fully aware that his dad is a psychopath who kills people in their basement. Their mum helps, lures people in with saccharine smiles and sugar-sweet bribes, cookies and candy and home cooked meals, a Stepford smiler if ever one existed.

He has proof, too, in his own memories, in being forced – by his father – to slit a womans’ throat with shaking hands. The woman had been a tourist, and she’d been the first, but he still remembers fear and pity battling on her face, the way she’d tried to tell him she understood this wasn’t him who wanted to hurt her around the blood she was choking on. He’s never going to forget how it felt, the heavy guilt and pain of ending a life, especially a woman whose only crime was trusting the Madison family. He remembers his mum waiting near the top of the basement staircase, remembers the encouraging smile when he looked to her for help. Remembers his hands, steadying as the tourists blood pours over them, pain fading for the first time since he started to go through puberty.

He’s shaking apart in his room five and a half years later, recently graduated with the blood of plenty of others on his hands, and he feels most guilty about what stands out – the first one. He never even found out what her name was, not like the other ones, where he stole ID cards from the pile his parents were disposing of, picked names and contact information from others, faked being older than he is and called from payphones and borrowed landlines to let people know their loved ones ID had been found, and that there was no sign of the person. At least it gave some closure, even if he was constantly insinuating people who’d done nothing but die had decided to abandon everything.

“José, baby? Come downstairs,” his mum called, “it’s time.”

He stared at his hands for a long moment, willing them to stop shaking. Of course they don’t. The pain is always there, will or no, and he’s been putting this off for too long – long enough that he would describe himself as in agony. “Coming, mum,” he croaks, dragging himself out of his bed and out from his room.

He forces himself to smile at her when she greets him at the base of the stairs, allowing her to eagerly escort him to the basement. “This one is special, a destructive brat,” she is saying as the door opens and he adjusts to the swinging single lightbulb his father has already turned on.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to play in the neighbours garden?” his father is crooning. José can hear the smugness of it, and does not allow himself to cringe at the mocking, infantile tone.

“I’m sorry,” says a high voice, and José stops and stares. The victim – the one his mum is so excited to see die – cannot be even seven years old. She’s a little bigger than the average six-year-old, round with baby fat, and her face is contorted in a desperate, miserably confused visage, in the midst of a tantrum but restrained. “I didn’t mean to. I promise if you let me go I won’t even tell my mum.”

There are two who stand out, he corrects himself. The first one, whose name he will never know, and this one. This is Claudia, he knows. She is friends with the kids who live across the street. She chatters excitedly about horses and how mummy is busy helping animals whenever she can get José’s attention. She’s six years old and asks a million questions and is unfortunately incredibly clumsy. He doesn’t know what she did, or what his mum think she did, but he does know this: whatever it was, it doesn’t warrant the end of her little life.

“No,” José breathes, then, louder: “Are you getting stupid in your old age? She knows us! Her babysitters know she knows us!”

“Please,” his mum says, disinterested except for faint amusement. “Leslie is a paranoid alcoholic rumourmonger who only ends up babysitting because she lacks the commitment to keep a job. No one will believe a word she says.”

José is grasping desperately at straws, and he clenches his fist to keep his fingers from shaking away from his hands. “I won’t hurt her, d’you hear me? Her name is Claudia – I met her mum. If you hurt her, I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them all.”

“Don’t be an idiot, José,” his father says. He has left Claudia’s side, at least, and he has one hand on the banister. He looks up at him with mild concern. “You have been involved for years. Henry will need it, soon. What will you tell them? ‘My parents force me to kill people so that I and they don’t have to live in agony, because my fool of an ancestor upset the wrong person’? Please. We know you better than that; you won’t send yourself to jail to protect some brat. Besides, it’s too late now. If we let her go, she can report us.”

José’s lip twists in disgust. Wouldn’t he? Is he really not the sort of person to do this? Has he played the part so perfectly that his parents are convinced he would never betray them?

“Come have some milk, darling,” his mum says, hand on his arm. She looks worried, and a little annoyed. “I’m sure this silliness will pass afterward.”

José forces himself to meet his fathers gaze, and tries not to think about the pain, and the way the medicine to stop it is in Claudia’s bloodstream. “Let her go,” he orders, as though he’s ever had any control over the man. “Knock her out and let me take her back to Leslie. I can tell them she tripped and knocked her head. They’ll write off anything she says as a lie from a dream she had while unconscious,” he says, forcing his tone to be placid and reasonable. He goes for soothing and thinks he misses it, but his parents exchange a look.

It’s his father who sighs first.

“Fine, have it your way,” he says, and knocks Claudia out.

José thinks a lot as he takes her home, struggling to hold her with shaking arms. Leslie answers the door with her sneakers swinging from her fingertips and audibly gasps in alarm. “I was just coming to look for her, her mum’s due to pick her up in two minutes,” she explains, allowing both of them into her home. Her kids hover in the doorway, and she waves off their presence and fetches them to get first aid kits and water. “Poor thing, what happened?”

“She must have tripped,” José says lamely. “I found her around the side gate at our place.”

“Oh, dear,” Leslie says, sounding worried and upset. “I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine what she was doing there by herself. She always wonders off. When she didn’t come back, I thought – well, you know how many missing people they report in this part of town.” José shifts uncomfortably as Leslie rattles on, aware of the numbers, and of how all of them, so far as he knows, are courtesy of his family. There are more, he knows, more who disappear to the Madisons and never come out, taken in groups of two and three so no one can report them missing, when everyone is coming up having not touched lifeblood for too long.

“I need to get going,” he interrupts awkwardly as a car pulls into the driveway – Claudia’s mother, he figures. He has accidentally timed this perfectly, and Leslie lets her go.

He barrels past his mother and into his bedroom, dragging a suitcase with shaking fingers. Henry, his younger brother – nine years old, too close to all of this, and already a psychopath, torturing animals from the park for fun while their parents coo and approve – comes to his bedroom doorway and stares at him. “You going somewhere?”

“Go away, Henry. You wouldn’t get it.”

Henry’s expression doesn’t shift. It very rarely does. “Sure I do. You’re weak. You don’t like putting people through suffering ‘cause you think yours isn’t important enough to stop.” The brat snorts. “You don’t understand that if they’re dumb enough to get killed, they deserve it.”

José looks at him, horrified to hear the idea put into words – and by his nine year old brother, no less. What the fuck, he thinks, and then: this is so wrong. Pain is wracking his body, and he’s just had to talk his parents out of killing a kid he likes, and he’s tired and depressed and feels so, so isolated and alone. He hasn’t had a friend since primary school; his parents discourage connections for obvious reasons, and once he was in on it, the idea of walking temptation in front of them didn’t much appeal. He’s the only decent person in this house, except maybe for Kyle, who doesn’t know the pain yet and who is never going to know him if he does what he’s planning. “We don’t get to say who deserves to live and die,” he says quietly, and shuts the door in Henry’s face.

He shoves things into his bag as neatly as he can, considering he can’t get his hands to still. He’s unsteady on his feet, exhausted in his bones, and all he can think is this is a house, not a home, except it’s a home with his family, except – and it goes round and around as he shoves things in, until he stops, sits on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands even though he knows he’s going to find it a struggle to unfold himself.

“It’s not fair,” he mutters aloud, thinking, it’s not on me.

He pulls out his phone and loads up the town transport app to figure out how he can get anywhere but here, in as untraceable manner as possible.

#kwrites #kwriting #kristie's writing #kristie writes #ft. lyle #ft. kylie #ft. henry #ft. jeff #ft. marilyn #ft. ioseph #ft. devi #hc #headcanon #hc: lyle #hc. lyle #tw murder #tw blood

0 notes

healthcarebiz · 5 years ago

Text

THE REAL COST OF BEING CRITICALLY ILL IN SINGAPORE: Manulife survey reveals that 1 out of 3 critical illness patients have used up most or all their savings

SINGAPORE, Feb. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Manulife study on critical illness found that close to 40% of respondents have spent all or most of their savings battling illness. Furthermore, Singaporeans who become seriously ill do not just struggle with their disease and medical bills, they often feel like a burden to their friends and family (76%), experience emotional and psychological distress (72%) and face the fear of abandonment (58%).

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: https://www.prnasia.com/mnr/manulife_20200217.shtml

These are among the key findings of the survey* that polled 500 critically ill patients and caregivers to gain an insight into the reality of being sick in Singapore. The survey is unique in that it focuses on respondents, all of whom either have a serious illness or are caring for a sick friend or family member. This helps shed light into the real experiences, challenges and fears that they face.

First Illness, Next Financial Distress

As one might expect, financial concerns are among the biggest challenges faced by the very sick. Half of the respondents suffered serious financial problems after being diagnosed with critical illness. On average, patients spent about SGD32,000 treating their critical illness conditions, while 15% spent in excess of SGD50,000 or more.

As a result of their medical conditions, 1 in 3 patients applied for subsidies or sought cheaper medical care, while 1 in 4 borrowed money or remortgaged to afford treatments. An astounding 20% of respondents admitted to facing trouble paying for basic necessities. This could be an indication to why people with serious medical conditions are reluctant to seek medical attention and healthcare.

The survey also found that a prolonged period of critical illness could lead to a permanent reduction in one's income. 33% of patients are worried that they will have to stop working after being diagnosed and 24% fear that they will end up losing their jobs. The medical bills will keep mounting while sources of income gradually shrink and eventually diminish. A shocking 6% of patients surveyed ended up declaring bankrupt as a result of their critical illness.

Emotional Trauma of Being Critically Ill

The costs of illness are not always limited to medical bills. The effects of a serious illness can disrupt all aspects of life, bringing about emotional upheaval - from fear and worry to grief and despair.

Besides worrying about their health, the Manulife survey revealed that most patients experience anxiety as their life enters a world of the unknown. Many patients fear the loss of independent existence (77%). At the same time, 72% are also worried about being diagnosed with another illness and 77% fear that their current condition will worsen. 72% indicated that the illness has brought about additional emotional and psychological disorders.

They are also unsure about their ability to come back stronger and continue building a future for themselves. 71% are afraid that they do not have sufficient savings to continue long term medical care and worry that they will eventually lose the ability to earn an income (65%). Over half of the patients surveyed are unsure if they will be able to pay off all the loans they have taken to cover their critical illness.

Almost 100% of respondents felt that being diagnosed with a critical illness have made them a burden to others. In addition, 6 in 10 are afraid that their friends and family will abandon them. A worrying 50% of patients surveyed indicated that they would rather die than experience a relapse.

Strain and Distress on Caregivers

Critical illness can also put a financial strain on the patient's family members or friends who are looking after them.

According to the study - 1 in 4 caregivers depleted most or all of their savings on health care needs. 1 in 3 sought cheaper medical care alternatives, and 1 in 10 could not afford to pay for basic necessities. 14% among those surveyed worried about having to quit or change their jobs to cope with caring for a critically ill friend or family member.

9 in 10 caregivers admitted that their family or loved one diagnosed with critical illness is a burden that put a strain on their financial situation. 71% of caregivers surveyed felt emotional pressures and ended up developing stress-related diseases and conditions.

"There is a general perception amongst Singaporeans that critical illness will not strike them or their family members. With our Manulife survey, we wanted to dig deeper into the realities of being very sick. The main thing that stood out was how critical illness does not just impact you, but affects the ones closest to you, especially the caregivers. Life is a journey with unexpected events along the way and we want to urge everyone to protect against life's uncertainties," said Darren Thompson, Chief Product Officer of Manulife Singapore.

Be #Unbroken in the Fight Against Critical Illness

Critical illness does not discriminate. It can strike anyone regardless of age, background or gender at any time. The cost of critical illness is beyond measure. Yet, for the thousands of patients with critical illness and caregivers in Singapore, their will to survive and fight is commendable.

It is this strength that inspired Manulife to produce a poignant feature film as a dedication and show of support to the #Unbroken ones. Titled "The Unbroken", the short film highlights the unbreakable spirit of Singaporeans even in the face of an unexpected Critical Illness. Set in both the 1960s and present day, it tells the story of a family's unbreakable spirit in the face of adversity.

An integral part of the film is its soundtrack. A classic Hokkien ballad was chosen to bring the film's emotional and impactful story to life. The song was re-scored and sung by local Getai legend, Wang Lei, especially for this film.

The film was launched on Manulife's YouTube channel and social media platforms. Watch it here.

Closing the Critical Illness Protection Gap

According to the Protection Gap Study Report released by the Life Insurance Association in 2018, Singaporeans are woefully underinsured for critical illness. Whether as individuals or families, there is a real risk that a critical illness or accident could bring about financial disaster either from the hefty bills or the loss of long-term income.

With thoughtful protection planning, a critical illness plan can help to secure yourself and your loved ones' future against life's uncertainties -

Critical SelectCare: Designed specially for ages 40 - 70, the plan covers against selected major critical illnesses and is available even to those with certain existing health conditions.

Ready CompleteCare: An extensive critical illness plan which covers 106 conditions over all stages.

LifeReadyPlus with Early Critical Care Rider (II): A combination plan which offers the benefit of a whole life insurance plan with cash value and comprehensive critical illness coverage to protect at every stage of life.

For more information about Manulife's critical illness plans and promotions, visit criticalillness.manulife.com.sg.

Click to play The Unbroken video.

*Note to editors: The survey was conducted online in December 2019 among 500 respondents based in Singapore between the ages of 18 - 64. Out of which, 250 respondents have experienced a critical illness in the past three years and the remaining 250 respondents are caregivers of someone who have experienced a critical illness in the past three years. Percentages may not total to 100 due to rounding.

Critical illness refers to any one of the 37 conditions of the Life Insurance Association Critical Illness Framework, including major cancer, heart attack of specified severity, and stroke with permanent neurological deficit. View the full industry list here.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance, as well as wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2018, we had more than 34,000 employees, over 82,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving almost 28 million customers. As of March 31, 2019, we had over $1.1 trillion (US$849 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $29.4 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States are where we have served customers for more than 100 years. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong.

www.manulife.com.sg

Media Contacts

Rachel Lok / Esther Subramaniam [email protected] +65-6222-6136

Video - http://cdn4.prnasia.com/002071/mnr/202002/manulife/video.mp4 Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200207/2714394-1-a Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200207/2714394-1-b Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200207/2714394-1-c Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200207/2714394-1-d

0 notes

cedarrrun · 5 years ago

Link

In her new book, On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, yoga teacher Jennifer Pastiloff examines how facing loss, grief, and vulnerability allowed her to find endless love, self-acceptance, and wild happiness.

Four years into dating, Robert and I were walking to the movies to see Inglourious Basterds when he nudged me to the other side of the sidewalk. He always insists (still) on walking on the side closer to the street. I wasn’t expecting it, so when he pushed me, I almost lost my footing.

“So, um, would you ever want to be Mrs. Taleghany?” he asked, and he shoved me, which I equated to pulling the hair of a girl you like on the playground.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I said.

“Well, would you want to?”

“Wait. Is this how you are asking me to marry you?”

It sure was. The next morning, I woke up to a velvet jewelry box on my pillow from a local jeweler. Inside was a small diamond engagement ring. I opened my eyes and rolled over onto the jewelry box. He said, “I waited for you for 10 years.” He had.

See also 5 Pillars of Finding a True Love Connection

I wanted to keep my last name. I felt like it was my only connection left with my father, who died at age 38, when I was eight years old. I am always going to be Jen Pastiloff, Melvin’s daughter. Daughter of Mel The Jew��his nickname when he hung out on 5th and Wharton in South Philly as a teen.

I am an Avoider, not a Facer. And that is what I call a Classic Bullshit Story. The patterns of holding my grief inside my body have created neural pathways that cause me to binge-watch Netflix for hours under the covers instead of facing what is really going on. I equated wedding planning with going to the dentist. So I waited. I didn’t have any money, and traditionally the wife’s family pays for the wedding. My mom sure as shit didn’t have any money, so eventually I suggested we just get married in court.

See also Embracing Yoga and Conquering Self-Doubt

I was really into Wayne Dyer at this moment in time, and I kept thinking of him saying, “How may I serve?” My mom had tried to get me to read him for years. I was a hard No. Until one day, I heard Wayne on PBS and realized my mom perhaps knew more than I gave her credit for. I downloaded all of his talks onto my iPod.

But the first time I heard him say those life-changing words was in an auditorium with thousands of people. I was in the front row because I was determined to meet the man who was changing my life, and also so I could hear better. When he said those words, I shuddered. How may I serve? It made me want to barf in my mouth because at the time all I was doing was serving people all day at my waitressing job. Veggie burgers and eggs and chocolate-espresso no-nut brownies and decaf coffee and screw serving.

Then it hit me. I never woke up in the morning and asked, How may I serve? If my friends booked acting jobs and I didn’t, even though I didn’t really even want to be an actress, my first thought was always, What’s wrong with me? Why am I not enough? I am never going to get out of this restaurant. I was living in a desert of lack, a city of not-enoughness. I listened to Wayne speak and wondered, What if there really was enough? What if I am enough? And, Oh my God, I have been such an asshole for so long. I suggested to Robert that we turn our wedding into an opportunity to serve other people.

I had no idea who was saying the words coming out of my mouth. Who was I? Having a wedding to serve other people? Did I think I was Wayne Dyer of the yoga world?

Each time I thought about breaking a pattern that wasn’t serving me, I took a breath in, asked “Now what?” and then waded into water. And there was always someone holding my hand. I didn’t get there in a vacuum, and neither will you. Look around for the folks who will help you identify your bullshit stories and call them out. Look for those who will ask you, like my mom asked me, “Do you want to keep getting what you’ve always gotten?”

“What do you mean?” Robert asked as we sipped pinot noir on my carpet.

“I mean, I can ask if they will let me cancel my Sunday yoga class and instead have a party and invite everyone but tell them they can’t give presents. We can ask them to bring donations, and if anyone wants to sing or speak or play music or whatever, they can. It’ll be like a yoga-party-wedding thing, and we won’t have to spend any money. Oh my God, this is such a good idea.”

“OK,” he said.

That’s Robert. OK. It’s going to be OK.

See also So You Found Peace Through Yoga—Here's Why the Practice Doesn't Stop There

We got married at the Beverly Hills Courthouse on February 25, 2010. I taught a yoga class that morning at a donation-based yoga studio. I rushed out yelling, “I have to go get married now!” and almost forgot to collect my donations. I ran home to shower and change. I had 30 minutes. I wore a black dress I’d borrowed from someone and a little mascara. Robert wore a dark suit and a maroon tie. The judge who married us, a funny and warm woman, had us take each other’s hands under a wreath of beautiful white flowers to take our vows.

It was just as I always imagined my wedding would be, which is to say, like any other day, only different. I had never imagined myself getting married because I could never imagine the future. I hadn’t thought I deserved one. My mind, even at 35 years old, would still freeze up when I tried to think of anything beyond one month into the future.

See also A Meditation for Coming Back to Your True Home

Finding “Now What?”

In my empowerment workshops, I talk about how unbelievably hard it is to break patterns. How we can’t beat ourselves up when we struggle. We all struggle. It’s part of being human. I’d see someone come to my workshops again and again, and she would write the same things down when asked what she wanted to let go of. I didn’t judge. I was, in my late 30s and early 40s, doing the exact same thing. Moaning about how I needed to let go of the belief that I didn’t deserve a future, that I couldn’t plan anything. I would panic when I had to think about any moment beyond the one I was living in. I’d hear these women (it wasn’t just one woman; we all do this) repeat the same things over and over. It was from listening to them that I saw myself.

If I wasn’t asking, “Now what?” after identifying a pattern that I claimed I wanted to break, then I was just making a list of reasons why I sucked. I saw these women doing this, paying a bunch of money to come to a weird yoga workshop and make a list that they would stick in a drawer and forget about. It’s what we do.

See also What’s Your Emotional Body Type? Plus, How to Unravel Deeply Rooted Patterns

I started asking them to ask themselves, “Now what?” after making the lists. If I was asking them to do this, I absolutely had to do the same thing. I thought about how my mom, despite how complex our relationship is, has taught me so much. She introduced me to Wayne Dyer, and without him I never would have started the journey I am on. When I started dating Robert and I was deep in a cycle of over-exercising and starving myself (yet another pattern that came and went over the years like a virus), I called my mom and said, “I don’t know, Mom. He’s so great, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a relationship. I like my routines. I like coming home from the restaurant and being able to do my exercise and not talk to anyone and sit on the computer all night if I want to. If I have a boyfriend, I can’t just do whatever I want.”

She said, “If you keep doing what Jenny Jen P has always done, you’ll keep getting what Jenny Jen P has always gotten.”

“Oh my God, Mom. Did you really just call me Jenny Jen P? But, ugh, you’re right. Why are you always right? I love you. Bye.”

Jenny Jen P was my nickname and my AOL Instant Messenger screen name and email address at the time. Essentially, my mother was asking me to ask myself, “Now what?” I would have talked myself out of allowing myself to be in a relationship just so I could keep up my self-destructive patterns.

Turns out, being in relationship did interfere with my patterns. Thankfully.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

“Now what?” will be my challenge for the rest of my life, as it will probably be yours, too. Allowing myself to enter into a relationship with Robert, and then having him move in, and then marrying him, helped me break the cycle. The first step was asking myself, “Now what?” Now what became “Yes, I will go out with you.” Then, “Yes, I will marry you.” Both things terrified me. And yet, moment by moment I entered into them as if entering cold water. And look, it did not kill me.

See also 3 Truths About Anxiety That Will Help You Feel Better, Fast

A Leap of Faith

I wrote a blog post about my upcoming wedding and why it was special—and it wasn’t about how much money (that I didn’t have, that my mom didn’t have) I’d be spending, but about something much greater that had started to come together for me as a yogi, and as a leader of yoga retreats, and, finally, as the writer I’d always wanted to be. I wrote:

This is such a special occasion. Not only is it marking my new life, but it is a sign of the yoga (meaning “union”) of the human spirit. When I told people I was giving the money to Haiti for my wedding, they wanted to be a part of it. Not only are we all coming together on Sunday, February 28, 2010, for something as beautiful as a marriage of two people (Jennifer Pastiloff and Robert Taleghany), but for the marriage of two different cultures: one in need, one in the place to give.

The pots and pans and dish towels will always be there.

I would really love a wok, though.

At the wedding party at the yoga studio, little kids walked around with white buckets and collected money from everyone for the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. A woman who had taken my yoga classes for years did my makeup as a wedding gift, and I didn’t wear shoes since there was a “no shoes” policy in the yoga studio. I painted my own grubby toenails. Not surprisingly, I didn’t plan it very well because I only had wine, cheese, and crackers. My friend Gabby ran out and bought tons of burritos and tacos and came back with them 30 minutes later. We ate Mexican food with donated wine as we collected money for Haiti and celebrated my new life in our bare feet. We ate leftover bean burritos for a week.

See also Yoga Teacher Lisa Rueff Helps Heal Haiti

I asked anyone who wanted to perform music or read poems or get up onstage to do so. A friend of mine played the cello, another sang. Someone read poetry, some said prayers. Someone offered a blessing. My friend Annabel gave a speech. I stood on stage and spoke, although I have no idea what I said.

I remember thinking I had to get up and speak. I hadn’t planned to, but as soon as I got up there in my silky dress and bare feet, the words poured out of my mouth. It wasn’t the wine, either. Being in front of people and speaking—connecting with them—was home for me. Once I was up there, I never wanted to get down.

I had always been terrified that if I really accepted the beautiful scene in front of me, that it would all vanish, so I kept a part of me at bay, locked in my time machine, fiddling with the dials, trying to escape. I looked over at my stepfather, Jack, and my new father-in-law laughing with each other and I closed my eyes and imagined my dad in there, too, trying to smoke inside as if it were still the ’80s, making everyone laugh even though he wouldn’t have wanted me to leave him. He’d discreetly look at me and press his finger into his nostril and say, “You know what I mean?” Our secret code. And I would say, “Yes, of course, I know what you mean.”

See also Find Inner Peace with This 60-Second Breath Practice

I had spent so long not allowing myself to be present, drifting off and leaving when things felt like too much, that I didn’t even know whether I was physically hungry or not. I wasn’t ever sure how I felt. I was married. Oh. OK, I am married now. I remembered when my dad died, I said I didn’t care. That was not the truth, but that’s all I could allow myself. Only I don’t care. I smiled really wide for pictures, and I made jokes, but I wasn’t 100 percent there. I can see in the photographs I was indeed there, but I was not inhabiting my body.

I wished I had continued therapy through the years. I had only gone a few times to a few different therapists over the span of 37 years. It’s always felt overwhelming, like dating. Having to go and retell your story again and again and hoping you find the right match. The closest thing I had to working through my shit was listening to Wayne Dyer and doing yoga. I had never dealt with my grief, my eating disorder, my relationship with my mother. And yet, there I was, married. A real adult.

The guilt and the drama that don’t belong to me or that once belonged to me? Goodbye.

Lightening the Load

The next day, I walked into the local Red Cross with our donations. I don’t remember ever feeling as good. How could I keep doing this, this idea of serving?

In life, we have so much shit, and we constantly collect new shit on top of the old shit, and we mostly don’t even remember the shit we already have, so when we get a new espresso maker we act delighted and we use it for a while before we stick it in the cupboard with the other things that don’t fit on the counter and then forget about all of them because they’re hidden. Isn’t it funny how we house so much crap that we aren’t even consciously aware of? We do the same thing inside our bodies. So much pain piled on top of pain and memories on top of memories that we just shut the door to our minds and pretend there is nothing in there. That we are fine.

After I brought the money to the Red Cross, I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of stuff. I’m a stuff person. The kind who always has an indentation in her shoulder where the big heavy bag digs in. The kind who always leaves a trail and is always knocking something over because there’s so much stuff around.

See also 10 Remarkable Yoga Service Organizations

When I worked at the restaurant, the guys in the kitchen used to put things in my bag. Melons and cast iron skillets and bottles of hot sauce. There was a fantastic blue cornbread we served in a cute little cast iron skillet that always ended up in my backpack. I wouldn’t realize until I got home because my bag was already so heavy and filled with unnecessary things like shoes, hardcover books, sneakers, underwear, bottles of water, bananas. Sometimes I’d be happy, because, Hey, I needed a cast iron skillet! But mostly I felt embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed, that I walked around with so much that I didn’t notice when someone added their own stuff to my life. That’s how it is, though, isn’t it? When you have a lot of crap it takes a while to notice that more is being added, however slowly. This guilt? Not mine. This hot sauce? Not mine (but I’ll keep it). This shame? Not mine. This drama? Not mine.

It’s hard to not realize you have the cast iron skillet before it’s too late. Once you get all the way home with it, you might as well keep it, right? Because, let’s face it, it’s kind of embarrassing to go back with it, explaining that you didn’t steal it, that someone stuffed it in your big-ass bag and you just didn’t notice. Or maybe it’s not embarrassing and you just want to keep the cast iron skillet because you think you should have one. Maybe you think you deserve one. That’s what we do: I know it isn’t mine to take on, but I’ll keep it because I probably deserve it.

You think as you get older the weight gets lighter? It doesn’t. It gets heavier and heavier until you are buried in a pile of it and you can’t even reach to the front door.

See also An Intention-Setting Practice to Nourish the Soul

The things we take. The things handed to us that we walk around with as they dig into our shoulders and cause us pain, and yet we say, “No, I’m fine. I got this. I can carry it all.” When you carry so much shit, you don’t notice when other people add their shit, so truthfully, I was glad to have not gotten any more. As I walked out of the Red Cross, I remembered those days with my backpack at the restaurant and remembered my hiker friend Joe, who told me: “Carry only what you need.”

After I got married, I thought about what I could carry. I decided to take an assessment of what was on my back and in my car and in my heart and to imagine what it would be like to be free of it all. If I imagine myself free of my dad’s memory, I want to vomit. So thank you very much, but I will keep that one. The rest, though? The guilt and the drama that don’t belong to me or that once belonged to me? Goodbye. I am putting you back with the cast iron skillet and the melons that aren’t mine.

I did get a bunch of woks, though. But what I got more was the power of community. I saw how I was able to bring people together, not just at my retreat, but at my wedding, and on the internet. And I wanted more of it.

Excerpted from On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff, published by Dutton, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Pastiloff.

LEARN MORE

To find out what we learned at Jen’s On Being Human retreat, head to yogajournal.com/onbeinghuman.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

0 notes

krisiunicornio · 5 years ago

Link

“So, um, would you ever want to be Mrs. Taleghany?” he asked, and he shoved me, which I equated to pulling the hair of a girl you like on the playground.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I said.

“Well, would you want to?”

“Wait. Is this how you are asking me to marry you?”

See also 5 Pillars of Finding a True Love Connection

I wanted to keep my last name. I felt like it was my only connection left with my father, who died at age 38, when I was eight years old. I am always going to be Jen Pastiloff, Melvin’s daughter. Daughter of Mel The Jew—his nickname when he hung out on 5th and Wharton in South Philly as a teen.

See also Embracing Yoga and Conquering Self-Doubt

I had no idea who was saying the words coming out of my mouth. Who was I? Having a wedding to serve other people? Did I think I was Wayne Dyer of the yoga world?

“What do you mean?” Robert asked as we sipped pinot noir on my carpet.

“OK,” he said.

That’s Robert. OK. It’s going to be OK.

See also So You Found Peace Through Yoga—Here's Why the Practice Doesn't Stop There

See also A Meditation for Coming Back to Your True Home

Finding “Now What?”

See also What’s Your Emotional Body Type? Plus, How to Unravel Deeply Rooted Patterns

She said, “If you keep doing what Jenny Jen P has always done, you’ll keep getting what Jenny Jen P has always gotten.”

“Oh my God, Mom. Did you really just call me Jenny Jen P? But, ugh, you’re right. Why are you always right? I love you. Bye.”

Turns out, being in relationship did interfere with my patterns. Thankfully.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

See also 3 Truths About Anxiety That Will Help You Feel Better, Fast

A Leap of Faith

The pots and pans and dish towels will always be there.

I would really love a wok, though.

See also Yoga Teacher Lisa Rueff Helps Heal Haiti

See also Find Inner Peace with This 60-Second Breath Practice

The guilt and the drama that don’t belong to me or that once belonged to me? Goodbye.

Lightening the Load

The next day, I walked into the local Red Cross with our donations. I don’t remember ever feeling as good. How could I keep doing this, this idea of serving?

See also 10 Remarkable Yoga Service Organizations

You think as you get older the weight gets lighter? It doesn’t. It gets heavier and heavier until you are buried in a pile of it and you can’t even reach to the front door.

See also An Intention-Setting Practice to Nourish the Soul

LEARN MORE

To find out what we learned at Jen’s On Being Human retreat, head to yogajournal.com/onbeinghuman.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

0 notes

amyddaniels · 5 years ago

Text

How to Find Self-Love and Acceptance Through Grief and Fear

“So, um, would you ever want to be Mrs. Taleghany?” he asked, and he shoved me, which I equated to pulling the hair of a girl you like on the playground.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I said.

“Well, would you want to?”

“Wait. Is this how you are asking me to marry you?”

See also 5 Pillars of Finding a True Love Connection

I wanted to keep my last name. I felt like it was my only connection left with my father, who died at age 38, when I was eight years old. I am always going to be Jen Pastiloff, Melvin’s daughter. Daughter of Mel The Jew—his nickname when he hung out on 5th and Wharton in South Philly as a teen.

See also Embracing Yoga and Conquering Self-Doubt

I had no idea who was saying the words coming out of my mouth. Who was I? Having a wedding to serve other people? Did I think I was Wayne Dyer of the yoga world?

“What do you mean?” Robert asked as we sipped pinot noir on my carpet.

“OK,” he said.

That’s Robert. OK. It’s going to be OK.

See also So You Found Peace Through Yoga—Here's Why the Practice Doesn't Stop There

See also A Meditation for Coming Back to Your True Home

Finding “Now What?”

See also What’s Your Emotional Body Type? Plus, How to Unravel Deeply Rooted Patterns

She said, “If you keep doing what Jenny Jen P has always done, you’ll keep getting what Jenny Jen P has always gotten.”

“Oh my God, Mom. Did you really just call me Jenny Jen P? But, ugh, you’re right. Why are you always right? I love you. Bye.”

Turns out, being in relationship did interfere with my patterns. Thankfully.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

See also 3 Truths About Anxiety That Will Help You Feel Better, Fast

A Leap of Faith

The pots and pans and dish towels will always be there.

I would really love a wok, though.

See also Yoga Teacher Lisa Rueff Helps Heal Haiti

See also Find Inner Peace with This 60-Second Breath Practice

The guilt and the drama that don’t belong to me or that once belonged to me? Goodbye.

Lightening the Load

The next day, I walked into the local Red Cross with our donations. I don’t remember ever feeling as good. How could I keep doing this, this idea of serving?

See also 10 Remarkable Yoga Service Organizations

You think as you get older the weight gets lighter? It doesn’t. It gets heavier and heavier until you are buried in a pile of it and you can’t even reach to the front door.

See also An Intention-Setting Practice to Nourish the Soul

LEARN MORE

To find out what we learned at Jen’s On Being Human retreat, head to yogajournal.com/onbeinghuman.

0 notes

weightingonwords-blog · 7 years ago

Text

utopia!

‘The past,’ remarked Marx, ‘weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living’. Its dystopic allusions aside, the line calls to mind in a sense the way worldviews of our past selves permeate into our present ones, and is perhaps why I am reminded of it encountering Mezirow recently. A call for self awareness and reflection on the part of the learner, can surely only be realised in a completer fullness if a pedagocical approach is embraced in that pull toward what Carl Rogers called ‘self actualisation’. At a conference I attended last weekend, Professor Brian Thorne talked about person-centred therapy as having become an approach for him, embedded into both his personal and professional senses of being. In that Utopian idealistic way, easy to sneer at I suppose: though we should bear in mind perhaps that this is the 500th year since Thomas More published his Utopia.

‘Nothing to be said,’ wrote Beckett, in a moment of private, personal grief, ‘that isn’t best left unsaid’. There is a sense somewhat in which I feel this towards the education sector: the uncomfortableness located in Prevent and British Values, perhaps, or the notion of entering an evidently underfunded and undervalued sector. Today, an open letter from leaders in the Further Education sector has called out the current government on this latter issue. What I suspect is neccessary out of a Beckettian fatalism – and part, possibly, of Beckett’s project – is to, by envisaging the future, ‘discern in it a messianic power to disrupt the present‘ (Eagleton, 2006, p. 25). The oscillation between those thoughts of, what a mad, mad, mad, mad world on the one hand, and those thoughts occuring out of that moment of entering a modern campus and feeling immediately at home and part of some kind of alleviation of the madness, is difficult to navigate. This is a human response, I suppose. Its hard to not conclude, though, that if nothing is to be done we can but try again, fail again, and fail again better, to borrow from Beckett once more.

Building upon Mezirow’s transformative learning, the notion of Collaborative Inquiry has become ‘one of a family of action research methodologies’ that ‘rests on the principles of holistic learning and mutual decision‘ (Glisson, L et al, 2014, p. 10). In a recent lecture, the distinction was suggested between the ease with which we can assume understanding, by verbalising a word such as transformative, and the practice of making concrete the abstractness of it. By which is meant, our assumptions are sometimes conveyed by the nods of heads at understanding of that which we haven’t interrogated within ourselves. The incongruence, to return to Rogers, of such experience can only be damaging if it is not reflected upon at a later stage. Glisson observed during a research project titled ‘Looking in the Mirror of Inquiry’:

‘While our efforts at Collaborative Inquiry were initially circular and frustrating, we did find a way to move forward in a kind of spiral—reflecting on the experience while structuring new experiences. Learning does not follow a linear path, but is often fraught with emotional impasse that is triggered by the threats to our existing belief systems. Inquiry is the process whereby we begin to examine those assumptions and open ourselves to revision. At the heart of Collaborative Inquiry is the group interaction and communication that is key in the co-construction of knowledge. It is through this dynamic interactive give-and-take that we peel away the affective filters that often obscure the ‘truths’ that we seek.’ (p.17)

Linear; spiral; the ghosts of educations past and present: as Michel Al-Hadoff Jones notes dryly, ‘the exerience of temporal pressures is not new in education’. He continues:

‘In this temporal environment, what does it mean to be amancipated, and what does a process of emancipation involve? In the contemporary Western societal context, the effects of [time] dynamics have become more intense…bringing…scholars to focus more specifically on how people experience and eventually suffer from a sustained (and sometimes unsustainable feeling of acceleration on their every day lives’ (2017, p.141).

If there is a sense of gloom or disillusionment seeping out of this post, it serves for me as a reminder of that maxim, ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’. As my formor University lecturer commented to me over a catch-up drink recently, ‘one of the most illuminating pieces of advice I was ever given was to remember that every individual is trying their best’. Coming to terms with those contexts that shape the journey into professional teaching practice, from my own individual and internal ones to those that are external – the global, the political, the ideological or the immediate external context of placement, to mention only a few – is is an encounter important to embrace, and crucial to beginning to comprehend underlying theories such as Mezirow’s. ‘Even the suggestion that the world is unknowable,’ supposed Adorno, ‘ can become a moment of knowledge’. There is a chasm, ‘between the overwhelming and unassimilable world of things, on the one hand, and a human experience impotently striving to gain a firm hold of it, on the other’ (1961[1977] pp. 162-163). By moving between these, navigating a reflective path that strives toward compassion and empathy, accepting both my own nightmares and those that weigh on those around me, I can only move towards a Utopia, by anticpating its neccessary ending in failure.

That we are, as Zizek puts it, ‘living in the end times’ – the death throes of neoliberalism, an evident rise in anxiety, the self harm of climate change – requires not a depressed downturn into despair, but accepting this and moving collectively toward the uncertainty of the future, toward what Rebecca Solnit calls ‘hope in the dark’. ‘What we call the beginning is often the end, ‘ wrote Eliot, ‘and to make an end is to make a beginning’. These murmurings are those that are at the foreground of my thinking, at this point of a journey into unknown territory, toward hope.

Works cited:

Adorno, T (1977[1961]) ‘Reconciliation under Duress’ in Aesthetics and Politics Verso pp. 151-176

Eagleton, T (2006) ‘Making A Break’ in London Review of Books 28: 5 pp. 25-26

Glisson, L et al (2014) ‘Looking in the Mirror of Inquiry’ in ISSOTL Journal 2: 1 pp. 7-20

0 notes

venablespj-blog · 7 years ago

Text

utopia! (teaching post #1)

Linear; spiral; the ghosts of educations past and present: as Michel Al-Hadoff Jones notes dryly, ‘the exerience of temporal pressures is not new in education’. He continues:

Works cited:

Adorno, T (1977[1961]) ‘Reconciliation under Duress’ in Aesthetics and Politics Verso pp. 151-176

Eagleton, T (2006) ‘Making A Break’ in London Review of Books 28: 5 pp. 25-26

Glisson, L et al (2014) ‘Looking in the Mirror of Inquiry’ in ISSOTL Journal 2: 1 pp. 7-20

0 notes