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tashaalyssa · 4 years ago

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Our Earth-Bound Angel: An Open Letter to Misha Collins

September 18, 2008. It was a Thursday.

A simple, ordinary day. Most of us went to work, or school and when we came home, we were so excited to sit down and watch the new episode of this little show we were all kind of obsessed with called Supernatural. You might have heard of it, two annoyingly handsome brothers, a ’67 chevy impala, saving people, hunting things, the family business? Yeah, that’s the one. All I remember is having a ton of uni work to do, and Supernatural was always one of my favourite ways to procrastinate starting my assignments. Little did I know that on this particular Thursday, I and the rest of the world, including the Winchesters, would be introduced to a strange, stoic, ocean-blue-eyed, trench coat wearing being by the name of Castiel, Angel of the Lord.

As I sit here today, in November of 2020, hands down the strangest year I have been alive to witness and fifteen years after this incredible, groundbreaking show aired, I wait with anticipation, heartbreak and a grateful heart as the final episode hits our screens. I’m on the rollercoaster of emotions, as is the rest of the SPN family. Sam and Dean Winchester, and Castiel, have been so much more than television characters to so many people. They’ve been role models, safe places, escapes, friends we could always turn too when we felt alone. They’ve fought heaven, hell and everything in between, all while helping us fight the demons that a lot of us deal with everyday; depression, anxiety, repression, silence, violence, cruelty and bullying. Which brings me to why I'm writing this epistle.

While Supernatural and it’s characters have been a crux of support, for me, there has been one soul at the centre of what I can only describe as a shift in perspective, mindset and spirituality that has changed the way I think, the way I live my life, the way I perceive the world and the way in which I am consciously aware. That soul is Misha Collins.

Misha is the kind, genuine, incredible, humble human being who brought Castiel to life. He took this iconic angel through his journey from stoic, unwavering, unfeeling solider to the caring, loving, brave, loyal man he is today. Cas gave all of us who lived in the shadows a voice, he was a lost soul who fought for good, for love and for family at every turn. He discovered himself, he figured out right from wrong, figured out emotions, how to be and how to love, he figured out what truly made him happy, his love for a single human being. Cas is the embodiment of growth, of acceptance and of love. He is, and will forever be, one of the most groundbreaking characters to ever grace our screens (pun not intended, but I'll take it), and it's an astonishing and beautiful legacy to leave behind.

But the real earth-bound angel is Misha, the person.

Misha has impacted and changed so many lives all around the world, not just with his character, but with who he is, what he fights for, and how he inspires. When he speaks, we listen. Where he leads, we follow. He has changed my life in monumental ways and it's interesting to think that a single person, who I've never even had the privilege to meet in person, has been able to change my entire life for the better. There is nobody quite like Misha; he's a change maker, an advocate, an educator, an activist, a philanthropist, an absolute force to be reckoned with. I’ve never seen someone who uses their power and platform of celebrity the way he does; to fight for good, to fight for change and truly make a difference on both massive and small scales. He has brought about more kindness, and more social and political change than I ever thought possible.

In 2010, Misha, with help from the SPN Family, founded a non-profit organisation called Random Acts, which was the result of an immediate need to help those who had been affected by the earthquakes in Haiti at the time. Random Acts is an entirely volunteer-run organisation aiming to inspire change and help make a difference in people’s lives through acts of kindness. I have been working at Random Acts going on four years now. In that time, I have seen and been apart of so much good, so much kindness, it has truly lifted my soul and filled my heart at a deep level. I’ve been able to work with some of the greatest human beings on the planet, and many of them who have become close friends. Those who I can talk too when things are rough, those who know life can be hard, but they always have your back. I cherish them, I feel blessed everyday to know them, and without Misha and his desire to do good, I would never have found this amazing family. How does one even begin to say thank you for that?

For those of you who don’t know much about Random Acts, we are a non-profit organisation dedicated to conquering the world with kindness, one act at a time - and let me tell you, that’s exactly what we’re doing. The people in this organisation work tirelessly to save the world every single day. We’ve helped suffering communities rebuild their towns, homes and schools, our partnerships with GISH* and The Legacy of War Foundation* in the Change A Life project has seen over $750,000 raised for those in need. Let’s also not forget the development of the Random Acts COVID-19 Support Program and the SPN Family Crisis Support Network*, which is dedicated to promoting awareness and providing resources to all those suffering from mental health issues, self-harm, depression, bullying and addiction. This year we are celebrating 10 years of kindness, and if you would like to know more about how to get involved or contribute to our anniversary campaign, you can do so here: https://www.randomacts.org/ten-years-of-kindness/

But wait, there’s more, because that’s just who Misha is, like I said, a force to be reckoned with. Let’s face it, 2020 has been a nightmare on an epic scale; COVID, racism, violence, the U.S presidency and the election, you name it, we’ve done it. Throughout this year, most of us felt our hope slip away bit by bit, the more we tried to fight, the more it felt like we lost. It felt as though the world was burning and we couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. I think I finally understood how Sam, Dean and Cas felt at the brink of every apocalypse they ever faced, because that is truly what this year was; the apocalypse. But whenever things got really tough, whenever I didn’t know what to do, or how to react or how to make it better, I knew I could turn to Misha, because he would have the answer. His light, his wisdom and his capacity for hope and goodness was never short of a miracle, and it was what got me through most of those gut-wrenching, 'I can’t do this’ days.

Misha is the type of person who acts on what he believes in, he is the person encouraging people to vote, providing resources and the information needed to make sure your votes were counted. He has had Random Acts volunteers bring snacks to people who were waiting in voting lines, he rallied his friends and the SPN Family to set up the SPN Phone Bank, he hosted the SPNVotes Zoom GOTV rally and episode watch party, and has provided us with Senate candidates and House of Representatives candidates lives and zoom talks so we can be as informed as possible. And that was just for the election. When the Black Lives Matter movement was at it’s height, Misha did everything in his power to educate, to assist and to fight for the rights of others: the GISH Change A Life project raised over $50,000 to fight malaria in Africa with Nothing But Nets and over $122,000 for Cut50 and Dream Corps' to help fight for criminal justice reform, he also provided us with access to discussions with senators and prominent leaders in social change so that we can be educated and so we can educate others on the serious issues that plague our society.

I could go on and on about this man, because the above only scratches the surface of what Misha has done for the world. I have never had someone impact my way of thinking and way of being on such an epic scale. Most of you who know me know that first and foremost, I’m an actor and I’m a writer. The inspiration that Misha has brought to my creative process is a feat in itself. To be able to watch an actor take a guest-star role and turn it into not just a main character, but a phenomenal example of development, growth and creativity has forever changed the way I approach a script and a character. The choices I’ve seen Misha make as Cas, all versions of, have both truly astounded and surprised me, I look up to Misha as an actor because he’s so uniquely creative. He’s not afraid to try things, he’s not afraid to push the envelope and get out of his comfort zones. He knows character and story so very well, he knows exactly how to use the full spectrum of emotions exactly when needed, and he has what I can only think to describe as ‘presence’, as ‘energy’ that radiates off the screen. Watching Misha play, develop and grow the essence that is Cas’ has been an educating and enlightening experience to watch as an actor.

For me as a human being, Misha has flipped the way I view the world and humanity on its head. He has this unbridled passion for life - and I don’t just mean in the sense that he loves life - I mean in the way where being around him, or listening to him, makes every person accountable for kindness and responsible for change. It’s not possible to follow Misha as a person and as an actor without being so heavily impacted by his views, his life, his art, his work, his capacity for good, everything. You don’t see that everyday. We don’t have enough of those kinds of leaders in our lives, and in a world where division and chaos is rife, people like Misha are our chance to save it. He is already so heavily impacting the way in which the next generation is going to behave, they are turning to him now to see how to be, what to do, how to make the world better. And he is teaching them and showing them the way and I couldn’t be prouder to call this man my idol.

So this is my thank you, in the best way I know how. In case nobody’s told you lately Misha, you are one of a kind. They broke the mould when they made you. You are the kindest, most inspiring soul and this world is so lucky and so blessed to have you. I feel privileged that I get to share a planet with you, and that I get to be living on this earth at the same time as you. You’ve changed the world, changed me, and changed all of us for the better. You’ve opened our eyes to issues and concerns, whether it be social, environmental, political or otherwise that we may not have understood or given much thought to before you showed us why we should. You’ve made us feel safe, you’ve given us the space and room to be ourselves, to not be ashamed of being different or unique. You have never judged us, but you have always encouraged and supported us. You have this beautiful way of talking to people, of using words to encourage and inspire and motivate us to be the change, to do the good, and to fight the fight. You light up any room you’re in or screen that you’re on, you make us smile and laugh, and when we feel down or low, it is you we turn too. Maybe you truly do have angel grace inside of you. You are the example to which I live my life by, and the standard to which I hold myself accountable. I hope one day to be even half the human being you are. I’m beyond grateful for everything you’ve taught me, about life, about acting, about being a good human, about being yourself and being the good you want to see in the world.

Thank you for Cas. Thank you for Random Acts and the Crisis Network. Thank you for GISH and the Change A Life project. Thank you for teaching me how to be better. Thank you for caring about the world. Thank you for your hope, wisdom and kindness. Thank you for changing the world. Thank you for saving our lives. Thank you for changing my life. Thank you for being you.

Some heroes don’t wear capes, some wear trenchcoats.

You are my hero. You are truly an angel, there is no fiction about that.

I love you.

xxx

* GISH: The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt, also founded and run by Misha, is an annual event that mixes the weird, the magical, the strange and the brilliant into one big machine that uses playfulness and creativity to spread kindness: https://www.gish.com/

* The Legacy of War Foundation: Co-founded by the incredible soul that is Giles Duley, to help empower and rebuild the lives of those who have been affected by conflict and violence: https://www.legacyofwarfoundation.com/

* SPN Family Crisis Network: Founded by Misha and fellow actors, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki upon listening to the stories told to them by the fans about their personal struggles with mental health issues, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts/attempts, self-harm, and addiction in order to support and help fans cope with such issues: https://www.imalive.org/, https://twloha.com/, and https://www.randomacts.org/random-acts-support-network/

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thoughtsofanexcitedspacechild · 4 years ago

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My (Un)Official Gf application

Hi! So...um...I’m lonely tonight. Thought I’d just go ahead and submit my gf application for anyone who sees it.

The Basics:

Name: Hana Lee Zainea

Age: 17 (Still a minor y'all. Back off creeps)

Gender: Female

Height: 4′7.5 (yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m the little spoon.)

Weight: 125. I know it’s a bit heavy, but I’m working on it. I’ve cleaned up my diet entirely and work out almost every day now! We’re working towards 110 by spring.

Build: Curvy. (Hourglass figure? Not sure really) I’m not quite mid size either, but I’m working towards slimming down and building a more toned/muscular physique. Korra from lok is the end goal haha

Pronouns: She/her

Sexual preference: Bicurious? I’m not quite sure just yet, but right now specifically, I’m looking for a guy. I haven’t really come out yet and I’m not sure how my parents would react if I did.

Enneagram type: Shifts between 6 on bad days and 9 on good ones

Meyers Briggs: INFJ (So rare, I know)

Zodiac Sign: I mean I’m catholic, so I don’t really believe in that sorta stuff, but uh, Libra if that makes any difference.

Reasons to date me:

I’m small, so I’d always be the little spoon when cuddling.

I LOVE making gifts and will NOT hesitate to send you letters in the mail, give you candy, make you drawings and handmade cards, and make you any kind of crochet/sewn stuffed animal ur heart desires.

I do relatively good in school and can probably help you with homework judgement free.

I’m an artist, so once you’re my so, there’s a good chance you'll be used as a photo reference for a piece. You might get a sick portrait out of this.

I’m laid back as heck and can pretty much vibe with whatever

I already made us matching bracelets.

Available pretty much 24/7 to talk or at least text

I can cook pretty well and I personally think I thrive in a well stocked kitchen.

Reasons that you might not want to date me:

I’m waiting ‘til marriage. You don’t have to be a virgin at all, just know that you won’t get anything out of me until you put a ring on it and have seen me in a white dress walking down the isle. I just don’t want to give my body away to someone who isn’t willing to commit to me and my personality rather than just my body. We can cuddle, hug, kiss, etc but as soon as it gets dirty, it’s no. I’m sorry :(

I’m a bit clingy. I don’t mean to. I just get really excited about new people and want to spend time with them.

I cry a lot. I’m a bit depressed and will sometimes cry for no reason. It’s not anything ur doing. I just need to cry.

I’m also anxious as HECK and sometimes it gets so bad that I’ll think I’m sick. I’m prone to intrusive thoughts and OCD too and will often worry excessively about if people actually like me or not. If you get a text that says “are you upset with me?” it’s not because u did anything to make me feel that way. I just do and if I’m not actually bugging you, just respond “not at all!” or something else consoling and I’ll be fine.

As far as looks go, I don’t have much to offer. I have huge brown eyes that I think are pretty, and I kinda like my small lips, but otherwise I’m not a stunner. I’m not super ugly, I just don’t look good unless I put effort into my appearance.

I have a CRIPPLING case of body dysmorphia. I avoid looking in mirrors a lot and often beat myself up for missing workouts even if I’m sore and could hurt myself/eating something mildly unhealthy, so that’s fun.

Things we can do together:

Watch our favorite shows together. I like and will rotate between atla, the mandalorian, LoK, the office, the clone wars, and sw rebels, but we can watch pretty much anything together. I’m totally down for anything and I’d love to get into more mainstream and conventional shows. I attach to shows pretty quickly and the night will mostly involve us wrapped in a blanket and me pointing at fictional couples (mostly Kataang and sukka) and going “hey babe look! It’s us!”

Cook together! If u don’t know how, that’s ok! I’ll teach you! We can cook your favorite together! My repertoire ranges anywhere from fried rice and spring rolls, to tacos, to pasta.

Bake! Cookies, cake, whatever u want! My favorite are lava cakes that have an oozy chocolate center and lemon cakes with thick icing on them!

Work out together! Not sure what u like, but I really love yoga, and I’m trying to get into more light weight-high rep. stuff. Not full on bench press, but I’m working towards a heavier handheld weight. My goal by the end of 2021 is 20 pound weights, but we’ll see!

If you do art, we can create stuff together! If you don’t that’s ok too!

Go to all ur sporting events and kiss u before for good luck and afterwards for a job well done (even if u don’t win, you’re still my winner)

Road trips to Chicago! I live in MI, but I love going down there to spend the day. We can shop, go ice skating, go to the ghiradeli store and get ice cream, go to the art institute, go out to eat, etc. Then we can stay the night, have a nice breakfast in the morning, and drive back.

While we’re in quarantine, write letters! I make mine look really nice. U don't have to at all, and I just like getting stuff in the mail!

Couples costumes for halloween! I have wayyyy to many ideas lol. Depending on what u like and what u look like, I can pretty much do whatever, but my top choice is Sokka and Suki from atla.

Coffee and study dates around exam time

Movie night with each other’s families. Once ur in my life, ur in my family’s too! Come over and we can make popcorn and play with my dog and u can meet my younger siblings! They’ll love u I promise!

My requirements:

Be taller than me (I mean, it’s not that hard. I’m 4′7. I don’t think it’s too much to ask)

I get to be the little spoon. (Again, it makes more sense bc I’m really small. U can try to be the little spoon, but physically it makes more sense.

U don’t need to remember any dates EXCEPT for my birthday, (October 12) and our anniversary. (Don’t know when that’ll be) I don’t need gifts, just a nice text or a hug and a kiss.

Be 16 or older. Sorry youngsters.

That’s literally it. That’s it.

A little warning/extra tip: My expectations are kinda “high” bc of fictional men, but honestly, if u pick up on their romantic gestures, it’s really not that hard to please me. Some examples of things u can do that’ll completely have me simping for u:

Hugs!

Kisses! (Especially when YOU initiate)

Holding me

bringing me a tea

Stay loyal! I know I’m going to be. Like, for REAL. U got no competition

CONSENT. Again, I’m waiting til marriage, but still! I’ve never done this before, so if u touch me in a way that makes me uncomfortable, please respect my boundaries. I’ll respect urs too!

That’s literally it. That’s the application.

#girlfriend application

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dclevinson · 4 years ago

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8/12/20: cognitive therapy

If Physical Therapies deal (basically) with one major problem, cognitive therapy deals with a nest of interlacing issues. Certainly short term memory, working memory, more complex processing. Likely some spatial perception/orientation issues too. Not to mention believing our house is actually our house --- an issue that can arise when we come back to it from outside. I know that I can’t fully trust my memory now; if I’ve told a story or described something that happened a long time ago in one way more than once, it’s hazy enough anyway that what happened and what I tell people happened is no longer very clearly distinguished in my mind. So I can only very, very vaguely imagine what making sense of the world and her life seems like to Cindy.

When I say complex processing, a task doesn’t have to be too intricate to cause problems --- say trying to add three single digit numbers instead of two. And, as her neuropsych mentor reminds me, she doesn’t have the mental scaffolding most of us use to problem solve. Switch some little thing to understand or do and it might be a whole new ballgame for her without the internal networking to adjust easily.

If you are just interacting socially with her, this may seem hard to believe. Her social intelligence is still nicely calibrated, and all those who know something about brain injury and rehab are routinely astonished at how sophisticated and quick her verbal intelligence still is. (Yesterday: hearing 60′s song Incense and Peppermint on XM in the car, she sang along with: Incest and Pestilence...) A long, slow recovery with standard therapies + some home tinkering has brought us now to a relatively stable six month period. She shows a range of behavior and mental processing (perception, memory, reasoning + motivation, will and emotion) that can swing wildly, but now seems to have a top and bottom “normal” range. I wish she operated near the top of that range longer and more frequently. But I’m grateful that bottoms are more often parts than full days.

One cog therapy example. She has been working on a very concrete memory task: seeing if on demand she can produce the names of all three of our synagogue’s rabbis. Something she knew as well as her own name once. The newest one keeps slipping her mind. The rehab technique is for me to remind her of the names often for several days before asking her to produce them. She’s always better with cues than a big blank canvas. Recently, after asking her to name them, I asked how many were women. She couldn’t, without lots of reframing help, do it.

Her reading of her own writing can be off, and though she’s writing on a straighter line these days and with not such teeny-tiny cramped lettering, she still adds extra letters when writing and doesn’t always accurately see what she’s written. When reading the newspaper, she might repeat headlines (yes, Cindy, I’ve heard that one three times) or just fuse several stories together without realizing it. Just to let you know how remarkable her easy social discourse and lively wit really are!

If these were normal times, her cog therapist would like to have set up a perceptual/visual screening. I know from experience now that she has trouble picking up the forest through the trees, separating foreground from background, etc. She can focus on one detail and not see a whole, etc. It can take a while, especially outdoors, to direct her to pick up something I’m pointing out to her in a little distance. Luckily, the red tailed hawk just outside our backyard a couple weeks ago liked his perch enough to stay long enough for me to find a view that let her pick it out. Wow. What all this must feel like day in and day out. Maybe it’s lucky if she doesn’t remember it very cohesively. Over time, it’s led her to be less determined, more willing to just see something as too hard to capture. No wonder.

Cog therapy work usually is very specific. Another recent example, working with 3 items from a recipe. Say tuna salad. What do you want to put in it? Can you write those ingredients down. Read what you’ve written. Remember what you’ve written and why. How’s the spelling? Spacing? (my questions to assist in remote work). I showed her that list a week later: she had no idea what it was.

The next week something much harder she actually handled better (it’s the day, not the task that’s key I tell her therapist). A house for sale on our block. 1500 square feet. $700,000. Brick. How accurate not an issue. She has no sense of market value now anyway. Then a bunch of questions, but built into a natural conversation about this house. Also, tricky, this week some statements that might or might not be accurate. Çould she tell the difference? Yes.

How Cindy describe her attention and focus: “It slithers.”

Danielle (Morgan, our SLP/cognitive therapist) asked us both not too long ago if we thought Cindy’s personality had changed since her bleed. Cindy didn’t know. I said, surprisingly, luckily, maybe remarkably: not much.

Danielle reminds me that research and experience tells rehab specialists that progress comes from concrete, specific goal focus.I note, from my untutored but long term close observation, that mental stimulation is good for her in many ways, stagnation is bad. A rising tide lifts all ships.

One recent evening it was getting on toward her bedtime, and we were in the kitchen watching one PBS thing or another to get to 8 pm. C is reaching out towards the table --- for water? --- having pushed herself away. She could use her chair’s wheel rims to get closer quickly, but she reaches. Even after I’ve reminded her. Maybe the gesture has less to do with reaching the water than something I don’t understand and she can’t communicate.

I joke: You look like you’re wishing and hoping and … what’s the rest of that song line? Dusty Springfield, right? Of course Cindy knows.

She: planning?

I look it up. Ah. Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying. Planning and dreaming… so planning is in there somewhere. Yep, I say, that’s what it looks like you’re doing when reaching for the table. Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying. Planning and dreaming…

8/12/20: our 47th wedding anniversary.

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x0401x · 5 years ago

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Ok Music Interview with LUCK LIFE

“We want to sing songs that will pierce your heart in a way you could never get rid of them.”

Their single “Naru”, the opening theme of the TV anime “Tsurune —Kazemai Koukou Kyuudou-bu—”, is a rock number that can be considered LUCK LIFE’s rule of right. PON (vocalist and guitarist) states that the contents of the anime linked up with them after they were chosen to make the song, but what does this mean?

Raw || Index || My Ko-fi ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

——“Naru” is the theme of a TV anime that depicts examples of youth from a high school archery club, but when I heard the lyrics “shoot deep into their chests, become a sound that will stab them in a way they could never get rid of it” from the moment you start singing, I guessed that the image of it had come quickly to you.

When I heard that it was going to be an anime about Japanese archery, I thought that I could not sing about anything other than LUCK LIFE itself. In live concerts, we always introduce ourselves with, “We have come to sing songs that will stab your hearts in a way you won’t be able to get rid of them”. So, to tell the truth, it was practically finished by the time we had our meeting with the director, and just as I was thinking that it would be best if we could go on with it the way it was, we were told things like, “it needs to have a sense of dash” and, “the image is of blowing wind”. This fit perfectly with the song (laughs). Also, making the things that we have always been saying on-stage into a song gave us quite a bit of courage.

——What do you mean by “courage”?

When you make things that you have been carrying as a policy into a song, wouldn’t you be like, “What even was all that stuff I’ve been shouldering until now?” if the song was not good enough? So we are glad and relieved that it properly took form.

——It turned out as a good song, then.

We got a lot of feedback. We had Honma Akimitsu-san as the sound producer this time too, but when we made our previous albums “Dear Days” and “Hashitte” together with him, Honma-san took the initiative and gave us many suggestions. Yet we were the ones who took the initiative this time, like, “We want to go for this kind of image”, and Honma-san reacted to it like, “Then let’s try doing this”, so we were able to have a different sort of balance from the previous times, which was good. He gave form to the things that we did not know how to go on about.

——There might be people out there who only care about listening to the title song, but this time, I especially want them to properly listen to not just “Naru” but also the other two coupling songs.

Really, you are right. It has me thinking, “Don’t you look down on LUCK LIFE’s coupling” (laughs).

——PON-san, aren’t your feelings particularly evident in the second track, “Tana no Ue no Boku”?

Yeah~ (laughs). I tried to put myself aside for a bit and talk repeatedly about the things around me. By the way, I thought this was going to be the last song that we were going to release in the Heisei Era. Iko-chan (Ikoma’s pet name) came up with the riff, and from that point on, we created the song through having sessions, but in doing this, the shout during the hook was born, so we were like, “Then let’s try to say, ‘hey, say’ (Heisei)” (laughs). We will all be in our 30’s this year, so as part of a generation that lived with the Heisei Era, I began writing the lyrics from trying to announce myself to the world, and after saying all I had to say while pitching in some playfulness, I thought, “I really am blind to my own shortcomings, huh”, so in the end, it goes, “Sorry, I was also like that” (laughs). The song is very PON-like, including that part. I think it would have been cool to write lyrics that sound like they are cutting through this world, and that it would be good for the listeners, but I thought I should try writing something different from what I sing. It would have been bad if they took offense in it. Aren’t there plenty of songs like those? That make you go, “Is this thing about me!?”. If anyone were to think this, then the meaning of making the song would have been gone.

——So you were also honest about that. The riff brought about by Ikoma-san had a bit of a Latine funk feeling to it.

When Iko-chan brought it up, I thought, “You did it!”. I had been saying it ever since the previous album. That “anything is fine, so give me ideas”. I guess he probably came up with it because he saw me suffering alone with making lyrics like that. It would be great if this could go on (laughs).

——Now, about the four-key third track, “Ongaku no Eki”, I wondered if you were singing about your past and current selves.

Right. It is as if young PON, who admired the Kinki Kids that he saw in fourth grade at Music Station, wrote a thorough letter about it. My dream to be in Music Station has not changed, but aren’t I still midway? Of course, I am closer to it now than back then, and I wanted to say that there were other wonderful things aside from the world I saw on TV back then. Meeting many people in live houses and having them tell me that they like my songs was actually this great. I wanted to boast that “I couldn’t see this happening when I was in fourth grade”, to tell people about it. At first, I was thinking of making it into a gentle song that says prickly things, but while writing it, I thought, “This abusive language sounds like I’m aiming it at someone. I’m disgusted with myself”, so I completely erased about half of I had written and rewrote it.

——I think that is also like you, PON-san. Lastly, let me ask for an additional speech about your excitement towards the tour in celebration of your ten-year anniversary, which will happen in Mainabi BLITZ Akasaka on November 28.

I took part in Akasaka BLITZ once when I was 23, to perform the opening act of a two-man live between Chatmonchy and Nanao Tavito-san, and I recall trembling as I sang amidst that incredible line-up of people, but when I think that we are going to sing with guests that we ourselves crammed into the live this time, as expected, I am trembling again (laughs), so I want to do my best for it to be the peak of our tour. All of the public performances in this tour have been changed in the set list, because we also feel a sense of atmosphere from them. We gathered up the set list that we deem as best all over again, and we hope that people can attend while keeping in mind that we will properly convey a sense of planned structure in Akasaka BLITZ and that it will be full of heat.

#tsurune #tsurune kazemai koukou kyuudoubu #dailytsurune #kyoani #luck life #kyoto animation #interview #my translation #ok music

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giranswife · 5 years ago

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Anniversary Date (Part Two)

Summary: After that wonderful dinner, Giran has one last surprise for his wife. It’s something that she definitely didn’t see coming, but shows more of his heart than anything he’s ever done before.

Warning(s): self-insert x canon, fluff, slightly suggestive (near the end)

Disclaimer: This includes a self-insert/oc shipped with a canon character.

(( And this is the final part of the anniversary fic! Just to wrap things up and give Giran a little bit of a chance to be romantic. This is a more personal thing, but I’m so willing to share it with you guys. And I’m so happy that today has been so amazing. ))

With my legs situated across Giran’s lap, I unfolded a piece of paper he handed me with a suspicious look in my eyes. I couldn’t stop giggling just because of the high tonight, but also because I was just so fucking happy. A part of me felt like this would be some ridiculous thing to make me laugh or to get me in bed. He’s just been so sweet tonight I didn’t expect to pile on more. Not that I wouldn’t change this day for the world.

“What is this?” I asked, “A love letter.”

I joked softly, smirking in a teasing way but filled with love in my eyes.

“Just read it.”

He sat back with his arm resting behind me on the couch, watching my expression rather intensely. It made me very curious about what the contents were, watching him rather closely before my eyes flicked downward.

Feeling his hand gently rubbing my thigh, I let my eyes started to trail across the page and reading the words. At first I wasn’t quite taking it all in, but I recognized his handwriting right off the bat. It showed how much time he took out of it by how much cleaner and concise it looked. A few of the lines were more haphazard which just showed that he was writing them rather quickly. It was clear it wasn’t all written at the same time.

I lifted a brow, reading the first few lines and feeling a bit confused. It wasn’t exactly a letter, because it had no clear start or ending. Just things that seemed to mesh together somehow, but in the heat of the moment I couldn’t quite understand.

“Baby… what is this?” I asked, glancing up at him.

He brushed my hair from my shoulder, his fingers touching my skin and looking me over with a smile that I only get to see in moments like this.

“A list.”

“Of what?”

“Reasons why I love you.”

I felt my chest tighten and everything immediately started to make sense. For some reason I hadn’t even considered that at first, not really expecting this from him. But the thought of it just made me close up, unsure of how exactly I’m supposed to react. I’d never had anyone do something so simple and sweet for me.

It didn’t sound like much but to me it was… so much more than that. Not to mention I could tell this took a lot of time and effort. That kind of thing for me just seemed like something that was like a dream. The surprise that I felt was from a long time of living for myself not really seeing the kindness that people could show to someone like me.

Or just kindness at all. And he’s showed me more kindness than I’ve had in a long… long time.

“This is… a long ass list,” I said with a laugh, but I felt the crack in my voice as tears began to form.

“That’s only what I could think of. There’s plenty more where that came from, but we’d be here for fuckin’ ever.”

Chewing on my bottom lip, I felt him cup my cheek and brush my tears away with his thumb. It was getting harder and harder to breathe just by how much my heart was racing. I hadn’t even started to actually read the damn list yet, and I was already close to sobbing. It was hard to imagine that anyone could make a list this long about me.

“How… How is this… How’d you get this much about me, though? I’m not…”

“Hey, don’t fuckin’ do that. Just read it. I’m not gonna let you do that. Not tonight.”

Swallowing harshly, he kept his hand on my thigh and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. My hands were shaking around the paper, but I took a deep breath and started reading. It all started to make sense now that I was paying better attention. It made my heart feel warm, but I also started to wonder just where he was when he was writing these down. Because they got specific.

When you walk into my office with my shirt on, twirling around like you forgot why in the hell you walked in here in the first place. I spend a lot of time reading people, Princess. You know I’m smarter than that. But I let you prance your cute ass around anyway. You’re the distraction I love.

The way your eyes light up like you haven’t had a meal in weeks. Doesn’t matter if you’ve had it a million times you’re gonna act like it’s the first time in months.

Your eyes are always my favorite thing to see every day. You probably don’t have a clue how weak I am for those eyes. Not that I was ever gonna let you know that. Afraid you’d try to use them against me but who the fuck am I kidding? I’m not complaining.

You’re strong and confident that it almost surprises me. You actually taught me a thing or two. You fight with everything you got, and I’m just lucky that I got on your good side.

I chuckled at that one a little, feeling my smile returning as tears sprinkled onto my lap. Everything he wrote just made me feel more and more love for this man. So many words on this page of just thoughts that he’s had and feelings about me. Some that I didn’t even know he was paying attention to or even cared about.

Your laugh even when you know the shit I’m saying isn’t all that funny. You’re not gonna hurt my feelings if you don’t laugh, but it’s sweet that you try. I know when you’re laughing and when you’re faking it. And that giggle could destroy me if you use it right.

You might try to hide it, but I know that you’ve got a sweetness to you. The world might have numbed it down, but I see it trying to come back out. I don’t want to take all the credit, because you got more people in your life now. I see you do everything you can for your friends. You’d give your heart to someone even if they don’t fucking deserve it. I’m a perfect example of that.

I sniffed, swallowing hard and looking up at him for a quick second. It was so hard to keep it together and keep reading, but I wanted to try. He went through all this work and time for me, and to just see a part of him like this meant everything to me.

“Baby…”

“You’re not done. Come on, I took almost a year doing this for yah.”

But with the look on his face I knew he was merely teasing. Not that I wasn’t going to continue regardless. It felt really good to read a piece of his heart. This was something that I would do, but that’s what made it so much more meaningful. That and just how long he spent on it and how much effort and love. I will never get over that.

Your smile lights up the goddamn room. More than you think it does. And I get to come home and see that smile every day. I’ve never felt like a luckier man than I do when I see that smile. It’s all I think about to get me through the day. I look forward to seeing that smile all the time.

You don’t know when to back down. This could be the death of you, but you’re smarter than that. I learned that real quick about you, and I respect the hell out of you. Thought you could be a liability with your impulsive nature, but you surprised me again. You’re impulsive, that’s a fact, but you’re not naive.

You never give a shit about what anyone else thinks. No one’s gonna tell you who to be or what to do or how the fuck you’re going to do it. There’s a lot of people out there that wish they had that. I’ve met lots of faces who would’ve been much better off if they had that. I can see how you got this far.

You’re clingy but in a good way. A cute way. I can’t blame you for that, and maybe I feed into it by giving you a lot of attention. It took us a long time to get to that point though. I remember how hard it was to touch you. How you’d fold away from me with that look on your face. You have no idea how much I want to fuck up anyone who’s hurt you. You don’t need protecting, but I’m not letting anything happen to you. You can bet on that.

That body of yours is gonna be the death of me. And I know you fucking know it too. You know how to use those curves to your advantage, and I’m not scared to admit that it works. How does a woman like that land in my arms night after night. That’s a question that continues to fucking haunt me.

I rolled my eyes, giggling softly and leaning my elbow on the couch behind me. Resting my chin on my hand, I flicked my eyes to Giran’s once again and smiled. There was no denying my cheeks were hot as hell, and having him here paying attention to every twist and turn of my face was making it worse.

“Giran, I… I don’t know what to say… this is,” I said, breathing in and out trying not to burst into tears again, “The sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

My bottom lip quivered, and I reached down to squeeze his hand. It really was the sweetest thing I’ve ever received. It was something simple, but it was that exact reason why it was special. Because he could have done something else that was much more materialistic. Granted, we did just come back from an expensive ass dinner in a dress he bought me. But this… this was what made tonight worth it.

None of that other shit mattered. It could all be gone tomorrow, and I’d still love this man with everything I fucking had.

“I wanted to sum it all up on our wedding night. Tell you some really cheesy shit I had on my mind, but I thought something like this would be better.”

“You really have been working on this for that long?”

He nodded, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles.

“I had to do something to show you how much I love you. I can be romantic.”

“Yeah, that I know very well.”

I giggled, biting on my bottom lip. My cheeks were hurting from smiling so much, but I was just so incredibly happy. There was no way in my wildest dreams I could ever imagine being this happy. This kind of love wasn’t something I envisioned for myself, but now that I have it I would do anything to keep it.

Everything I have is right here in front of me. A part of my heart and soul. And I don’t know how in the hell I survived without it. Because I can’t imagine surviving without him now.

My heart was beating faster and faster in my chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. I couldn’t resist the urge to grasp his collar and pulled him into a kiss. A kiss that felt like oxygen to me. With my arms wrapped around his neck, I let him pull me into his lap and curled into him. Melted into his arms and solidifying myself to where it felt most like home.

It felt like years had passed before I pulled away, and even then I smiled and pecked his lips a few more times. Not wanting to let go and just wanted to feel him for as long as I could. If it was possible for me to stay here forever I would gladly with no hesitation. His arms was the safest place I’ve felt in a long ass time.

My breathing was heavy, and I could feel the skip of my heart when he pressed his palm to my cheek. Closing my eyes, I felt the warmth of his hand and took in the smell of his cologne. All my life I went without ever knowing the smell, and now I couldn’t imagine a day when I didn’t. It was so comforting in ways that I couldn’t even explain.

“I love you,” I breathed, “I love you so much. I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life, and maybe even after that.”

He chuckled, brushing his thumb against my cheekbone.

My forehead pressed against his own, and I sat there just focusing on the way his touch made my heart race. It was so hard for me to give myself to someone. Trusting in all that I am and letting them see the deepest parts of me. It took us a long time to get where we are right now, and he takes me for everything I am.

He doesn’t judge me or hate me for things I can’t control. He’s not afraid of me or hold me back in any way. He’s everything I wish that I had back when I had nothing but myself. It’s why I hold on so tight, terrified that at any second he could be ripped away from me. Even though it’s only been a year since we got married, it feels like forever. Like he’s always been there. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t anymore.

But that brings me so much comfort. Knowing that I have him, even though he can’t promise me forever exactly. Just knowing that he’s here brings me more comfort than anything else ever could. I feel safe and comfortable, and that feeling continues to get stronger and stronger. I’m gonna love him for the rest of my life. That’s a promise.

“You’re my heart,” I whispered, finally opening my eyes and giving a soft smile.

Giran’s hand stroked my hair, watching my cheeks redden the more that he looked at me. My tail curled around me, flicking in his lap and once again being a big tell to how I felt inside. It was my turn to press my palm against his face, feeling the urge to kiss him again. Even after all this time I still felt the same as I always have. Just can’t help myself but to be this close and want to be closer.

“I don’t think I could say anything to beat that.”

I laughed, biting my bottom lip.

“You already did.”

I held up the piece of paper, smiling wider and feeling my face burning. More tears were starting to form, but I didn’t want to cry anymore. Tonight was very emotional, but it was also supposed to be enjoyable. This was very special to me in so many ways, and I’m sure that he felt the same.

“Thank you, baby. This means… more to me than you know,” I said.

“You’re welcome, Princess. You can keep that if you want.”

“Oh, I am. For my bad days.”

Leaning up, I kissed him softly and let my fingers lace through his hair. He took the paper from my hands to put it on the table, pulling me closer and giving more space to kiss me. I smiled into the kiss, parting his lips with my tongue and deepening the kiss. Soft moans of happiness slipped passed, muffled by his mouth.

It was so hard to pull away, and I was giggling a bit under my breath because I was just so happy. I could feel my head start to get dizzy from the kiss, but I definitely wasn’t complaining. All I wanted to do was get wrapped in his arms for the rest of the night. It was literally the best night I’ve ever had.

“Happy Anniversary, baby,” He said when he pulled away from a second, and it was in a tone that made me absolutely weak.

It’s not very often when he calls me that, but when he does it makes me melt. When he pulled me in for another kiss, there was no way that I was letting him go now. And after that sweet freaking letter he wrote to me, I had half a mind to show him how happy I was.

“Did you have anything on there about my mouth?” I asked, pulling away with a lift of my brows.

He smirked, rubbing along my thigh and making me melt with the way he trailed his eyes down my frame.

“I might have decided to keep that to myself.”

“Yeah?”

I licked my lips rather seductively, letting my fingers trail across the back of his neck. Being a tease was my favorite part, and I definitely knew what he loved about my mouth. Especially when it comes to teasing. Licking my lips is only part of it.

I knew it was working from the way he watched me, barely letting me move on his lap. My fingers began playing with my necklace, shifting in his lap and clearly wanting to change the tone of this conversation. Which I wasn’t surprised when Giran wasted no time in grasping my waist.

“Don’t tease me, Baby girl.”

“But it’s fun~”

I giggled, feeling his hand higher and higher on my thigh.

“Fine, but you wanna show me what I do love about that mouth.”

Winking playfully, I nodded and leaned down to kiss his lips once again. Teasing him was way too much fun for me to stop, but I definitely wasn’t going to deny him either. This night has been more fun than I could have imagined, and I couldn’t think of a better way to end it.

#self insert #self ship #my writing #ship: you drive me crazy (and I hate it)#drive me crazy anniversary weekend #self insert x canon

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years ago

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2019 Art Summary!

It's that time again when we all look back on the year we've had and reflect, and then look forward to what's to come in the New Year. This only my second year doing a yearly Art Summary piece (I didn't miss February like I did last year!) but I'm grateful for the tradition now. Looking back, 2019 had a lot going on for me and my art; I started out not that different from how I've been handling my art and myself online for the past couple of years, but as the year went on, I feel like I've done a lot of growing, finding myself, and even though I didn't start off in a terrible place, I think I'm in a much better one now. This really was a year of tremendous personal growth for me, both in art and just in life, and I can only hope that continues through the New Year and beyond. (As sappy as that is to say, I really mean it.) That said, let's look back on 2019 in a little more detail, shall we? January: Birthday Wishes I actually didn't have a ton of options to choose from for this month, as I think I was a little burnt out from the last couple of months in 2018 and giving myself some breathing room. Still, this Shopkin colored to match my actual birthday cake actually remains one of my favorite mixed media pieces I've done. I don't know why, there's just something I really enjoy about how it turned out, for as simple as it is. And for the record, I think I will be doing another custom Shopkin drawing for my birthday again this year, but I haven't decided anything beyond that yet. February: Floating Away (+ Time Lapse!) So as I mentioned earlier, on last year's Art Summary I discovered I didn't have any submissions dated in February and I hadn't yet gotten in the habit of documenting completion dates for my artwork, and so I didn't have an artwork to put there that I could definitively say was done in February. This year, however, February was actually one of my busiest months and I had a pretty wide variety to choose from. I ended up going with my little hot air balloon, as while it's a bit different from my normal work, I still think it's really cute and it also represents one of my attempts to start making videos of my artwork...Which I've been too lazy to do since the few attempts I did during this month... But who knows? I have a better camera and slightly larger workspace at my disposal, so perhaps I'll try again and be a little less lazy about that in 2020. March: Once a Killjoy, Always a Killjoy Oh boy, if past-me had only known what was to come later this year! March saw a lot of pieces from me practicing with watercolor and new supplies, but I think my favorite to come out of the month was my annual artwork to honor March 22nd, the anniversary of when My Chemical Romance, my favorite band, broke up. Only this time instead of doing pure fanart, I made myself into a Killjoy for the occasion. (The design of which needs to be revamped a little because my hair is purple now, but that just means I already have one option for the anniversary this coming year!) And once again, this is a mixed media piece that I look back on very fondly. The concept is fun and the end result looks pretty cool. April: Doodle Moon I leaned pretty heavily into honing my watercolor craft in April, and among those efforts, this one is definitely my favorite. (Even if it doesn't fit on this template very nicely ) This one was a bit of an experiment in branching my traditional and digital art together in a different way, and I still really love how it turned out. Although unfortunately, I've yet to return to this technique, simply because I feel weird a lot of the time about "half finishing" a traditional piece and then making a lot of modifications to it digitally. It feels like cheating or being fake in a way to me. But I think I get that hangover from the concept of editing photos online and then passing them off as real & unedited...in which case it's a personal problem that I just need to deal with on my own. May: Butterfly Babe I didn't have a ton of artwork in May, but what I did have were usually bigger/more involved pieces, and this one is no different. I think 2019 is the year when I really came into owning my love for mixed media (which comes in large part from "I'm not good at x thing with y supply, but I can do x effect with z supply really well!") and this piece is a really great example of that. Once again, still one of my favorites and the scan really doesn't do it just with all the sparkle/metallic accents I incorporated. And I think I want to do more involved almost crafty projects like this more often, but that usually comes down to having the right inspiration to make it happen. June: Bug Girl Funnily enough, June 2019 is now my busiest month of all-time (in the almost 9 years I've been here on dA), and yet I only had one "real" piece of art for the Summary. This was the month when I really got heavy into making my own Swatch Charts/Swatching Resources, and while some did carry over into July, the bulk of it was posted in June. I have to say, I don't think a ton of other people are using the charts, but I've certainly been getting good use out of them! And if I'm being honest I mostly wanted them for my own personal use anyway. But for the artwork that you see here, this is another mixed media piece, this time commemorating one of my favorite books I've read this year, How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow. The artwork itself had some annoying problems in development, but the result is really beautiful to me, and so I think it was worth it in the end. July: Homemade Mini Sketchbooks! This month is more of a craft project than artwork, but I couldn't help myself as these little sketchbooks I made myself are probably one of my most favorite projects I did in 2019, and these first two spawned many more afterward. It's funny to me because I've always wanted a way to combine my loves of books and art beyond just illustrating my writing (which isn't always something I feel like doing) and this, while maybe not a perfect solution, is definitely a unique way to do that. Plus, while making each book does take a little while, it is usually a pretty fun process now that I've gotten the better hang of it. These first two books aren't perfect, but they kicked off something I think I'll be sporadically doing for a good while to come. August: Mon Cher It feels like a lot happening this month, despite not having quite as much art as other months this past year. The month started off with the end of our family vacation, and I posted a journal when I got back where you can see that part of the reason this month felt so busy is that this is probably when I had the most new art supplies available to me to test out/play with during the year, including some items that I got at the tail end of July. Out of the options I had though, this artwork seemed like the best choice to represent this month, as just like in April I leaned pretty heavily into using and practicing with watercolors and painting in general (as I dipped my toes into seriously painting with Acrylics this month too) and this is one of my more ambitious watercolor pieces. As I said when I first posted it, it has its mistakes and growing pains, but I still think it's really lovely. September: Fly By the Moon I was actually surprised, looking back, at how busy September was. My second acrylic painting (this one more in-depth than the first), an array of cute kitty drawings which have sort of become a series now, some personal pieces, and two contest entries. (One of which actually won!) I went with the acrylic painting since I'm still very proud of how it turned out, given that I don't use acrylics terribly often and hardly ever I go for realism (even semi-realism like this painting) either. Plus, this one is a nice memory of the two real luna moths that visited us, and I had to admit that it is just really nice to have a full painting on a canvas to hang up too. I haven't done much more with acrylic painting yet, but I definitely want to. My main issue is that for me it's hard deciding on a good subject for the way I like to paint that I don't feel like would look equally as good if not better with a different medium. But hopefully, I'll find more excuses to break out the acrylics in 2020. October: Ink Dance Oh boy, what a month this was! Inktober, new mini-magnets, trying gouache for the first time, and on the very last day the news of the decade (at least for me) that My Chemical Romance is back! I followed my same principle as the art summary last year where it just doesn't feel fair to pick a favorite Inktober or use the wrap-up picture, so that left me with my gouache pieces or this one that looks more like a normal person's Inktober artwork, and out of my options, this is the one I like best. The gouache paintings aren't bad, I just need more practice and this one has more charm to me. And it's also funny to me that I was so concerned about ending up hating this one for the stippling and yet it turned out to be one of my favorites from this year. November: I will be with You The artwork for this month was pretty much a no-contest. I made this piece as a love letter to My Chemical Romance after the news of their Return, and likewise, I poured my heart and soul into it. It just might be one of my most favorite artworks to date; perhaps even worthy of being a "portfolio piece" on my website. Even more so after the fact now that I've seen the Return concert (albeit over a Livestream and not in person because California is like 2-3,000 miles away from me ). I was pretty busy throughout the month trying to keep up with a prompt challenge from Art Philosophy, but even so, I pushed myself to get this piece done and I'm so glad I did. December: Daises on Strawberry Hill Ah, and here we are at the very last. It's funny, the first half of this month seemed to drag by pretty slowly, but then after the second week things picked up pretty quickly (what with the Return concert and all) and I have to agree with my mom that Christmas went by so fast we almost missed that it happened at all. I don't have as much to show for this month, but that's in large part because I've been taking time off for my mental health and to spend time with and enjoy my family. I'm pretty happy with everything I produced this month, but my Looking for Alaska inspired art is definitely my favorite of the bunch. It's very graphic-design-ish and despite at the time having been done rather quickly and not super precisely, looking at it now it reads very cleanly. It's a little outside my normal art realm, but if anything I think that makes it stronger on its own. I'm still chipping away at my longer review of the Hulu series I originally made it to talk about (like I said when I posted it, I have a lot of thoughts I want to talk about and not rush through), so I am indeed still planning on finishing and posting those...I just don't know when that'll be, considering I've already got a bit of a content schedule for myself going into the New Year, but eventually! Eventually, it'll be done! Overall, I'm honestly very happy with what I've managed to accomplish this year. Just like last year, I did a lot of experimenting with new supplies and new mediums--this time some I thought I'd never touch--and I hit even more milestones, including my first Daily Deviation in November. I feel like I've grown significantly more as an artist and a person this year though than I did last year. And in many ways, I feel like this year has renewed my confidence in my own skills and work. I'm not much of a "New Years' Resolution" type person, as I think the concept as tied to that particular phrase has been...I'll be generous and say overinflated and mistreated...but some of my Art Goals for 2020 are: Post more consistently/regularly (which I worked on a lot in 2019 too) Be more active & engaged on social media (I've already started working on this a little, but for some reason, this is honestly kind of hard for me as I always debate what's worth sharing online and what isn't ) Promote me and my work/art outlets more (Also something I find hard to do) Keep experimenting (Not really a goal so much as my artistic state of existence but whatever ) This past year has been one heck of a wild ready, but I'm more than ready to see what 2020 has in store for me. Cheers for the New Year ahead! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings Art Summary Template: 2019 Summary of Art Template (Blank) ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#artsummary

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lingthusiasm · 6 years ago

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Transcript Episode 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 26 show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! I'm Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Gawne, and today, we're getting enthusiastic about palatalisation. That is to say, “What the heck is going on with G and C?” But first, thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic recommending during our November Recommend-A-Thon.

Gretchen: Yes, thanks so much for all your tweets, and posts, and shares, and all of the new people that you've brought in with you to listen to Lingthusiasm.

Lauren: We will be thanking every one of you who made some kind of public declaration about their love of Lingthusiasm. We'll give you until the end of the month to add yourself to that esteemed group of people, so we can thank you all in our annual anniversary post.

Gretchen: Yes, so you have till the end of November 2018 to be part of this year's Recommend-A-Thon thank you post, which will live in perpetuity on our website. Last year we thanked 100 people. This year, I think we can thank even more. I'm really excited by what we've seen so far.

Lauren: I'm feeling very confident about that. And of course, you can continue to recommend us to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life any time of the year.

Gretchen: I also want to thank everybody who came out to the live shows.

Lauren: Yay! I'm not gonna lie, we're recording this before the live shows.

Gretchen: So we're really hoping people actually come.

Lauren: We are just going to have to assume that they were an absolute rolling success.

Gretchen: We're recording well in advance at the moment to make sure that we have episodes for when Lauren's on leave. We're very excited about those live shows. I assume they were great. Thanks so much to everyone who came out in Melbourne and Sydney. It was so fun to get to see those cities. We also want to remind you that if you're thinking about getting Lingthusiasm merch for any linguists or language enthusiasts in your life, if you want to get someone a scarf with the International Phonetic Alphabet, or tree symbol diagrams on them, or a tie with the IPA on it, or various baby outfits, or T-shirts that say, “Not judging your grammar, just analysing it,” or many other things, now is a great time to place an order so that arrives towards the end of the year.

Lauren: Remember, it's also totally okay to use this as a list of suggestions for other people to buy you, or if you enjoy doing a bit of holiday shopping for yourself, we're not gonna stop you.

Gretchen: We definitely noticed from last year that RedBubble typically runs some sales this time of year, so hopefully, you can take advantage of those to get you and/or your friends and family some great Lingthusiasm swag.

Lauren: Speaking of the holiday season, it's a very important holiday season coming up that's the Northern Hemisphere winter conference season, which I'm usually excited about. Not doing so much travel this year.

Gretchen: Well, the Australian Linguistic Society is also having its annual meeting in Adelaide in December, which I'm going to be at because I'm still in Australia. Our latest Patreon bonus episode is all about the academic conference circuit and how to make it work for you.

Lauren: I had a lot of fun in this episode. This is all of mine and Gretchen's favourite survival tips for navigating academic conferences. If you've never been to one before, or you've only been to a couple, they're lots of fun, and they can be even more fun.

Gretchen: Yes, so you can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to check those out, or lingthusiasm.com/merch for the merch. We’ll repeat those links at the end of the episode, so you don't have to write them down now.

[Music]

Gretchen: So, G and C are really weird letters because they're these two letters that, in a whole bunch of languages, often come with multiple sounds. You have the sounds in their names like /dʒ/ and /s/, and then you have other sounds like /g/ and /k/, and then even more sounds. These letters are so weird.

Lauren: I'm not known for being the most reliable when it comes to a spelling bee, and I feel like it's often letters like G and C that trip me up because they have so many different pronunciation disguises that they put on.

Gretchen: They really do. They especially do that in different languages. You can do a brief sample of this through different languages' words for “cheese.”

Lauren: Ooo, let's do a cross-linguistic cheese platter!

Gretchen: Cross-linguistic cheese tour! First, we have the Latin “caseus” (/kaseʊs/) meaning “cheese.” And this gives rise to a whole bunch of other words for “cheese” in different languages. You have English “cheese” (/tʃi:z/), you have German “Käse” (/ke:zə/), you have Spanish “queso” (/keso/).

Lauren: Yeah. Because I was like, “Well, in Italian you have ‘formaggio,’” which is like a completely different historical word. But then I remembered that my favourite Italian pasta from Rome is cacio (/katʃo/) e pepe and that's – the Italian-Latin word for “cheese” is still hidden in that very excellent pasta dish.

Gretchen: And then because I started thinking about this, I was looking up other languages’ word for “cheese,” and I saw the Dutch “kaas” (/kɑːs/), which, I don't speak any Dutch, but there's one Dutch word that I know which is “pindakaas,” and “pindakaas” literally translates as “peanut cheese.”

Lauren: Oh. Oh, hang on. Like peanut butter?

Gretchen: Yeah, so the Dutch word for “peanut butter” is literally translated as “peanut cheese,” which at first seems like, “This is maybe an interesting dish,” but then you're like, “Is ‘peanut butter’ really any better as a term for it?” Because it's still a dairy metaphor.

Lauren: Yeah, because I was like, “That's a weird choice,” but actually, it's not that different.

Gretchen: It's really not that different at all. Especially, if you think of a cream cheese, which is like a creamier cheese, maybe? Peanut butter is kind of creamy sometimes.

Lauren: I'm still gonna eat it no matter what it's called.

Gretchen: Then you have Irish “cáis” (/kɑːʃ/), which is also from Latin “caseus”. “Caseus” is spelled with a C and an S. They're pronounced /k/ and /s/.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: But “cheese” takes that initial /k/ and makes it /tʃ/. “Käse” and “queso” and “cacio” keep that initial /k/ sound at the beginning, but “cacio” changes the /s/ into /tʃ/.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Dutch keeps it the way it was. And then Irish also changes the second one into “cáis” (/kɑːʃ/). Different languages have taken this one word that seemed like it had a fairly straightforward pronunciation and altered it in slightly different ways.

Lauren: I was trying to make a cheese metaphor about things, like, fermenting and going funky with age, but I guess this is why we’re a linguistics podcast and not a food podcast.

Gretchen: “Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a food podcast about linguistics.” And this is all this weird stuff that C gets up to between different languages, historically, and in different languages in the modern era. G does the same type of thing. If you were a kid, you might have learned about hard G and soft G, or hard C and soft C.

Lauren: I really struggle with the idea of hard C and soft C, and hard G and soft G. Just to help other people who might as well, hard G is the /g/ sound and soft G is when it's used more like /ʒ/.

Gretchen: Yes, /ʒ/ or /dʒ/, which is one of the reasons why this terminology is not generally linguist-approved.

Lauren: Yeah, I just – I think about, for example, when I was chatting with Suzy Styles on the work we do about how we have this cross-sensory idea and “hard” and “soft” as a metaphor just don't work for me for those sounds. Apologies if I leave Gretchen to do all of the explaining the difference between them today.

Gretchen: Well, I don't think I'm really going to use the terms either. I'm just gonna mention the specific sound because you see when it happens cross-linguistically, there's a lot more going on than just that. These are two letters that both have that hard-soft thing going on. We don't talk about “hard Q” and “soft Q,” or “hard P” and “soft P.”

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: So why do these letters come in hard and soft versions, even if you can't remember which version is which? To do this, we need to also go back to the Romans.

Lauren: Yes, there were simpler times back in Old Latin.

Gretchen: The Latin alphabet comes from Greek, as a lot of people know. But this is one of things that always puzzled me as a kid – because I was a kid who was into the Greek alphabet – I was like, “Look, the Greeks have this letter, kappa, which stands for the K sound, and it looks like a K, and it's where we get the modern K. And they have this letter, gamma, which was very clearly supposed to be a G. Who invented the C? Why is it there, and why does it cause me so much trouble?”

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: It turns out that this is explained by the Etruscans, who were people that didn't make a distinction between the /g/ sound and the /k/ sound, like the sound in “gamma” and the sound in “kappa.” They borrowed the Greek alphabet for their language, which we don't know very much about, but we know that they didn't care about the difference between gamma and kappa because they just borrowed one, which was gamma, and they used it for both because it didn't really matter for them. Then, the Romans actually didn't initially borrow their alphabet from the Greeks. They borrowed it from the Etruscans.

Lauren: Because the Etruscans were living on the Italian peninsula, so they just borrowed it from the locals.

Gretchen: Yeah, so they just borrowed it from the locals.

Lauren: I do love an ethically locally sourced alphabet, personally.

Gretchen: Nice, locally sourced alphabet. We have fragments of pottery from the Etruscans, but we don't know a whole lot about their language. We know it wasn't Indo-European because all the Indo-European languages do distinguish between the gamma and the kappa sounds. So the Romans borrow it from the Etruscans, and then they're left with like, “Oh, geez, we actually do want to make this distinction between these two sounds that we have, but the Etruscans don't have.”

Lauren: And so someone invented the letter G.

Gretchen: Like an actual person?

Lauren: Apparently. I mean, I'm quoting from Wikipedia.

Gretchen: Do we know their name?

Lauren: Apparently, his name was Spurius Carvilius Ruga, which definitely doesn't sound like a spurious name at all.

Gretchen: That's a really spurious name. So he invented the letter G?

Lauren: Yeah, so at this point the letter C was the third letter in the alphabet, still, and he was like, “Well, look, we have this /k/ sound.” K wasn't cool anymore as a letter to represent /k/. They were all using the rounded – what we think of as C now. He was like, “We need to make more of a distinction.” And so apparently – there are people who disagree with this, but I like this story about young Spurius – created the letter G and was like, “Now, we can make the distinction again.”

Gretchen: If you look at a capital G, it just looks like a C with an extra stroke added on to it, right?

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: A gamma is like a right angle in the top left corner (Γ), and then you can curve it to make a C, and then you can add an extra stroke to make the G.

Lauren: So that's where the Romans got to. And he popped it in the alphabet in the seventh position, which is originally where a little Greek letter known as "zeta" used to live.

Gretchen: So is he responsible for the demotion of zeta as well?

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, well, no, Z also wasn't cool anymore, because the Romans didn't need it, so they never really borrowed it from the Greeks. Because, again, they got all their alphabet from the Etruscans. So the Romans weren't really down with –

Gretchen: Oh, that’s it. Okay.

Lauren: – zeta. They kind of had it there. He's was like, “Well, let's just drop that letter out, and we'll add this cool, new G thing that I invented.”

Gretchen: So he kicked out zeta and replaced it with G?

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: That's great. I love that. Latin actually pronounced – all of their C’s and G’s were /k/ and /g/.

Lauren: Imagine doing a Latin spelling bee. It would be so great. I mean, I guess that’s why they don’t have spelling bees in most languages that have regular orthographies.

Gretchen: Yeah, so easy! You know, you have your classic Latin phrase "veni vidi vici" (/weni widi wiki/) “I came. I saw. I conquered.”

Lauren: I like that you’ve used the original Latin pronunciation there, so you sound a little bit ridiculous.

Gretchen: I'd always pronounced this /vɛni vidi vitʃi/, but then I had a Latin teacher who told me, “No, no, it's actually /weni widi wiki/," and it just sounds so foolish.

Lauren: Yes, every time I hear it. So that "vici" is the C – what we think of as C – being pronounced as /k/, as in the word for “cheese.”

Gretchen: Then, in Late Latin, everything starts to go wrong. And by “wrong,” I mean “great.”

Lauren: For the Empire as well as the language.

Gretchen: Yeah, the Empire was a bit messed up. But also the language started fragmenting and becoming all these different versions. In many of the different areas, people started pronouncing the C and the G in a different way, sometimes.

Lauren: I love the “sometimes” bit. We talk about the environment that sounds are in can make them change, adds a bit of context. And that's really where the fun and the messiness of language can really play out, when you have language changing over time.

Gretchen: Yeah, we need to talk about a particular area of the mouth. This is the roof of your mouth. I'm touching it right now, but you can't see me, because it's inside. This isn’t gonna be a very useful demonstration.

Lauren: If you have clean-enough hands, and you don't mind looking a bit ridiculous in public, you can turn the tip of your finger up to the ceiling and press it into the roof of your mouth or use your tongue.

Gretchen: This is the back part of the roof of your mouth. Not the front bit right behind your teeth, but the back bit by your molars. There's kind of a little lump there. This is known in linguistics as the “palate.” There's a whole bunch of sounds that involve the palate and involve some sort of constriction at the palate, the back part of the roof of your mouth.

Lauren: It's a big chunk of space. You've got that soft bit further towards the back that you might not want to prod if you have a sensitive gag reflex.

Gretchen: Yeah, we don’t advise that.

Lauren: And you have that hard bit closer to the teeth. There's a lot of space to play with there.

Gretchen: Yeah, so there's a lot of space. You can drop your jaw and let a lot of space happen there. What's crucial about the palate is it's a space where you can make both vowels and consonants. You could make an /i/ sound, and your tongue will be towards your palate. You can make a /j/ sound, and your tongue will be towards your palate. You could make a /ʃ/ sound, and your tongue will be towards your palate.

Lauren: I'm just sitting here quietly going “sh, sh, sh” to myself.

Gretchen: I was teaching a roomful of Intro to Linguistics students about the palate, and I was saying, “Okay, we're gonna make a distinction between where S is produced, which is towards the front of the roof of your mouth –" and we don't call that the “palate,” we we use the “palate” just refer to the back part of the roof of your mouth – “and the /ʃ/ sound, which is on the palate or near the palate." I was getting the room to say “sss,” “shh,” “sss,” “shh,” back and forth. Then, I was like, “You guys thought you were enrolled in Intro to Linguistics, but you're actually enrolled in Intro to Parseltongue.”

Lauren: The very “sss-shh”-y sounds of the snake language of Harry Potter, for the three of you out there who aren't familiar. If you don't feel like making these sounds, or you want to see what other people's tongues are doing, as always with these episodes, I'm linking you to one of my favourite websites, which is where they stuck a bunch of phoneticians in an MRI machine, and you can see their tongues doing all these things, if you just click on the column of sounds called Palatals.

Gretchen: That's great. I like that website so much. So the palatals, and the /dʒ/ sound is also towards the palatals. At least it's a lot more similar to the palatals than /k/ and /g/.

Lauren: In contrast, /k/ and /g/ are made a bit further back from the palate, closer towards the back of the mouth.

Gretchen: If you’re just thinking about these palatal sounds, the thing is that because there are both vowels and consonants that can be palatal, and you have a vowel that's produced near the palate, and a consonant near it, the vowel tends to attract the consonant and make it more palatal and make it more similar to each other, because humans like to be efficient about these things.

Lauren: Even if you don't remember any terminology, and you certainly don't have to, the takeaway here is that our mouths are very good at being lazy, and they will strive to do as little moving as possible. It's like, “If I'm already there for the vowel, why am I taking myself all the way to the back of the palate? I'm just gonna hang here.” I'm always happy to celebrate laziness.

Gretchen: These palatal vowels, these vowels that are produced near the palate, tend to pull certain consonants with them. This is what happened to the /k/ and the /g/ sound.

Lauren: And it didn't necessarily happen the same way in all the different languages that descend from Latin.

Gretchen: Right, so in French, which is probably the most familiar to English because we borrowed a lot of words from French – so, sometimes you have /k/ becoming /s/ in English from Latin, sometimes you have it becoming /tʃ/ in English from Latin. You have things like “caseus” becoming “cheese,” but also something like “circus" (/kirkus/) becoming “circus” (/sɝkəs/). All those /k/’s get pulled more towards the roof of the mouth.

Lauren: But only if the vowel is luring them there, right? If the vowel isn't near that palatal bit, if the vowel is already back where the /k/ is, then it just stays there.

Gretchen: Yeah, so that's the thing. In a word like “circus” the /k/ is before an I, which was pronounced /i/, /sirkus/, whereas, the second C is before a U and that one stays /sirkus/, not /sirsus/.

Lauren: I like how I’m like, “/sirkus/ sounds completely normal. /sirsus/ sounds very wrong.”

Gretchen: Yeah, /sirsus/ is just like, “No, that didn't happen.” So, /i/ and /e/, which became I and E in English, are the ones that tend to pull the consonants towards them. Whereas /u/ and /o/ and /a/ are the ones that let the constant stay where they want to be.

Lauren: Which solves a mystery of – I mean, spelling bees are entirely mysterious to me, as I think we've established – but it solves that mystery of spelling bees, because I was always like, “Why would you ask...” – because you can ask in a spelling bee the origin of a word. And so if you ask like, “I have to spell the word 'circus.' Please, spelling bee master, tell me the origin of the word.” If I know it's a Latin word, like, “Well, that means it probably is C-I and not K-I, because originally it was probably /kirkus/”

Gretchen: Yeah, because you don't have K's in Latinate words because all of their C's changed when they were in front of an I or an E.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: This also explains why there's some disagreement about how to pronounce the word “Celtic.”

Lauren: Oh, yeah, there's a really great post by Stan Carey that goes into the history of this, but – I don't know. I have to think really hard if I say /kɛltɪk/ or /sɛltɪk/. But I think I say /kɛltɪk/.

Gretchen: I definitely say /kɛltɪk/, but there's some sports team that's correctly pronounced /sɛltɪk/, because that's what people say when they talk about the sports team?

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: I've definitely heard people say /sɛltɪk/. This is one of those ones where if you're obeying the Latinate rules, you're like, “Well, C-E, that must mean that the C is pronounced like an S.” And yet – because when Irish and Scottish Gaelics borrowed the Latin alphabet, it also hadn't had this sound change happen yet. All the C's were still pronounced like /k/, so all of the C's in Gaelic are hard. And so “Celt” /kɛlt/ is – there's no K in Gaelic. The C's are all pronounced /k/.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: So if you use the Gaelic pronunciation, then it's /kɛlt/, but if you're looking at it, and you're like, “Well, but I thought my rule was the C gets pronounced like S," then it's /sɛlt/.

Lauren: Which brings us to another major scandal in terms of how words are pronounced, which is, of course, the word that I say as /dʒɪbəɹɪʃ/ (gibberish).

Gretchen: And the word that I said on a previous episode as /gɪbəɹɪʃ/ because – I don't know. Why not say it that way?

Lauren: Yeah, I – to be honest – had not paid much attention to your pronunciation, but we had quite a few people draw attention to the fact that we have different pronunciations for this word.

Gretchen: Yeah, and this is the same thing like with /dʒɪf/ and /gɪf/ (GIF) where –

Lauren: Which is definitely not a major argument at all.

Gretchen: No, no one cares about that one on the internet. I've never heard any argument about it. With the G's, when we get a word from French, or from Latin, or from Italian, or sometimes from Spanish – but generally, Spanish, that's its own thing – we tend to pronounce that G as a /dʒ/ or a /ʒ/ like in “rouge.” But when we get it from a different language, we often pronounce it as a /g/ instead.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: So of course, when we get it from an acronym like with GIF, all bets are off, really. There's no statistical bias in either direction.

Lauren: We have been talking exclusively about C and G, but they are not the only letters that cause me grief with spelling, which is fundamentally about palatalisation. There are other sounds in English that are also very attracted to the palate.

Gretchen: Yeah, and these are both /t/ and /d/, T and D, and /s/ and /z/, or S and Z. They're pronounced more towards the front of the palate, but, again, if they're in front of an /i/ or an /e/ sound, they tend to get pulled back towards the palate instead of pulled forward. They all get pulled toward the centre of the mouth.

Lauren: The palate is like the black hole at the centre of the mouth universe.

Gretchen: It's got gravity pulling everything towards it. Yeah, it's a very attractive place. I think it's also kind of a very easy place to say because it's just right there in the middle. So it could be anything. You don't have to go to a lot of effort to make it happen.

Lauren: Yeah, the tongue is just kind of going straight up from its neutral spot. What kind of examples do we see with these letters?

Gretchen: There's some ones that are really old that are embedded into English spelling, words like “station” and “ratio” with that T-I-O-N ending. They were at one point pronounced like /statiʌn/ and /ratio/.

Lauren: Again, would have made spelling tests a lot easier.

Gretchen: Way easier, /ratio/! The Romans said this. But /ratʃio/, /io/ gets shortened into /raʃio/ or /steʃiʌn/ and eventually gets /steʃʌn/ and /reʃio/, and other words like that. Then there's also some that are super new, and they're not even reflected in standard English spelling. They're only in representations of informal speech. That's the words like "didja?"

Lauren: As in, “Didja find out any good facts about palatalisation? Yes, I did.”

Gretchen: Yeah! If you have “did” and “you” – well, “you” can become “ya,” obviously. Then that "ya" sound, the Y at the beginning, it's also palatal, so it can pull the D towards /dɪdʒə/. I went to . a really great restaurant when I was in New York City a couple months ago, which was pointed out to me by someone on Twitter as a linguistically interesting restaurant that I should go to. It is called “Jeet Jet.”

Lauren: “Jeet Jet?”

Gretchen: “Jeet Jet,” spelled J-E-E-T J-E-T.

Lauren: Oh, as in, “Did you eat yet?”

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: “Jeet Jet.”

Gretchen: “Jeet Jet?”

Lauren: That was great. Everything is just lapsing into the palatal centre.

Gretchen: So palatal! It's a palatal palace of food.

Lauren: This is why we're not a food podcast.

Gretchen: Every so often when I used to mark linguistics papers for Intro to Linguistics, you’d get somebody who would write – instead of “palatal,” they'd write “palatial.”

Lauren: Did you draw a little palace?

Gretchen: It sounds like it’s a little palace! But also, why is it not “palatial” because “palatial” is actually the palatised version of “palatal?”

Lauren: It makes sense. We might have to let the language kick on for another couple of centuries to let that process happen.

Gretchen: What's really cool about palatals is that they keep going with the trajectories of the language. In French and Italian, the C's and G's became /dʒ/and /ʒ/ and /ʃ/ and /s/, and that's pretty well-established. In Spanish, they did this other thing. The Spanish C in front of E or I went to /θ/ in Spain, like "cerveza" (/θerbeθa/), and to /s/ in South America like /serbesa/. The J, and G, and also the X – they’re now like a /h/ sound, like in "Xavier” (/havier/). But they stopped for a while at a /ʃ/ sound. For a while, this X in Spanish was pronounced /ʃ/.

Lauren: Hmm, just hung out there for a while?

Gretchen: Yeah, you can see that trajectory happening. It happened at a very specific point in Spanish history, because this point when X was being pronounced /ʃ/ also happened right around when the Spanish conquerors were first coming in contact with Nahuatl speakers in Central America. In Nahuatl, there was a sound /ʃ/, and the Spanish speakers were like, “Well, we have a letter to represent /ʃ/. It's an X. We're going to use the X to represent /ʃ/ like we do in our own language.” They transcribed certain Nahuatl words, like the word “Mexico” – /meʃiko/ – perfectly reasonably.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: But then Spanish kept changing, and not a lot of people spoke Nahuatl, and so /meʃiko/ became /mehiko/, because the X sound was shifted from /ʃ/ to /h/.

Lauren: And so “Mexico,” did the pronunciation of it – just went with it even though it was meant to be /ʃ/?

Gretchen: A representation of the Nahuatl word.

Lauren: Ah, there you go.

Gretchen: Other languages looked at it – like English looked at the spelling of this word and said, “Well, you have an X there. We have an X.”

Lauren: “We pronounce it /ks/."

Gretchen: “Here's how we pronounce the X.” And this is where we get /mɛksɪko/, but it's actually an attempt at representing this Nahuatl sound, but then Spanish changed out from under it.

Lauren: It reminds me of when “Beijing” was updated from the older word, “Peking.” We still have “Peking” in “Peking Duck,” and you have that /k/ there in the “-king.” When it was updated, it becomes “-jing,” because over the centuries since it was originally written down, palatalisation has occurred in Mandarin Chinese.

Gretchen: Oh, that's so good! I just thought the Europeans are really incompetent at transcribing things.

Lauren: I mean, the Europeans were pretty incompetent, and I'm sure that was part of the problem. But you actually have that palatalisation happening in Mandarin as well. It's not just an Indo-European phenomenon.

Gretchen: Oh, so there's just a sound change happening in Mandarin as well at the same time. That's so good.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: There's also a really interesting historical example of other languages doing palatalisation, because once you can spot palatalisation, you can find it everywhere. It's in so many languages. I'd be honestly more surprised to find a language that had never done any sort of palatalisation – that hadn’t done it – than I would be surprised to find it in another language. Bantu languages, which are spoken in a wide swath of Africa, they have a set of prefixes that go at the beginning of certain nouns and verbs to indicate which category the nouns belong to, in a very, very simple explanation of that. One of these prefixes is used before a noun to make it the language related to that noun.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: So you have things like – in the Congo, the language that’s spoken is Kikongo.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: In Rwanda, the language that’s spoken is Kinyarwanda. In Botswana, the language that spoken is Setswana. What's really interesting here is that this prefix, you can tell it's started out as /ki/, but in some languages it's become /tʃi/ or /ʃi/ or /si/ or /se/. You can tell that's because this palatal vowel has brought it more towards the vowel. So you have Kiswahili, but isiZulu or isiXhosa], or Tshivenda. Some of them still have the /ki/, some of them have changed it to /si/ or /tʃi/. You can see this relationship because they all have the same prefix, but it's changed differently because the sound changes have happened differently in the different languages.

Lauren: Exactly the same set of changes as we get with our cheeses of Europe.

Gretchen: The same cheese-changes. I have a very vivid memory about when I first learned about palatalisation. This was when I went to Scottish Gaelic summer camp when I was 10 or 12?

Lauren: The thing is we don't have summer camps in Australia. So I find all summer camps mysterious. I'm like, “Of course, you went on summer camp for Gaelic. Like, that's that weird thing that North Americans do. They go on summer camp.”

Gretchen: It is not very common to go on summer camp for Gaelic. Most of the other kids that were there, were there to learn, like, fiddle, or step dance, or something, which is still fairly rare. Most people go, like, canoeing or something.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: But I was a budding linguist, and I wanted to learn Gaelic. So when I was learning Gaelic, they told me about this distinction between broad vowels and slender vowels. This is super important in Gaelic and in Irish as well, because a whole bunch of consonants in Gaelic change the way they're pronounced depending on which vowels they’re next to.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: So you end up with all these silent vowels where the vowel itself is silent, but it's just being used to tell you how to pronounce the consonant that it's next to.

Lauren: This is a bit like when I realised the reason you don't hear, in Spanish or in English – the word “guitar,” you don't hear that U – is because Spanish uses U in the same way there, to indicate that it should be a /g/ and not a /ʒɪtɑɹ/.

Gretchen: Exactly, it means the same U that's in, like, "Guillaume" to indicate that that is a /g/ – or in “guerre,” “guerrilla,” for “war.”

Lauren: Yeah, it was a complete revelation for me when I was like, “I'm not meant to – the U is just there to help me, not to hinder me.”

Gretchen: Yeah, it's to help you according to a completely different system that you only understand incompletely.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: This is the same thing for Gaelic. If you have a word, “fáilte,” which is the word for "welcome," and the last two letters are T-E, the way you know that that T is pronounced like a /tʃ/ is because there's an E next to it. Or if you have names like “Sean,” or “Sinead,” or “Siobhan,” the way that you know that that S is pronounced like a /ʃ/ is because it has an E or an I next to it.

Lauren: Just, like, “Come with me towards the palate.”

Gretchen: This is the kind of thing that they teach you in Gaelic 101. They’re like, “Here's the broad vowels. Here's the slender vowels. Here's why they're so important,” because they tell you how to do this with all your consonants. And yet, afterwards, I was like, “But English also kind of does this. Because if you have a word like “circus,” the way that you know how each of the C's is pronounced is based on the same distinction between what Gaelic traditionally calls “broad” and “slender” vowels, but we can call “palatal” or “non-palatal” vowels. The slender vowels in Gaelic are the same thing as a palatal vowel, or a front vowel to use the proper linguistic term. All of those are the same class of things that all cause the same types of sound changes. The “broad” vowels, or the “non-palatal” vowels, or the “back” vowels are all the same category of stuff that doesn't cause the sound change. And that totally rocked my world when I figured it out the first time.

Lauren: I think the thing is, given my general spelling issues, even though I have trouble with spelling, I really appreciate that palatalisation makes pronouncing things easier. In many ways, it's really great that the writing system we have captures this history of how these sounds were all the way back to Latin, all the way back to our friend Spurius, and they're there to help us.

Gretchen: Yeah, it makes certain connections easier to see. A word like “electric,” “electricity,” the C is still there, and when you add an I on to it with the “-ity” ending, you can see it change pronunciation. You can see the connections between those words more straightforwardly. Whereas, if there was a K at the end, you wouldn't necessarily know that it was one that was going to change its pronunciation if an I was added to it. I think what fascinates me about palatalisation is it's one of the ways in which linguistics lets us peer deeply into the soul of a language, or into history of a language, and into the connections between languages, and lets us think of these things that we think of as messy and anomalous as actually a unified part of our shared anatomy across all of the spoken languages that we have this in common, which is that we all find it easier to pronounce things in a certain area of our mouths the same. That makes us part of this really big human story in what seems to be just annoying ways to spell things.

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Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm, and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We're also now on Spotify, so if you use that, you can find us there. You can follow us at @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. And you can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo.

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Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne, our audio producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are A.E. Prévost and Sarah Dopierala, and our editorial manager is Emily Gref, Our production assistants are Celine Yoon and Fabianne Anderberg. Our music is by The Triangles. Stay lingthusiastic!

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#linguistics #podcast #transcripts #episode 26 #palatal #palatals #palatalisation #phonetics #phonology #pronunciation #spelling #c #g #Latin #English #orthography #writing #history #sound change

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erinoddly-archived-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Kaleidoscope

This is the backstory for Rowan, one of the main characters in my WIP Strange Sparks

When Rowan stepped out of Aspen’s room, a sense of calm numbness washed over him. The room had been eerily empty, completely cleared out save for Aspen’s furniture and a note left on the wooden desk detailing his brother’s decision to suddenly leave and move in with their aunt on the other side of the country. Rowan could understand. Their house had become almost intolerably suffocating in the past couple days. Even when he was alone on the top floor, the atmosphere weighed heavily on his shoulders, though that might have been because there were so many empty rooms after everything. Part of him wondered if it would be easier if he were on the first or second floor, but he didn’t really want to find out for risk of running into his parents.

He clutched the note in his hand and crept down the hallway, his steps soft and quiet. As if he were afraid. Afraid, he noted as he crossed to the other side of the hallway to avoid Linden’s door, was a good word. He was afraid. Afraid of the quiet and emptiness of the house. Afraid of the ghosts he could feel breathing down the back of his neck. Afraid of facing the truth again. He was afraid that now he was more alone than he had ever been before. Yes, afraid was the right word.

He knew that he should give the note to his mom, or even his dad, but he also knew what their reactions would be. They would react quickly and irrationally and that was something he couldn’t handle. Instead, he slipped into his room, closing his door against the darkness trying to creep in from the hallway.

He shook off the darkness and dropped the note onto his desk, sinking into the wooden chair sitting in front of it. What would he do now? What could he do? It felt like his world was spinning around him, changing like a kaleidoscope while he was stagnant in the middle. He was unable to change, unable to move, unable to face himself. It was wrong, he thought, that he felt like he was completely incapable of just walking down two flights of stairs to so much as tell his parents that their eldest son had moved out.

Maybe he should follow in Aspen’s footsteps. That’s what the youngest son was supposed to do, right? Follow the example of his elders? Even though Aspen would more than likely have hit him if he had known Rowan had called him old. Either way, Rowan could leave. He could try to move in with their aunt too. Aspen had even mentioned in his note that he felt like he should have taken Rowan with him. But that was right before he had promised that Rowan was strong enough to take whatever was to come.

He wiped his face, almost surprised when his hand came back wet. He hadn’t noticed his tears falling. Strong, sure. Aspen was always a dreamer. He was naïve and stupid and Rowan couldn’t stand it. But wasn’t he the same? Hadn’t Linden been the same? So what did he have to complain about? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. No, he couldn’t run. He wouldn’t run anymore. Aspen, at least, believed that he was strong enough for this. That was something no one else had ever told him, even Linden. He had always been a coward, hiding behind his brothers when things got hard. But now, he promised himself, he’d prove them all wrong. He’d become strong. He’d become strong enough to protect people. He’d never be a coward again. He’d never run away again.

“Stop shaking.” His voice was quiet when he spoke, hardly more than a whisper. His hands were crossed over the paper and pen he left out on his desk, completely still save for their trembling. This wasn’t right. He was supposed to be strong. “Stop shaking, you damn baby.”

What would Linden tell him right now?

“Being strong doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything. It doesn’t mean you can’t be scared.”

That’s what he had told Aspen before. Rowan was sure he’d say something like that again. But what did it matter? He was gone. Whatever stupid words he’d come up with were lost forever. What did thinking about it matter? All that mattered was what Rowan did in the present.

If he couldn’t run from it, what else could he do? His eyes lingered on the note Aspen left. That was it. He could write back. If Aspen was going to be a coward and run, Rowan would make him regret it.

Aspen,

By the time you read this…

He paused. What would happen by the time his letter reached Seattle? He glanced around his room, searching for some sort of answer.

Outside his window, the sun was shining unrealistically bright. The sidewalk below was empty, the canopy of trees above it hiding it away from the world. Across the street, Mrs. Whitaker’s house stood silent, her yard empty. It was almost strange. The woman was usually watering her flowers at this time, bustling about her yard in her muumuu and house shoes.

Only five months earlier, Aspen, Linden, and himself had stood in that yard together for the last time. It was one of his last happy memories.

Mom will have sobbed into the casserole Mrs. Whitaker left for us so much that it will be even soggier and saltier than normal.

Aspen leaned on the handle of the snow shovel he was supposed to be putting up as Linden brushed the snow from his gloves. Plowing the snow from Mrs. Whitaker’s driveway hadn’t been a three-person job, they knew that. Any one of them could have easily done it by themselves. But it was so much more fun when they were together. At least, that was Linden’s excuse for bundling Rowan in winter clothing and rushing him across the street.

“Besides,” he had said, “we should be nice to her. She’s our neighbor.”

“Yeah, but,” Aspen laughed, “she always repays us with those weird casseroles.”

“So what? Her kids already moved. We should let her dote on us a little bit. Where’s the harm?” Linden’s voice was something almost musical, even when he was angry. He was soft and timid where Aspen and their mother were loud and brash. He was quiet and gentle in a thoughtful way that was somehow completely different from Rowan and their dad. Beyond that, he always seemed to know what to say and how to say it. There were times that it seemed like he was the only voice of reason in their house. Rowan had always wondered where he had learned to talk the way he had.

“It wouldn’t be an issue if it didn’t taste like she was trying to feed us dog food.” Aspen laughed again, only giving an unapologetic shrug when Linden turned to him with a glare.

As if on cue, Mrs. Whitaker shuffled out of her house, a glass baking pan covered with foil cradled in her arms. “Thank you so much, boys. What would I do without such nice young men around to help me out?”

Rowan couldn’t help but grin, trying to hide it with a cough. It was so predictable.

“It’s really no problem, ma’am.” Aspen’s smile was shockingly genuine as he picked up the shovel, smacking the side against the sole of his shoe to try to shake the snow off. When a couple of minutes had passed without it working, he grimaced. “Damn, this shit is as clingy as my ex.”

“Language.” Linden didn’t even hesitate before replying. He couldn’t help the amused grin on his face. “There are kids present.”

Kids? Rowan glanced around, trying to find them. A few of the families that lived on the block did have kids, but he hadn’t seen any of them out while they were working. Sure enough, the street was clear except for them. As soon as he realized what Linden’s words meant, Rowan felt his face go hot. “Hey!” Linden was the first to laugh, but Aspen joined not long after. Even Mrs. Whitaker chuckled along. “I’m not a kid. I’m thirteen. I’m pretty much grown up already.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Linden ruffled Rowan’s hair, still trying to stifle a laugh. “You’re not a kid. I’m sorry.”

Rowan huffed and smacked his brother’s hand away. Linden turned back towards the house with a laugh as Mrs. Whitaker beckoned him over. “I made you this casserole.”

Aspen made gagging motions behind Linden’s back. Even though he knew it was wrong, Rowan couldn’t help but laugh. He could see the line of Linden’s shoulders tense. They were going to get an earful later, and they both knew it. Aspen looked back for a split second before turning back to Rowan, making an over-exaggerated face as he tried not to laugh.

“I don’t know if it’s enough for three growing boys,” Mrs. Whitaker continued, “but I hope you’ll share it anyway.”

“Of course we will.” Rowan could almost hear the smile in Linden’s voice. He was always so gentle with other people. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Whitaker.”

“No, no, thank you. And tell your parents I said hello and that they’re doing such a good job raising you three handsome boys.”

“Of course.”

Rowan blinked, the snow fading into soft flower petals being blown by the wind. He forced his eyes away from the window. This was no time to be daydreaming. He had a letter to write that he needed to get done before his parents came upstairs. There would be no way he’d be able to focus on it otherwise. Not that he could focus on it much as it was anyway.

He turned away, trying to shake the memories from his bones. Even so, his eyes latched onto the calendar on his wall, the red circle around the next day’s date grabbing his attention. It stared him down, daring him to try to look away. But in the circle, written in pencil long before the red had ever stained the paper, was a note Linden had made months before.

It was Mr. Smith’s anniversary. What an awful coincidence.

Mr. Smith will have left us seven voicemails trying to tell us that it’s an awful business practice to close without warning on a day you know one of your regulars will need to buy from you and threatened to never buy from us again.

“How long do you think it’ll be?” Rowan spun his chair around. That was the perk to having spinning chairs in the office. They kept teens from getting bored.

“Hm?” Linden glanced up from the math homework he had been working on. Rowan figured it was hard to be a high school student. The room was silent while Linden stared at him. Rowan counted six seconds before a sly grin crossed Linden’s face. “You wanna make a bet?”

“A bet?” Rowan stopped his chair so that he could stare at his brother. “What kind of bet?”

“Well, Mr. Smith usually gets off work ‘round five, right?” Linden asked. “So why don’t we make a bet on what time he calls us this year?”

Rowan glanced at the clock. 5:01. The phone could start ringing at any moment. “Alright. What happens if I win?”

“I’ll do all your homework for a week.” Rowan perked up. “But if I win, you have to wash the dishes every night for a week. Deal?”

“How is that fair?” Rowan whined. “Aspen has to do dishes too.”

Linden just smirked silently.

Rowan sighed. “Deal.”

“Alright.” Linden glanced at the clock and set his pencil down, leaning back in his chair with his arms over his chest. “What time do you think?”

“5:15.”

“I’ll say 5:06.”

“The closest time wins?”

“Mhmm.” Linden grinned again. “Now we just wait.”

Rowan nodded, spinning around in his chair again. His boredom made it feel like he was waiting forever. He wasn’t like Linden. He didn’t take whatever chance he was given to finish his homework. He always put it off until the last minute. He needed to win this bet so that he could make Linden do his homework.

It seemed like hours later when the phone rang. Rowan stopped his chair, staring at the clock. 5:08. Linden grinned as he reached for the phone.

“Maybe it’s not him?”

Linden picked the phone up, opening his mouth to give out the usual practiced greeting, but quickly closed it. Whoever was on the other end had started talking before he could answer. Even so, his grin grew wider. “Happy Anniversary, Mr. Smith.” Rowan let his head fall back against the chair’s headrest. Of course Rowan wasn’t that lucky. “We were expecting your call. Of course we can do that for you. Would you like the usual?”

Rowan stared at the ceiling, just listening to his brother talk. Linden was way more patient than he could ever hope to be. He simply let the man rant and ramble while he listened and took notes, making little comments here and there. That was probably why Linden was usually in charge of customer service when he was home. Rowan was more suited to working alone than with people. He supposed that made them a good pair.

“Alright. I got that all written down for you. Thank you for choosing us to be a part of your celebration.” Linden placed the phone back on the receiver and turned back to Rowan. Rowan grinned.

“Best two outta three on that bet?”

“What are you thinking?”

“How many times do you think he’s gonna call this year?”

Linden laughed, reaching out to grab the blank paper calendars they used, flipping it to July. “Deal.” He made a note on the date, probably what time Mr. Smith had called. “We’ll see if he calls quicker next year.”

The red stood out, stark against the faded gray of Linden’s pencil. It had been a full year since their last stupid bet. Rowan sighed, turning in his chair and dropping his eyes to the ground. He couldn’t face that any longer.

When he lifted his eyes from the dark blue carpet under his feet, he saw the empty vase sitting on the table next to his bed, a bouquet of wilting lilies placed carefully next to it. He had never been one to leave things half done, but when he started, he had assumed that arranging the flowers would be cathartic, that it would be healing. How wrong he was. It was anything but. All it did was remind him of everything he wanted to forget.

Aunt Haley will have hidden all the flowers we were sent to stop Mom from talking about how anyone in the shop, even you, could have done better.

“I can’t do it.” Aspen groaned, running a hand through his honey blonde hair. “Can’t I just, like, be the shop’s accountant or something?”

Linden laughed. “You suck at math. We’d go bankrupt in a week.”

Aspen whined, slinking down further into his chair. “But I don’t understand this flower arranging bullshit.”

“It’s not that hard,” Rowan said, trying to ignore the way Aspen turned to glare at him. “It’s just trying to decide how it looks best without messing it up.”

“That’s why Aspen is bad at it,” Linden stage whispered, leaning across the table towards Rowan. “He can’t even make himself look good without messing up.”

Rowan choked on the unexpected laugh, coughing as he dropped the carnation in his hands.

“I heard that, you dweebs.”

“You were supposed to, you idiot.”

“Now, now, boys.” Rowan glanced up from the carnations and baby’s breath in his hands when his mother bustled into the room, carrying more flowers with her. “Stop fighting.” She passed their table, stopping to kiss the top of Linden’s head and glance over their work. Her face tightened at the mess in front of Aspen. “Keep working. You need it.” She glanced at Rowan, her head tilting slightly. “Rowan, I know that you can do better than that. I want that to be perfect by the time I get back.”

Aspen grumbled as she slipped past him, humming under her breath. The vase in front of him, filled with daffodils and daisies, looked like a mess when compared to Rowan’s carefully composed masterpiece. “Why is she always like this? She can’t leave me alone for five damn minutes ‘bout how I don’t know flowers.”

“She’s just worried.” Linden didn’t look up from his flowers. He was using that voice again, the one he always used when Rowan was upset about something. It was the voice that Aspen liked to refer to as his ‘mom voice’. “She expects you to take over the shop one day, so she wants you to be as good as you can.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Aspen barked. Rowan jumped and even Linden glanced up, expression tight with concern. “What if I have my own dreams? What if I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this hellhole? Let Rowan take over the shop. At least he likes all these stupid fucking flowers.” Rowan flinched when Aspen stood, bumping the table and making the vases on top of it rattle.

“There you go again,” Linden sighed, “trying to push your responsibilities onto others.”

“Since when is taking over the shop my responsibility? Since I was born? You think I asked to be born first and have everyone just assume I wanna take over the family business? Because I don’t fucking care about this piece’a shit flower shop.”

Linden stood, his chair clattering against the wood floor below him. “Do you think Rowan asked to be born last?” Rowan had never heard his brother this angry. “To have an older brother who’s so much of a coward that he has to push all his problems onto a fucking thirteen-year-old? Do you think I wanted to be born in the middle? To feel like I have to work twice as hard as either of you just to get acknowledged? None of us asked for what we got, Aspen. But at least Rowan and I have learned how to deal with everything. Unlike you.”

Aspen clenched his fists. For a moment, it seemed like he was going to escalate it, as if he was going to throw a punch. Instead, he hissed a curse between his grit teeth and stalked to the door.

“Yeah, run away again you fucking coward. You’re never going to stop running.”

“Fuck you, Linden.”

The door slammed and the room went quiet. Rowan could hear his heart pounding in his ears. It was faster than he wanted it to be, though he expected that to be the case. Aspen and Linden had always gotten along really well. The two year age difference between them seemed so much slimmer than the three years between Linden and Rowan, and made the five years between Rowan and Aspen feel like a chasm that Rowan couldn’t cross. He had never thought that they would fight like that. But they had and he had no idea what to do about it.

“I’m sorry.” Rowan jumped again, even though the words were soft. Linden was staring down at the table, his face hidden in shadow.

“What?”

“I’m sorry.” Linden looked up, then, grinning at him. Rowan bristled at the unshed tears in his brother’s eyes. He apparently hadn’t expected a fight, either. “I got you involved in that. I just hate it when he tries to pawn his problems off on other people.” He sat back down, throwing his head back so that he was staring at the ceiling. Rowan was at a loss for words. What is there to say in that sort of situation?

“Linden, I-”

“Don’t worry,” Linden interrupted, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just,” he paused. After a second, he waved a hand vaguely in Rowan’s direction. “If you want to help me feel better, make sure those carnations look beautiful, okay?”

How disappointed would Linden be, Rowan thought, if he could see the drying, wilting lilies on his bedside table? But it wasn’t the time to think about that. It was more ‘what ifs’ filling the spaces in his brain that he needed to think of the words he would write.

Downstairs, he heard a door slam and jumped, his pen falling out of his hand. He could faintly hear the sound of his mother’s voice, angry and desperate. He knew his father was with her, talking with and consoling her, but it was so low he couldn’t hear it. It was just the loud, frantic sound of his mother yelling and slamming cabinets in the kitchen. He glanced at the door, watching the darkness seeping in from the crack at the bottom growing darker and darker.

He could go downstairs, try to break it up, but he knew it would only make it worse. Somewhere in his mind he knew that they didn’t want to see him. He knew it from the dark, blame-heavy eyes his mother turned on him whenever they were in the room together. He knew it from the bags under his father’s eyes and the hoarseness whenever he muttered Rowan’s name. Rowan was no longer welcomed in his house, only tolerated. He knew that. But frankly, he didn’t care. He didn’t want to have to see them anyway. Not when they were just going to try and force him to get help that he didn’t want or need.

Uncle Jack will have come and knocked on my door, begging me to go downstairs, telling me that it isn’t healthy to be alone at a time like this. As if I wouldn’t be alone there, anyway.

The business card between his fingers felt too stiff, too real. He wanted to drop it, to forget that it existed, to forget that all of it existed.

“Rowan,” his uncle’s voice was gentle. But not as gentle as Linden’s had ever been. No, Linden was naturally gentle. This was forced, constructed. “Please, call her. She’s a colleague of mine, a grief counselor. She can help you.”

He didn’t need help. Not from someone who had to get paid to care about him.

“You need someone to talk to right now.”

He didn’t need to talk. Talking wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that everything was different, that everything was wrong. He could talk and talk, but it wouldn’t change the fact that Linden was-

“Promise me, Rowan. Promise you’ll call her.”

It wasn’t a request, he knew that. It was an order masquerading as a choice.

He nodded and shoved the card in his pocket. Uncle Jack had asked him to talk to him alone, so at least his parents weren’t around. As long as they didn’t know about what the conversation was about, Rowan could put off talking to some shrink for a few months.

The crash of a plate against tiles downstairs jerked him from his thoughts. He could hear his mom, though much fainter than before, as she sobbed. Of course. Any parent would be like that. He should be like that, he noted as he looked down at his hands. They had stilled, but the first few lines of his letter were slightly crooked and jagged. No, he wasn’t like his mother. Even his body had calmed down. It was all just that fog, that hazy numbness that was cradling him.

What else was there that he could say to the brother that ran away, the brother that abandoned him when he most needed someone? Aspen was a coward, Rowan knew that. He ran away because he couldn’t handle his own feelings and he hadn’t even given Rowan a chance to say anything. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. There was so much he wanted to say, but it seemed like he couldn’t find any of the words. He sighed.

By the time you read this, our brother will be buried, and I’ll have had to try and explain to everyone why you weren’t at his funeral.

Rowan’s breath was fast, his heart pounding against his chest as if it wanted to beat him for being a moron. They were supposed to have been home an hour ago. But Rowan had asked to go to the bookstore. There had been a new comic book that he had wanted to look at that came out that day. And Linden, sweet, caring Linden, had agreed, even though it meant that they’d be out past curfew. That explained why they were out after dark, but Rowan still wasn’t sure how they had ended up in an alley, backed against a wall, with a large man with a knife pointed at them blocking the exit.

Linden was standing in front of him, and though Rowan knew he was just as scared, was blocking the man’s vision, trying to keep Rowan hidden, away from the knife.

“Rowan,” Linden whispered, his eyes locked on the blade, “I’m going to try and give you an opening. There’s a police station down the street. I need you to try and run there.”

“What?” Rowan felt his pulse quicken. What was Linden suggesting? That he just leave him there with a knife wielding maniac? “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“You can.”

“Stop talking,” the mugger grunted, “and hand over your wallets.”

“Really? You’re gonna try and rob a couple’a high schoolers?” Linden’s voice was suddenly loud and brash and cocky and almost dangerous, nothing like his normal self. It sounded almost like Aspen’s voice was coming out of Linden’s body. The change was shocking, almost terrifying. Linden wasn’t like that. Rowan had never seen Linden like that. It only scared him even more. He wanted to run, he wanted to hide, but his brother was in danger. How could he do that? “Whattaya want, our lunch money?”

“You damn punk.”

The mugger lunged forward and Linden grabbed his arm, struggling to wrench the knife from his grip.

“Rowan, go!”

He was running before he really understood what was happening. He wanted to get out of there, he knew that. He wanted to be safe. He wanted to save Linden. But that fight was pointless. The mugger was twice Linden’s size and armed. Linden had never so much as thrown a punch before. It was pointless. Linden was going to get hurt, badly, and Rowan couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t help him, couldn’t save him, couldn’t protect him. All he could do was run away.

He was out of breath by the time he made it to the police station, his face wet with tears and sweat. He threw the doors open and more or less fell into the front room. He could hear faint mumbling, but it sounded worlds away. He couldn’t understand any of it. But suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and it was all he could do to push it off.

“My brother, my brother.” He couldn’t get the words out. “Alley. Knife. Mugging.”

“Alright, son, alright. Do you remember where your brother was?”

He shook his head. How could he remember street names at a time like this? He could barely even remember his own name. Instead, he pointed in the direction he had come from. “Two. No, three. No, two streets that way.”

He felt someone brush past him, leaving the building. There was an eerie silence before someone finally spoke again.

“Come with me. Let’s get you something to drink to calm you down.”

“No.” His voice was unfamiliar to his ears. It was like something was crawling up his throat, speaking for him. “No, I need to go back, I need to find Linden, I need to be with him.”

“You’ll be no help to him right now.”

The hands were on him again. If he ran, they’d catch him. They’d grab him and dig into his flesh and never let go. They’d hold him so tightly that they’d tear him apart. But if he didn’t run, if he wasn’t there and anything happened to Linden, he’d never be able to live with himself.

So he ran.

He turned and he ran out the door as fast as he could, tearing down the street. He could hear people calling after him, see people turning to stare at him, but he didn’t care. Nothing would keep him from Linden. His brother was probably hurt. He needed to be there for him, to repay everything he had done for him. He couldn’t let anything happen to his brother. Just like Linden would never let anything happen to him.

His pulse was racing, his chest heaving in response to his lungs begging for the air that his burning throat couldn’t manage to pull in. It felt like there was some creature buried inside his ribcage, squeezing his organs together, constricting everything. It hurt. He was terrified. He had never had a panic attack before, but he figured this was what it felt like. He figured this was what dying felt like.

The world went black.

He had woken up on a bench in the police station, his head swimming, his eyes dry and gritty. Aspen was sitting next to him, a blank expression on his face, strands of long, blonde hair, plastered to his wet face. He jumped when Rowan groaned, rubbing his head.

“Where-?”

“They said you had a panic attack and passed out on the street.” Aspen was suddenly kneeling right in front of him, his eyes wide with fear, his hands shaking as they pushed back Rowan’s hair, frantically searching for any injuries. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Did you hit your head? Do you know how fucking worried I was? What the fuck were you thinking running out of here like that? When the police called and asked me to come get you, I…I panicked so much. I thought you were hurt. I thought, I thought that he had gotten you, too. I didn’t know what I would’ve done. I was so scared. I was so-”

Aspen cut himself off with a sob, pulling Rowan into a tight hug. Rowan could barely remember the last time Aspen had hugged him, but it hadn’t been anything like this one. He wondered if it was supposed to be comforting him or if it was just a way for Aspen to help himself. He was trying to think, but his head still felt foggy and he was still trying to make sense of Aspen’s words because none of it made sense and-

It all came back to him.

“Aspen.”

Aspen’s response was muted against his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Where’s Linden?”

Aspen sobbed again, pulling Rowan impossibly closer. A pregnant silence embraced them. When Aspen finally spoke again, his voice was weaker and more broken than Rowan had ever heard it before. “I didn’t get to apologize for that stupid fight about the shop.”

Rowan stilled. It felt like ice was running through his veins.

“What do you mean?”

Aspen released him, holding him an arm’s length away. Rowan felt tears well up in his eyes. Aspen’s face was pale and tear streaked. His eyes were puffy and red rimmed and it scared him. The last time Rowan had seen him cry was when he broke his leg in sixth grade. Linden had asked about it once. Aspen had simply responded that it was an older brother’s job to be strong and not let his siblings worry. If Aspen was crying, then it was definitely time to worry.

“Rowan, listen to me. You’re not ever allowed to do anything dangerous ever again, do you understand me? I can’t-”

Rowan understood what his sob choked off. ‘I can’t lose another brother.’

By the time you read this, I’ll be strong. I’ll be strong enough to hate you.

It was a lie. Rowan knew that and he knew that Aspen knew that. He would never hate his brother. Not when he was all he had left.

Their parents needed someone to blame. Rowan was the perfect scapegoat, since the police hadn’t caught the mugger. It was easier, he knew, to put a face and name to your child’s murderer. Rowan just couldn’t help but believe them. Aspen was all he had left, really. He was the only one that didn’t look at Rowan with those eyes, the only one who didn’t seem to hate him for something he couldn’t control. And now he was gone.

By the time you read this, I’ll be strong enough to protect everyone. I’ll never let anyone else die when I can save them. I promise.

Rowan Underwood

He folded the paper and tucked it into the back of his desk drawer. One day, when his kaleidoscope world had crashed down and all the mutated colors had faded from his world, when everything he’d written had come true, he’d send Aspen the letter.

#long post #oc: rowan underwood #I'm done posting stuff like this for a little while!!#this is the last one until probably september

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apparitionism · 6 years ago

Text

Helicobacter 5

I swear up and down, on any and all books, holy or no, that the bulk of this part, and in particular its opening scene, was written well before last weekend. Five people know why I need to offer this disclaimer. Well, six, I guess... anyway, I really think the lesson is that you should always buy the flowers. People like flowers. Then again, they do also like books, so, you know, giver’s choice. In other news, there is a lot of chaff here in this part, but I’m a little tired and haven’t had the time or attentive energy to do the brutal edit I’d prefer. Part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 were more svelte.

Helicobacter 5

Given that the point of the exercise was to put on a show for Myka’s mother, Helena thought that she would be well served by performing “fiancée” more competently than she had done in the past. That required a consideration of what the mother of her intended might want to see... a gesture, no doubt, but not just any gesture. Something effortful seemed called for.

In Helena’s experience, mothers liked flowers. Her own mother certainly did. But flowers alone were insufficiently effortful; they could be ordered online, and that would not do. Instead, Helena went to a florist and contributed (mainly nods of assent, but even so) to the assembly of a bouquet. Then, spurred by a desire to outdo—someone, or something, although who or what that might have been, she did not know—she chose the components of a second.

On the appointed day, at the appointed time, her hands overflowing with flowers, she waited at Myka’s door.

Too much. Of course so many flowers were too much, and that fact became ever more clear to her as she waited, and she began to wonder why Myka found it necessary to live in a building featuring a hallway that failed to present any good and hidden space where the overeager faux-affianced might be able to dispose of a spray of peonies, hydrangeas, and daisies—or, on (in) the other hand, a more romantic collection of roses, tulips, and lilies.

But then Myka opened the door, and the sight of her was a pulse-quickening delight, such that Helena forgot about flowers entirely and had to remind herself of her purpose here: not to gaze with appreciation, but rather to deploy some fiction of that gaze... but she did feel that she could take some pleasure in the fact that Myka looked so well. “You look so well,” Helena allowed herself to say.

“I feel well. Your hands are full.”

“They are.”

A throat-clear from behind Myka reminded Helena, and seemed to remind Myka as well, why they were in a circumstance that allowed them to stand and look at each other. “This is my mom, Jeannie Bering,” Myka said as she stepped aside to let Helena in.

“Mrs. Bering. It’s lovely to meet you. I mean, to meet you at last,” Helena said. Myka’s mother looked to be in her early sixties, and she dressed to complement, not fight against, her graying hair. Not too youthful, yet not surrendering... she was by no means nondescript, but neither was she her striking, bone-china-fine daughter. Genes and their actions are mystifying but if this is the result then hallelujah, Helena found herself thinking, and she very nearly said aloud, “Thank you so much for this mystery you produced.” Instead, she unburdened herself of the peony-hydrangea-daisy bouquet and said, “These are for you.” She was pleased to see Myka’s mother smile.

“And these?” Myka asked, with a nod at the second. Did she sound hopeful?

“You can’t possibly need to ask.” Helena leaned over and kissed Myka’s cheek, as she had done before the endoscopy; as Myka had kissed her, after the hospital. So chastely intimate, this kissing they did.

The rose-tulip-lily handoff was slightly awkward: a which-hand-to-which-hand problem. Then the aftermath became slightly awkward: a should-we-be-speaking-to-each-other-instead-of-staring-at-each-other problem.

Myka’s mother saved them. “Thank you, Helena. These are lovely,” she said, and then she gestured with her bouquet at her daughter. “Enjoy this while it lasts, Myka. Your father hasn’t brought me flowers since our first anniversary.”

Helena considered that showing up the father of her fiancée might have constituted a small misstep in her performance.

Myka gestured back at her mother with her own flowers and said, “This is the kind of thing she does.” To Helena, she said, “It’s the kind of thing you do. Isn’t it.”

“With you it is,” Helena said.

“I hope it’s only with me.”

That had to have been for her mother’s benefit, so Helena tried to answer in kind. “As far as I know. As far as I can imagine.” She tried to ignore the fact that what she was saying was true. How most of the words that she said to Myka were true. She went on, “She’s sent me flowers as well, Mrs. Bering. I take my cue from her good example.”

“Call me Jeannie,” said Myka’s mother to Helena, and to Myka, “this one certainly is a sweet talker.” Helena couldn’t determine whether that was meant to be criticism or praise.

“By the way,” Myka said to Helena, “I got you a book.” She handed Helena a paperback. Face-down.

“Myka,” said her mother, and this was unmistakably criticism, “just because you grew up in a bookstore, that’s no reason to fall back on giving a book as a gift. Particularly to someone who brings you flowers.”

Helena turned the book over. Apprehended the title and cover art. Said to Myka a long-suffering “Really?” in an only partly feigned tone of beleaguered affection. Said then, to Jeannie, “She hasn’t given me a book. She’s given me David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster.” She wanted to ask, of Myka, “You grew up in a bookstore?” But a fiancée would have known that already. We should have rehearsed, she thought, and then, given where her thoughts immediately went, Not like that.

Myka, as if reading Helena’s mind, said, “You can put it with The Odyssey on your nightstand,” in a voice so smooth and smoke-low that Helena herself nearly believed they had held exactly that rehearsal after all. Possibly having read passages from The Odyssey to set the mood.

Jeannie told Myka, “You don’t need to speak in code. I think I understand that you’re familiar with Helena’s bedroom.”

“Mom,” said Myka, sounding a note that combined conciliation with teenage mortification.

Helena, thinking both to calm herself and to ease Myka’s discomfiture, held the book’s cover up to show Jeannie what it depicted. “It is indisputable that this creature is large and has claws, is it not?”

Perhaps genes were not so puzzling after all: Jeannie’s poker-faced blink was exactly like her daughter’s.

“Then I assure you,” Helena went on, “if a bedroom is the context, this constitutes an attempt by your daughter to invade my nightmares.”

“Helena,” Myka said.

And just like that, Helena realized that she had never before heard Myka say her name. “Myka,” she said in response, trying it out as a response.

A knock on the door interrupted their renewed should-we-be-speaking-to-each-other-instead-of-staring-at-each-other awkwardness.

Rick, of course. “You lovely boy!” Jeannie exclaimed upon seeing him, and Helena felt that her flowers had been erased. But Jeannie then said, “You’re almost as lovely as these flowers!”

And Helena preened: Rick had not brought anyone flowers. He was, however, able to say, with an easy familiarity, “Hey, Mrs. B. Long time. How’s Mr. B?”, and Helena was acutely aware that she could never have done that. Would never be able to do that.

But she was gratified by the fact that Myka held her place by her side, allowing Rick and Jeannie to renew their acquaintance. She murmured to Myka, “I can now say with certainty that your mother and I have never met before.”

Myka murmured back, “She sighed and said the words about destiny, but that was before I broke the news about you. About us. Then she asked me if you really existed. Then she asked me if I’d told Rick that you existed, and she’s coal-in-her-stocking disappointed about not getting to see any fireworks surrounding that reveal.”

Helena couldn’t contain a bark of laughter. “Isn’t one supposed to dislike one’s in-laws? You’re making it very difficult for me to dislike your mother.”

“You should be thankful that I talked her out of the idea of all of us—her, me, you, and Rick—telling my father about you tonight in some kind of teleconference situation. He’s on a fishing trip, by the way, and I think she was counting on all kinds of bad-connection monkeyshines, plus Dad hates technology anyway, everything that came after movable type. I’m always better off writing him a letter when anything’s going on.”

“Perhaps you could write him a book to sell in the store you grew up in,” Helena said.

“Sorry for not mentioning.”

“We should have run full background checks on each other. Then again, the likelihood of awkward revelations...” That won Helena a smirk. “Even in the absence of the revelations and the awkwardness, I do see, quite clearly, why you needed me to be here.”

“I appreciate it,” Myka told her. “The fact that you see it, and the fact that you’re here. I appreciate it so much, in fact, that I also didn’t cook lobster. Intentionally.”

“Would you have? Otherwise?”

“Probably not.”

“You are solicitous in a way I don’t fully understand.”

An unusual expression, one that Helena could not read other than as “not negative,” visited Myka’s face. “Don’t freak out, but I’m going to hug you now,” she said, and she did just that: hugged Helena.

For all their strange intimacy, they had never been body-to-body before. It was only a quick clasp, and Helena had of course hugged several people in the past, and vice versa, for example most recently when celebrating the awarding of the contract, weeks before. Quick clasps. None of those had set her on fire; ergo, this one was not doing so either.

She heard, from somewhere outside her not-at-all inflamed body, Jeannie announcing to Rick, “You saved Myka’s life!” As if this would be news to him.

To his credit, Rick said, “Not exactly. But I definitely owed her, so I’m glad I could help.”

“It must have been so frightening for everyone. And of course Myka’s father and I would have been concerned as well if we’d been told in a timely fashion.”

Myka said, placating, “I told you I’m sorry, and I’ll keep telling you, but like I also told you, it happened so fast. Helena and Rick can vouch for that. And then it was pretty much over.”

Helena tried to help but managed only, “It was fast.” Then she gritted out, “But Rick knew exactly what he was doing. I can’t imagine she could have had better care.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” Rick said, sounding wary.

“It is nice,” Myka affirmed. She sounded not at all wary. “And it was nice having both of you there. I felt very protected.”

He had indeed taken good care of Myka. And if Myka could be philosophical, here in the present situation, about the past she shared with him, Helena had no reason to take any position at all regarding the present situation. She had no reason to take any position at all, regardless of Myka’s feelings about the past. No reason. No reason.

Myka and her mother repaired to the kitchen, ostensibly to finish preparing the food, but perhaps also so Jeannie could offer an initial comparative verdict regarding Myka’s choices, past and present, of romantic partners. At that point, Rick rounded on Helena. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Something that Myka asked me to do. So keep your voice down, please.”

He pressed his lips together, narrowed his eyes. Then he let the tension go. He leaned closer to her and whispered, “Why didn’t you just tell her I know the truth?”

“Thank you,” Helena acknowledged. “Why? For the same reason I said you should not tell it to her: I thought it would hurt her.”

“Are you still trying to lift that Volkswagen? Or are you actually dating now? What’s going on?”

“I don’t believe that’s your business.”

“When it comes to Myka, it is.”

“No... I don’t believe so.” He looked as if he would protest, so Helena said, “What I mean is that despite your history, whatever she is doing now is not your business. And not my business, either. Please, let her make the choices. You shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t. Besides, this has more to do with her mother than with you or with me.”

Rick didn’t answer. Helena couldn’t determine whether his breathing indicated that they had called a truce. Finally, he said, “I don’t get you.” Not dismissive; he said it as a statement of fact.

“Likewise,” Helena told him. “Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. Can we get through this meal, and let that be an end?”

“This meal....” Rick shook his head, then raised his hands in surrender. “Just for Myka, though. Not because you and I are suddenly friends or anything.”

“Agreed: for Myka, and you and I are by no means suddenly friends. Or anything. By the way, do you like lobster?” Helena asked.

“What? Yeah, I like lobster.”

“Well, that won’t help.”

****

While they ate their non-lobster dinner, Helena found herself faced with the history—and physical reality—of Myka and Rick together. He’d kissed her cheek not long after he arrived, stranding Helena in a “how dare you” loop, despite her knowing full well that he had far more right than she herself did. They kept turning into a couple, Myka and Rick did—a club, as they had in those very first hospital moments, their association off-limits to Helena. Just like the hospital, only now, Myka’s mother was part of the club; they all reminisced about Colorado, about people and circumstances and even objects to which Helena had no access: “The ping-pong table!” “Is the comic book store on Monroe still there?” “Can you believe Denny Cloud lives in Argentina now? And has six kids?” All Helena had to reminisce with Myka about was “the time you found out you had cancer.”

But after (Helena had to admit) not too very much of that, Myka reached over and took Helena’s hand. “That’s enough about the past,” she said.

Rick looked at their hands. As he had in those later hospital moments. Then he said, “Am I really supposed to act like I don’t know things I know?” He gazed right at Helena, not quite challenging her, as he spoke.

“I don’t think that’s what I said,” Myka told him.

“That is not what you said,” Helena noted. She gazed at Rick in return. “But occasionally it might be important to act like one does not know the things one knows. To keep the peace?” She moved her eyes meaningfully, but as subtly as she could, in Myka’s direction.

He compressed his lips at her. But: “To keep the peace,” he allowed.

Helena found it rather funhouse-mirror that she was conspiring with two different people this evening, to accomplish two different—even diametrically opposed—aims. Did that make her a double agent? Did it make Rick one as well?

Myka’s mother chose that moment to say, to Helena and to Rick, “You two are so similar.”

“What?” they said, in unison, leaving Helena, and judging by his expression, Rick also, unpleased to have illustrated her point.

Jeannie smiled. “Let’s start with this truce you’ve clearly struck,” she said. “I see that it’s for Myka’s benefit—and for mine—and I see also that you’re doing reasonably well, the both of you. Then again I get a sense you might both prefer the more direct approach of throwing punches, and I just wanted to make sure you know I wouldn’t stop you. Myka might, but she’s always been more sentimental than I am.”

Rick shook his head and touched his fingers to his upper lip, pressing against his hidden teeth. Then he smiled. “You haven’t changed one bit, Mrs. B.”

“Mom,” Myka said. “First, you’re the most sentimental person in this room. And second, if they want to punch each other, they’re adults.” She shot a little glance at Helena and said, “They can make their own ill-considered choices.” With another glance, she added, “Besides, they’re plenty different. One particularly salient way.”

Here it comes, Helena thought. She had tried not to dwell on how, in her initial clumsy haste to claim this relationship with Myka, she had not considered that Myka might not respond well to the idea of being engaged to a woman. And despite Myka’s having found it conceptually acceptable, Helena hadn’t been able to determine where Myka’s orientation did reside. The fact of the matter was that whenever their bodies touched, Helena involuntarily drew a conclusion that seemed, in the moment, to be true. But Helena had mistaken the accidental bodily spark of curiosity for truth before, and mistakes of that sort did not end well.

She could never have asked, not about any of it, because if she had asked, Myka would have been likely to suspect that Helena had some investment in knowing. And since this was all fiction, what could justify such an investment? Nothing, nothing, nothing, and now less than nothing, now that even the fiction was so unwise to maintain. Beyond this evening, certainly, so unwise.

Myka’s one salient difference was, in the end, completely unhelpful in every respect: “Rick doesn’t do urban design; Helena isn’t a doctor,” she said. Helena wanted, unreasonably, to shake her for being unforthcoming, and then again for stating the obvious.

Her mother did not shake Myka, but she did say, in the most dry of tones, “Thank you for stating the obvious. You might as well have gone with ‘he’s a man; she’s a woman.’” Jeannie really was making it quite difficult for Helena to dislike her. She went on, “Besides, young lady, that former difference might not be so salient. Don’t we talk about building bodies? Don’t we say that cities have hearts?”

Helena was the one to blink this time. “That seems rather right. The heart of a city might be neighborhood, a cluster—”

“But hearts have valves,” Rick said. It read a bit self-satisfied, as if he’d caught her out, but also a bit teenage, catching out Jeannie, the adult.

Myka groaned. She dropped Helena’s hand so she could clap her hands over her ears. “Don’t mention valves. So. Many. Valve. Replacements. I might as well be in valve planning. The water system. Sewage. The waste-to-energy plant. HVAC in every building. Strip nozzles on the de-icing trucks. Everywhere. If anything urban goes bust, you can bet there are going to be expensive valves involved. Valves should be a line item in the budget. And no health insurance to defray the cost, either.”

“But isn’t that taxes?” Helena objected.

“Ssh. I’m disputing the metaphor.”

“No, just the source of the monies. You’re saying that everything is valves, which is true, in the sense that it is, of an anatomical heart, but that the monies—”

“Ssh.” And Myka’s finger was suddenly against Helena’s lips, and that was provocation of a very physical sort. Practically body-to-body in its effect.

Helena had never before wanted to be both exactly where she was and somewhere else entirely, with the same person doing the same thing. Disorienting.

“Here are two things I dare you to dispute,” Jeannie said. “First, that we’re relieved the cancer was so easily treatable, and second, we’re almost as relieved that it wasn’t any hereditary kind.”

Rick said, “First one okay. But the second.... I’m not saying I’m disputing it, but I don’t get why the hereditary thing has us relieved.”

Helena caught herself nodding along with him. She stopped nodding immediately.

Jeannie said, “Because then it isn’t my fault that she got it, so she can’t blame me. That’s certainly a relief. Plus, I’m unlikely to get it. Given that I didn’t have it to pass on.”

“You could swallow the same bacteria I did,” Myka told her.

“You don’t have to swallow it,” Rick said. “We’re not entirely sure how the infection—”

“Why won’t anybody let me make a point?” Myka interrupted. Helena noticed that she did not put a finger against Rick’s lips. “Anyway, maybe whatever I did to get it, that’s what’s genetic, the tendency to do that, and it can strike whenever. So you should watch out, Mom.”

“For stray bacteria,” Jeannie said. Very dry, yet again.

Myka said, “You never know what’s going to hit you.”

“I can attest,” Helena said, recalling the ambulance.

“Also a lot of people get infected in childhood,” Rick said. “H. pylori can bide its time for decades.”

“Setting aside the insult to my parenting that I hear hiding somewhere in there, you’re saying Myka was a ticking time bomb? In whatever sense you’d like to take that, by the way.”

Rick tilted his head and said “that seems right” at the same moment Helena raised an eyebrow and offered “I suspect so.” They looked at each other; Rick’s lips thinned, and Helena sat back and crossed her arms with a sigh. Jeannie said nothing, but her smile was easily legible as smug.

“We have very different feelings about lobsters,” Helena informed her.

Jeannie’s smug smile turned sly. “But what about nightstands?”

Myka, who had turned her attention to the contents of her wineglass, began to cough. “Mom, seriously,” she said. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t scare her off.”

“Speaking of scaring her off,” Rick said, “or maybe the opposite, who knows, but you know what I’ve been wondering? How you two decided to make it official. Because it seemed really—I don’t know—sudden. From my perspective. So Helena, why don’t you tell me?”

You are doing this because Myka asked for your help, Helena told herself, thus punching him in the face is not an option. Then again, Jeannie had indicated that she would find exactly that sort of fireworks entertaining... yet he was sticking to the letter of their agreement, such as it was. Further, punching was in a physical family with kneeing, and Helena was trying not to do that anymore. She bared her teeth at him and began, “We met through work. As you know. And something unexpected happened. We became... close. Unexpectedly close. Unexpectedly quickly. And we thought it wise to declare our intentions to each other. Before work exhausted us both to such an extent that we forgot what those intentions were, that is.”

Myka said, “We were so wise. Look at all this wisdom.”

Her gaze at Helena might reasonably have been described as “adoring,” and under that gaze, Helena said, “It happened so quickly that I barely believed it was real.” If only that adoring gaze could have been real... “Even now,” Helena said, with honesty, “I can’t quite believe it.”

Jeannie remarked, “That’s very like what Myka said.”

“Is it?” Helena said. “I suppose we were both surprised. One doesn’t expect, on any given day, to find someone to... talk to. And to look at. With appreciation for both. And to realize you want to—come home to that.” One didn’t expect such things. And one needed to be very careful about imagining that one’s nonexistent expectations had so unexpectedly been met.

“That’s lovely,” Jeannie now said, and her tone was not dry at all.

Myka nodded. “It is,” she said. “And I completely agree with all of it.” The adoration directed Helena’s way had intensified, and if only that could have been something other than an act—or rather, if only they could have had the space to find out whether it could become something other than an act. Rather, whether, other. Nothing was likely to bring about such a not-this state of affairs.

Rick clearly did not share such a wish, for he gave an exaggerated sigh and said, “Please stop.”

“You’re the one who asked how it happened,” Myka said with a shrug. “Don’t blame me if what you get makes you jealous.”

“This is not what you used to be like,” Rick told her. To Helena, he said, “This is not what she used to be like,” and finally, to Jeannie, he directed a plaintive, “Is it?”

“Don’t worry,” Jeannie said. She pat his cheek, and how familiar a motion it was; how accustomed. “You’ll find a young lady of your own. Look at you!”

I would rather not look at him, Helena thought. I would in fact rather look at Myka. For quite some time. And talk to her as well. But that would be a not-this state of affairs, and that cannot happen.

Rick left soon after their non-lobster dinner concluded, and Helena, although tempted to overstay, made to follow him out. But she found herself in unavoidable proximity to Myka in the apartment’s small foyer, and it did seem that, as Myka’s putative romantic partner, she should do something... romantic. Given, in particular, that Myka’s mother was watching. (Discreetly, not staring, and Helena appreciated that.) She thought to fall back on their customary cheek-kiss, but even as she moved close, she saw—felt—that it was insufficient. There would have to be more. “Is this all right?” she exhaled, close to Myka’s ear.

Myka sighed out a breath of yes, and then she turned her head and the kiss was inevitable.

Helena meant it to be quick, light, a performance of “we have kissed before and will kiss again and so this particular kiss is of no great importance.”

But they had not kissed before, and Helena thought, There is a reason I am not an actor, for the quick, light performance of whatever kiss this was supposed to be became instead the kiss it was: first. So long-awaited, so finally, so soft, so warm, so her mouth and my mouth; it could have gone on and on... and on and on... but she was here to help, not to make everything worse. She pulled away. Not far enough, though, for she and Myka were caught, staring, breathing.

Kissing her again would be, Helena saw with great clarity, a bad idea. But such a good bad idea, and what could one more kiss matter when one had already been too much?

What could it matter that when Helena moved forward again, Myka did too? What could it matter that Myka’s hands pushed their way up Helena’s arms, that those hands romanced their way into Helena’s hair? What could it matter than while Helena had thought the first kiss stirring, now each pulse of her blood was warmer than the last, each beat raising the temperature of her heart, her body entire? Something original animated this kiss, something Helena had never experienced before—not the revelatory surprise of a teenage kiss, when intimacy itself could feel new, but instead, a connection offering a far more mature, beckoning sense of deep possibility...

...but then it was not original at all, and certainly not unique to the two of them: expressive of a wish to move in ways familiarly of the body, ways not fit for a well-appointed apartment foyer under bright shine of a tasteful light fixture...

They broke apart.

Helena felt hot lungsful of air enter and leave her body through her mouth. She stared, and Myka stared back.

Mindfulness. Helena closed her mouth and began to breathe through her nose, calming herself, for this had to be the end of it. The strange events had now been brought to their conclusion, logical or otherwise. On this kiss, or on these two kisses, the curtain could fall; their little play had come to its correct end.

“I’ll see you,” Myka said.

“Will you?” Helena asked without thinking. But no matter what Myka said, the real answer would be no.

****

Helena talked herself home, expressing aloud several versions of the reasoned judgment that she was happy—no, relieved—to have got out with only this: this physical knowledge that she and Myka were two wanting bodies that could collide with purpose. That wasn’t too heavy a burden to bear. Rather, it was something to know. People knew all sorts of things, about themselves, about other people, about themselves in relation to other people... about their feelings for other people, about other people’s possible feelings for them, about how those feelings might be expressed in situations involving privacy and...

“Stop,” she admonished herself, still aloud. “You... want her; she has kissed you—once—as if she might.” An inhale, again a ragged lungful. “Want you. That is the situation as it stands tonight, as it will stand tomorrow, and so on until it does not stand that way anymore. No actions will be taken as a result of that situation, because they cannot be taken, so stop.”

She did, at least, stop talking to herself.

At home, Helena did what she always did, whether she needed distraction or not: she worked. Email inbox first, then two employee performance reviews she had been neglecting, then the composition of a rudimentary workflow document for a new office-park project, and then at last the comparative luxury of losing herself, by way of an initial run at that new project, in the soothing complexities of AutoCAD. Constraints and how to work within them... when she had been learning the program as a student, years and years ago, she had spent so much intense time with it that her dreams reflected its black-backgrounded renderings.

Considering dreams made her consider lobsters. But she should not consider lobsters.

Instead, she considered dimensions, materials. Manipulated them. The office park was intended to be small—“but interesting!” the client had insisted—yet all she found herself able to do was build office boxes. She clad the boxes in mirrors, then switched to stone. Ugly boxes, regardless of face. Perfunctory. Nothing interesting... nothing that had come to her quickly. Like hauling a bag of bricks. Heavy dumb bricks. Ones that had been built with over and over, not because they were useful and beautiful, but because no one ever was able to think their way away from them.

Kissing her as if you were drunk in a shadow in a club. Kissing her like that in front of her mother. (Imagining that she kissed you the same way. No one would do that in front of their mother.)

In that state of focused distraction, she heard her doorbell ring. And in that state, she opened her door.

No more distraction: for her focus was now on staring at the person she had so lately kissed (as if drunk in a shadow in a club).

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Helicobacter #part 5 #AU week #you know what's funny?#the things we do for love #I bought flowers for my lovely wife today #because you need to show how much you appreciate your nearest and dearest #particularly when they say 'yes go do your ridiculous thing'#and anyway #as I mentioned above #people like flowers

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fyasamisato · 7 years ago

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How Korrasami Saved Me

Hi there :) With the anniversary of the finale being today, I saw the post from @thewillowtree3 and @korrasamay about the stories we could share about the impact Korrasami had on us, and the various ways it helped us through our struggles and how it helped through difficult times. I think that’s such a wonderful idea, and I hope it’s okay that I share my story today.

I try to keep things pretty impersonal on this blog most of the time, and I don’t really share much about myself. I’ve started changing that a little, opening up I guess. So there’s probably no better time then now to put out all my cards on the table. A few years ago, I was probably at the lowest point I’ve ever been in my life. Before I was an adult, I was fairly cheerful and any sort of sadness never lasted long. It took a lot to get me down. That had changed so much, as the adjustment to college and work weren’t going smoothly. I had never been one to be anxious, but around my second year that had changed. I was starting to have full on panic attacks that effected my daily life, with anxiety just crushing down every day. I stopped going to classes, stopped going out with friends or even talking to them all that much. I was withdrawing from everything I cared about.

I don’t know if it was depression, I never really sought any help. I just know I was never so miserable. I started being so hard on myself. Every failure started to become proof of how worthless I felt.Even good things I’d twist in my mind into failure. I felt I didn’t deserve to succeed, and that I was bringing this all on myself. I saw no future for myself. It was like in a short time I realized everything I was doing was gonna get me nowhere. That I’d already screwed up my life beyond any repair. That I was wasting my and everyone else’s time to even try. It was a cycle that fed on itself. Self fulfilling I guess. That’s when the panic attacks became a weekly thing. It was just, every insecurity and shred of doubt, would just descend on me all at once. I’d come up with a thousand reasons why any plan, or any activity would end in failure. I’d imagine every reason why I’d never amount to anything. I’d talk myself out of any happy moment, reminding myself of all this. I’d imagine how my friends thought of me, how I was dragging them down just by being with them. I started harming myself around this time. Not, to feel anything, but almost to vent anger and to give myself what I thought I deserved. I don’t know how best to describe it. I’d hit stone walls, punch myself in the head thinking “you’re so stupid, why did you mess this up. Why can’t you do anything right.” I’d dig my nails into my skin to draw blood. I even broke my own finger once, when hitting that wall, and whenever someone would ask me about it, showing concern I’d just brush it off, convincing myself they didn’t actually care.

The worst feeling of all, was that I was a waste. Friends, family, that I didn’t matter to them. I felt like I was disappointing them. That they wouldn’t be losing anything if I was gone. Like I was leaving no impact on the people I cared about, nothing was more crushing then that feeling and I couldn’t shake it. So I shut myself off, and closed myself away so as not to burden them.

Korra was already on at the time and I had loved atla and often found that stories, art was an escape. I remember watching the first season, and loving it flaws and all. The second season too, and the second season is when I started relating to Korra more then I ever have with any other character I’d ever seen. I didn’t have the responsibilities she had, but I did put similar expectations on myself. I’m ambitious I’ll make no bones about that. I want to do so much, but I’m so afraid I can’t. Watching Korra struggle, watching her believe with all her heart that she was a failure, and that she’d let down not just her family but the world, connected with me so much. A struggle Korra always faced, was the belief that she wouldn’t live up to her responsibility or past lives. That she was “the worst avatar ever” that she was failing to live up to her potential. I will always adore season 2. Because the scene where her past lives are ripped away from her, and she begins to break down, because she in that moment thought she had failed so completely, connected with me so much. Cause I’m a lot like her I think. I’m a touch cocky, arrogant at times. But if I’m honest, it’s a mask to hide the niggling worry and insecurity. The voice telling me I’ll never accomplish anything, and I will leave this world having done nothing positive for anyone else. I saw that in Korra too. She’s tough and boastful, but in her heart for a long time, I think she was scared of not leaving that same positive impact. She looked up so much to her past lives, to the ideal of what the avatar stands for, that to fall short of that was crushing. Her struggle in season two, connected with me so strongly. As did her struggles in the entire show. And seeing her overcome them, by finding a balance within herself, was something I can’t describe in how much it meant to me. It was beyond admiration. I wanted to find the balance within myself as well. To accept my flaws, work with them, and maybe one day improve? Or at least learn to live with them, and to be constructive in my life at the same time.

It wasn’t just Korra alone that was helping me through this. There was a lot of little things too. I’m truly lucky to have the friends I do, the family too. I want to leave it mostly at that, as the rest is personal. Lok was just one of the things helping me piece everything back together. Because I really did feel shattered, and one of, if not the most helpful things during this time, was the woman who has been my girlfriend for three years now. We’d been friends for longer than that. since we were kids. She was the only one I felt I could confide in. Talking to her didn’t feel wrong, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit my feelings with her like I seemed to be everyone else. It was a two way street. She was struggling with her own problems. We could just talk to each other. Without fearing judgement. So you better believe, when I was watching season four, I was blown away by the letters between Korra and Asami. Again I felt an incredible connection I wasn’t getting elsewhere. It was weird, to know exactly what Korra must have felt when she was writing her.

We shared our feelings for each other, and started dating before the finale. Watching that scene, between the two of them at the party was one of the most cathartic things. At the time, I was just kinda taken by the emotion of it and didn’t really draw the parallels to my own experiences. That came later. At the time I was just so invested in their stories, to see this being the culmination of their relationship was so amazing. It definitely made me feel better about opening up to people, especially the ones I cared about. And it gave some courage, because I wanted to be as brave and compassionate as these two. I wanted to live up to their example. Again, the show was just a part of my overall healing process, but it was such an important one. It’s not solely responsible for saving my life, but sometimes it sure does feel like it. I was on a very self destructive path, and I still have moments, where everything hits me again. All the doubt all the self loathing. But I think I can overcome it better then I used to. I’ve found healthier ways of dealing with it too. One of the things I wanted to do was write. I wanted to do that since i was little. In those years, the creativity felt like it was gone. It seemed like everything I was writing was hollow and worthless, and I didn’t have the passion to express myself. I thought I wouldn’t reach this dream, and that I’d never get better. Korrasami helped me so much there. Writing fics for them, about them, thinking of new ways to share their emotions and stories started bringing a little of the spark back. It gave me motivation to keep going, and that’s so important to writing. I feel solid in saying that without them, I maybe would have given up writing altogether. Writing for them gave me the confidence to jump back into my own projects and stories. That I haven’t given up, I’m so very thankful for. Writing is such an outlet for me, a way to handle my own emotions, to pour them out onto the page and express what lies within, what i feel. It’s one of the most important ways I’ve found to channel my feelings and to use them constructively. I haven’t found a balance in myself yet, but I think I’ve started down the path to find it.

Now it’s three years later and I still love these two dorks more than I can say. I love them, I love the show, and I love this community. I love waking up everyday and seeing the creativity and heart they’ve inspired. Every bit of art, every word of a fic. I believe in creativity more than pretty much anything else in life, and it warms my heart to see how lok has inspired others. How it’s impacted their lives. To share in this with other people is one of the best feelings, and I’m sure being a part of this community has also been a part of my healing process. Watching Korra, overcoming the obstacles before her, mastering herself and going through her own trauma and healing meant so much to me. It would be a novella if I wrote down all of my thoughts about her journey as a character and how i related to it. Asami too. I didn’t even go into that here did I? But there are so many ways I relate just as much to Asami’s journey. If I could meet my challenges with even a fraction of the courage, compassion, and kindness that she does, I know I’d be doing okay. I can honestly say, that there are only a handful of characters who I relate to and have actually changed my life for the better. Korra and Asami are perhaps the most important to me. Their relationship too. Nothing in art has ever hit me or mattered to me like them finding happiness with each other. I know I’m never going to forget them, and they will stick with me for the rest of my life. They gave me hope in a time I desperately needed it. They gave me hope that I can find my place in this world. That I can make a difference and that maybe I can share that with someone I love while I’m doing it. That we can be there for each other when we need a hand to hold in our moments of doubt. That we may one day find balance.

It felt really good to do this. To share. Sorry it was a little long, I can go on a lot. Thanks so much to @thewillowtree3 and @korrasamay for suggesting this. I can’t wait to see other peoples stories. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, how works of art can bring people together, and to help them through dark times. I just wanna thank everyone in the community right now. To the followers, people I follow, and people whose content I have so enjoyed for the past few years. Being a part of it all has meant so much to me. Thank you all so very much, and I wish you all the best :) You’re truly spectacular, in every way.

#How Korrasami Saved Me #korrasami anniversary #korrasami #korra #asami sato #asami #lok #the legend of korra #thank you all #so very much #lok means the world to me #it was part of saving my life

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foreverreadingbeautifulbooks · 7 years ago

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A Wrinkle in Cinema

Now before you read this review, you have to understand that I absolutely adore the book (I probably read it a dozen times or so as a child…I may have been mildly obsessed with Madeleine L'Engle’s works) and therefore I am have to admit to a certain bias because I can’t help but compare the film to the book. Also I don’t know how to talk about this film without spoilers, so be prepared for a slew of them if you look under the cut…

Now I have to say first and foremost that I always loved the Biblical quotes and themes and I felt like the movie didn’t have nearly the resonance that the book did because it completely excluded that. However, I understand that Disney was trying to be more inclusive of everyone and that’s why I’m not including this in my list because I know that is something that is very personal for me.

Changes from the book that I loved:

An interracial family that adopts their kids! Gah, that was absolutely beautiful to watch!!! The absolute love that you could see between every member of that family was portrayed brilliantly and I hope more movies follow in this example. We never even find out if Meg is adopted or not and it totally doesn’t matter because her parents adore her either way.

There’s an amazing moment where Mrs. Which stops to talk to Meg after one particularly hard tesser and she tells her that she is having such a hard time with tessering because Meg doesn’t seem to want to come back as herself. When Meg asks, half in jest, if she can come back as someone she likes, Mrs. Which takes a good minute to tell Meg how absolutely amazing she is. I just loved watching that scene and I hope young girls truly take it to heart because man did I need to hear how special I was when I was that age.

Meg is absolutely amazing at science and figures out so many things that they come up against. Especially knowing that the STEM fields have so few women in them, it was lovely to see a young girl who clearly knows how to use her brain and apply her math and science knowledge in real life. Her mother is also a highly regarded scientist in her field and acknowledged by other characters as such. I hope that young girls walk away from this movie feeling inspired by these badass characters to exceed in those fields.

Along that same line, instead of just complimenting her eyes, Calvin keeps complimenting Meg’s amazing scientific mind and her beautiful hair (in it’s amazing curly black glory)! *heart eyes* Take notes boys!

Calvin and Meg were absolutely adorable in the movie. Ngl, in the book it sometimes seems as though Calvin falls in love with Meg’s family as opposed to Meg herself (which I suppose makes sense given how young they are and how hard his home life is) but I loved their adorable growing crushes on each other throughout the movie as they come to understand and appreciate this other person who is someone they can truly rely upon.

When they take a moment to show the battle with the darkness and how it’s affecting earth, the scenes that they showed were incredible. There were a few that were just random although the portrayed the feeling of evil very well, but then they take a moment to show Meg’s bully struggling with an eating disorder and Calvin’s father being emotionally abusive. It just gave the film so much more depth to show how much these two characters are struggling with their own problems because up until this point we’ve only really seen the issues that have arisen within the Murry family because of their father’s disappearance.

Changes from the book that I was not terribly fond of:

There’s a very important moment in the book where Meg lashes out at her father for leaving Charles Wallace behind (and while they completely excluded the escape from Camazotz and Meg’s return for her brother) and just had Meg refuse to be a part of his tesser because she wouldn’t leave her brother behind, I still feel like the film suffered for the lack of that conversation. If they had just included an extra minute at the end for Mr. Murry to apologize to his daughter and let her know that he was planning to go back for his son, he just couldn’t lose his daughter right after getting her back, that would have meant so much. Also it would have been brilliant if she had admitted (like she did in the book) that she thought finding him would fix everything for her and she’d been really disappointed that it hadn’t, but (not in the book) that she’d found that courage to face the darkness in part because of the love he had always shown her. Cue hug while Mr. Murry whispers how proud he is of his spectacular daughter. (Cue me crying so hard I have to pull out my tissues.)

Mrs. Whatsit was so down on Meg and it was really hard to watch. This is a girl who is bullied at school and struggling to exist in a world without her father - the father that is her superhero and the one person that truly made her feel special. He’s been gone for so long and she’s feels like part of herself is gone with him. And to watch one of the guardians who is supposed to be helping her constantly sighing over her questions and telling her brother that she’s (essentially) not worth the effort of bringing on this rescue mission is horrible. That is not the Mrs. Whatsit from the book and I truly missed her.

The lack of attention called to the bullying in the film. Now, I understand that a lot of times kids don’t admit to having bullies to their parents and if the film had taken a moment for Meg to admit that she hadn’t told her mother, then her mother’s reaction to Meg’s fight at school would have been a lot more understandable. However, Mrs. Murry just tells Meg to write an apology letter to her bully for hitting the girl in the face with a basketball after that girl called her brother crazy. And while I understand that maybe they were trying to say that physical violence should not be condoned even when other people are mean to you, I still would have had a much different reaction if that had been my child…particularly if it had happened on the four-year anniversary of her father’s disappearance. Bullying is a serious issue and I feel like the movie got 70% of the way through addressing it and then didn’t follow through. I understand the faculty at school not addressing it (because that happens all the time), but I wish Meg had had a real conversation with her mom about how powerless the girls at school made her feel and then her mom had told her how truly incredible she is while gently guiding her toward the conclusion that violence isn’t the the correct response. It would have been a great moment of connection for the two of them and I think the movie could have benefitted from that because we don’t get to see much of Mrs. Murry in the movie.

Camazotz was much less terrifying in the movie. In the book, it seems as though the whole planet is filled with people who are being controlled by IT - with fear and punishment as the tools used to force everyone into a particular mode. However, the movie has situations that only appear to have people in them that IT has fabricated to try to trick the children when they arrive. Maybe Disney realized that they couldn’t do the former and keep their PG rating, but it still made the stakes feel much lower as they were only fighting for themselves and not all the other people trapped on that world.

They lengthened the amount of time Dr. Murry had been gone? In the book I think he’d been gone for a year and for some reason they made it four years in the movie, which is heartbreaking and horrible. He’s never going to get those four incredible years with his kids back and I hated even thinking about it. Although I have to say that the moment Chris Pine realized that was incredibly well-acted. I started crying just watching the absolute heartbreak on his face.

Charles Wallace is less brilliant and more precocious and I have to say that I rather missed the little boy explains things because he understands them and not because other people don’t. Also I wish they had made him decide to go over to IT to help find and rescue their father the way he did in the book because that makes it so much more heartbreaking when IT completely takes him over and uses him in an attempt to subjugate his family.

Calvin isn’t really given anything to do. He’s so much more important to the driving of the plot in the book, but in the movie he’s much more of a support for Meg than anything else. While I really enjoyed watching our young heroine conquer, it would have been nice if we’d seen his talents come into play as well.

Also can I just take a moment to say that there was a scene that I saw on Youtube in which Meg explained to Calvin what a tesseract is and I don’t know why it was cut from the movie? As a reader of the book, I already understood the concept but I think it could have helped anyone in the audience who hadn’t.

I did enjoy the movie a lot for what it was and like I said there were things about it that I absolutely adored that were completely different from the book. It was also extremely well-acted for the most part and the cinemaphotography was amazing! I read an review yesterday by NBC that called the movie a “love letter to black girls” and I wholeheartedly appreciated it for that, and for portraying all the women in the movie in such a powerful and beautiful light. Young girls need movies that emphasize their beauty and value and I will be very sad if this movie flops after all the negative reviews because I want Hollywood to embrace that message in more movies. I’m giving this movie an 8/10, and honestly I wish I could give this movie a 10 because I really did adore it in a lot of ways. However, I feel like if some of the things I listed above were added to or changed in the movie, it would have created a lot more emotional depth for the characters and really driven home some of the points that I think the movie was trying to make.

#a wrinkle in time #madeleine l'engle #movie review #8/10 #spoilers #tons of spoilers #please don't read this till after you've seen it #because this is essentially a giant spoiler

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johnhardinsawyer · 4 years ago

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A New Beginning

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

2 / 21 / 21 – First Sunday in Lent

Psalm 25:1-10

Mark 1:9-15

“A New Beginning”

(A Prayer for Starting Over – Again and Again)

As we get closer to the one-year anniversary – if you want to call it that – of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I have heard more than one person refer to this odd year as having the same, unchanging rhythm. “It’s like Groundhog Day,” they say. For those of you who don’t get this ancient movie reference. There was this movie called Groundhog Day that came out back in the distant past of 1993. In the movie, the main character is forced to relive the same day over and over – again and again.

Since the pandemic began, I have heard several people talk about how one day seems to blend into the next and one week blends into the next – over and over, again and again. It’s like we are caught in some kind of loop, and – because we can’t go to many of the usual places or plan many of the usual events we used to – we find ourselves stuck in this unending cycle of wake up, do work or school from home, eat dinner, watch Netflix, go to bed, rinse and repeat – again and again. And yet, even though there is this undercurrent of “sameness,” the days still pass, the seasons still change. . . life still happens.

On this first Sunday in the Season of Lent, the seasons have changed and, yet again, we have begun our forty-day Lenten journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Now, there are some people for whom Lent might be just a blip in their lives, if it registers at all. And, there are other people who think about Lent as a time to give up something – chocolate, alcohol, red meat, Facebook. Anyway, Lent can be all about giving something up, or it could be all about taking something on – like a new spiritual practice or healthy habit – all in the name of reorienting one’s life around something helpful and holy. The Season of Lent is yet another opportunity for a fresh start – a new beginning – letting go of things that need to be let go of and/or taking up something that needs to be taken up, and starting life again with a new beginning – a new way of life, a new direction, a new path – in mind.

In today’s first reading from the Gospel of Mark, we see a new beginning – a fresh path. God is doing a new thing – forging a new path – here on earth. It should be noted that Mark’s Gospel is not filled with a lot of detail. We would need to read the Gospels of Luke and Matthew to find out a little bit more about Jesus – the circumstances of his birth, and his family, where he was raised, what kind of child he was.[1] In Mark, Jesus – a guy from the small town of Nazareth – just comes onto the scene and goes from 0 to 100 in quick succession – boom, boom, boom – Jesus is baptized, and suddenly he is God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased, and then immediately, he is driven by the Holy Spirit out into the wilderness where he is tested, and then he goes back home to Galilee and tells people, “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.”[2]

This is how God’s new beginning for all of creation begins. Up until now, everyone has been living their lives – perhaps hoping for something new. And, now, here is Jesus – God’s “something new” for all creation: “the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent – turn your life around, reorient yourself toward God – and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15)[3]

Now, you and I read this story with a certain perspective. We know what both the Bible and history tell us – that Jesus will start to teach, and heal, and feed, and welcome, that he will suffer, and die, and rise again, and make a profound difference in the course of history. And so, we read today’s passage with this extra knowledge.

But if we were to somehow remove all of what we already think and know about Jesus and just see this humble, lone figure – Jesus of Nazareth – going down the path into the river to be baptized, and then wandering into the pathless wilderness, and then walking the well-trod path back home to Galilee, and if we were told that this person is God’s new beginning, I wonder what we might think of it all. Is this really the path that God is taking for all of humanity – one solitary figure, filled with the Holy Spirit? Is this all there is? Is this thing going to work out okay?

If we were to hear the story of Jesus without knowing any of the spoilers, beforehand, we might wonder just where God is taking us in this story. And, if we were to hear the message of repentance and good news from this thin person who has been fasting in the wilderness, and decide to go deeper, and follow along the path that Jesus treads, we might discover just how hard this path can be for mere mortals like you and me who are trying to do the right thing, trying to be on the right path.

In today’s second reading, from Psalm 25, we find the prayer of someone who is trying to turn toward God and follow the path – the way – that God has laid out.

Just so you know, we’re going to be spending some time with the Book of Psalms during this Lenten season. And, if there is anything you need to know about the Psalms – besides the fact that it is the longest book in the Bible – it is full of song lyrics – ancient hymns. Just as an aside, sometimes, the people who wrote the Psalms would use fun poetic devices in their writing. For example, today’s psalm is an “acrostic” psalm because it begins with each letter of the alphabet, in order [A, B, C. . . Aleph, Bet, Gimel. . .]. Anyway, very rarely do the Psalms come with a backstory, though sometimes they do. It is thought, though, that many of the Psalms were written by King David and Psalm 25 is one of David’s.

We don’t get any backstory with Psalm 25, but several things are clear: David knows how it feels to be ashamed and defeated, to feel lost, and sinful, and forgotten. Maybe you can relate. I know I can. But David also knows how to pray. And, pray he does. I am paraphrasing here:

O Lord, I am lifting myself – my soul, my life, my appetites,

and passions, and emotions[4] – over to you. . . all of who I am.

And I am falling down on my face in front of you because I trust you. . .

Make me to know your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths.

Show me your way of life, O Lord. [5]

Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.

I am waiting for you – eagerly stretching out to you[6] – all day long.

Give me a new beginning with your steadfast love.

God, please do remember your steadfast love

and please don’t remember any of the bad things I’ve done. . .

The Lord instructs sinners like me in the way to live.

The Lord leads the humble in what is right

and teaches the way to those who humbly trust.

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness

for those who are earnestly trying to be on the path –

to follow the way of the Lord.[7]

This last part – the part about how “all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness” (Psalm 25:10) – is interesting to me. One alternate translation reads, “All the Lord’s paths are kindness and truth.”[8] But the way Eugene Peterson translates it is, “From now on every road you travel will take you to God.”[9]

In other words, there might just be something Holy about whatever path we are traveling in life – whether we are going down into the river to be washed in the waters of baptism, or wandering out in the wilderness, or living into our calling as those who are sharing good news, or maybe we’re just looking for a new beginning in life. . . a new beginning with each new day, with every moment, with every step along the way.

For the Psalmist, the key to this new beginning is humble trust, because “the Lord leads the humble in what is right and teaches the way to those who humbly trust.” (25:9) I think I might have told you before about a friend of mine who, every year, jokes that she is giving up humility for Lent.[10] I’m here to say that maybe we shouldn’t give up humility quite yet. Those whose minds and hearts and spirits are “bowed down”[11] before the Lord may just be like the meek who inherit the earth.[12] Besides, we are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus who humbly trusted in the Lord as he went down to the river, and out into the wilderness, and back home with a word of good news for all people. Wherever he went, his steps were blessed because they were leading somewhere – somewhere Holy. What if our steps are blessed, too? What if God is leading us somewhere Holy, too?

You know, almost a year into this pandemic, I don’t know if you have come to church this morning from the comfort of your own home with some nagging thought in the back of your mind that tomorrow is Monday – the day when the weekly loop of day blending into day will begin again.

It can be fairly easy to fall into this way of thinking that maybe will change when this whole thing is over – but, alas, it ain’t over yet. . . We don’t have to live on pandemic time, though, because Jesus invites us to live on fulfilled time[13] – time that is full of the kingdom of God and God’s grace. Every day is not Groundhog Day. It is God’s new day. It might seem like we’re living life on some kind of a loop, but the God that we come to know in Jesus Christ is always offering us an off-ramp. Again and again, by God’s grace, the loop becomes a path, a way of life that is actually going somewhere. . . out of the waters of baptism, through any wilderness we might imagine, and into a life that is full of meaning because Jesus has fulfilled it.

This way of life is a new beginning, offered to us in every moment, with every step along all the paths of the Lord that we might be walking. . .

We do not walk alone, my friends. We walk with Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life[14] – our new beginning and our Holy end.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

------------

[1] See Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2.

[2] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1377. Mark 1:15.

[3] Paraphrased, JHS.

[4] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publications, 1997) 659.

[5] Brown-Driver-Briggs, 73.

[6] Brown-Driver-Briggs, 875.

[7] Psalm 25:1-2a, 4-10. Paraphrased, JHS.

[8] Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms – A Translation with Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007) 85.

[9] Eugene Peterson, 709. Psalm 25:10a.

[10] S.R.D. This joke never gets old.

[11] Brown-Driver-Briggs, 776.

[12] See Matthew 5:5.

[13] Paraphrase from a sermon title I heard recently. With gratitude to The Reverend Dr. Chris Thomas - https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/6022aef76615fb41e500005e/chris-thomas-living-on-fulfilled-time.

[14] See John 14:6.

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life-observed · 4 years ago

Text

Navigating Loss Without Closure

One person you refer to often is Viktor Frankl. He wrote Man’s Search for Meaning, which many people have read. And of course, he was writing out of this example of horrific violence and loss and ambiguity and yet insisting on acknowledging the horror of that, right?

Boss:He did.

Tippett:Letting that be true forever and also insisting that meaning can be found.

Boss:Yes. And he was the one who said, without meaning there is no hope, but without hope there is no meaning. He tied those together. What we know now is that the search for meaning is critical in situations of loss, clear or ambiguous, and in situations of trauma. This is very difficult. For example, if a child dies, or if a child commits suicide or is murdered, or if a loved one disappears at sea — it’s nonsensical. But my point is, that too is a meaning. The fact that it’s meaningless is a meaning, and it always will be meaningless.

Tippett:Say some more. What do you mean?

Boss:If something is nonsensical, totally without logic, without meaning, as many of these terrible events are, then I think we have to leave it there. But I think we have to label it as “It’s meaningless.” I can live with something meaningless, someone might say, but what I’ve found is, as long as I have something else in my life that is meaningful.

Tippett:The search for meaning stays vital, but you don’t necessarily locate the meaning in that terrible thing. You have to find the meaning elsewhere in your life and let that be good enough.

Boss:Exactly. I like that term, “good enough,” Krista. In fact, I wrote a chapter on “good enough.” We really have to give up on perfection, of a perfect answer. There are a lot of situations that have no perfect answer. So let’s say the mother of a kidnapped child may then, in fact, devote her life to helping prevent other children from going missing. You see that all the time, where people who have terrible things happen to them then transform it into something that may help others. That’s a way of finding meaning in meaninglessness.

Tippett:You’ve even started talking — I think the writing you’re doing now, and I feel like what is absorbing you now, is really — the phrase you’re using is “the myth of closure.” That in fact, I don’t know when that word got inserted into our vocabulary — maybe you can speak to that — but that that word has led us astray.

Boss:I believe that. I think “closure,” though, is a perfectly good word for real estate and business deals, so I don’t want to demonize the word “closure.” But “closure” is a terrible word in human relationships. Once you’ve become attached to somebody, love them, care about them — when they’re lost, you still care about them. It’s different. It’s a different dimension. But you can’t just turn it off. And we look around down the street from me — there’s a Thai restaurant where there’s a plate of fresh food in the window every day for their ancestors. Are they pathological? No. That’s a cultural way to remember your ancestors. Somehow, in our society, we’ve decided, once someone is dead, you have to close the door. But we now know that people live with grief. They don’t have to get over it. It’s perfectly fine. I’m not talking about obsession, but just remembering.

Tippett:I want to read something you wrote in The Guardian. I think the occasion of this may have been the tsunami, maybe, or the Japanese earthquake.

Boss:The Malaysian airliner, I think.

Tippett:Yeah, the Malaysian airline. But you were writing about some of what you had learned in 9/11. You wrote, “One year later, a New York reporter doing a story on the anniversary of 9/11 asked me why I thought New Yorkers weren’t over it yet. My answer: ‘Because you are trying to get over it.’ Paradoxically, as T.S. Eliot suggests, what we do not know about a missing loved one becomes all that we know. Another poet, John Keats, recommends in his letters to a young poet that he develop a capability for living with unanswered questions. Keats calls this ‘negative capability,’ and this is what it takes to live with loved ones gone missing. This is also the way for the rest of us to stop pressuring these families to find closure.”

Boss:Yes. We just have to stop pressuring people to get over it. It’s cruel, actually, to do that. I was critical of the news media about their yearning for closure. They like the word “closure.” But I have to say that once, listening to CNN, Anderson Cooper stopped the other reporters and said, that’s a bad word. There is no such thing as closure. I just loved him for that. I know from his own biography that he knows what loss is, and he understands that there is no closure. He’s the only reporter I’ve ever heard explain that in the line of his work. And I think the rest of us have to do a better job of it too. There is no such thing as closure. We have to live with loss, clear or ambiguous. And it’s OK. And it’s OK to see people who are hurting and just to say something simple. “I’m so sorry.” You really don’t have to say more than that.

[music: “To Be Buried and Discovered Again” by The End of the Ocean]

Tippett:I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Today, I’m with ambiguous loss expert and family therapist Pauline Boss.

Tippett:There’s some place — I want to look for this in my notes. Here it is: When loss remains ambiguous, “the only window for change” lies in “perceptions.” And human perceptions are real in their consequences.

Boss:Yes. When you have an ambiguous loss, perhaps any stress or event, how the person or the family as a whole perceives it varies a great deal, even in one neighborhood, but definitely across the globe, across cultures. So in order for us to know how to help those families, we first have to figure out how they perceive it. Again, we’re back to meaning, really. What is the meaning this has to you?

In fact, that is the first question I ask: “What does this mean to you?” Because until I know what this means to them, I have no idea about how to intervene. If I say, “What does this mean to you?” They may say, “It’s a punishment from God,” or “It’s a punishment from my loved one. He’s always been after me,” or something like that. Then I know what their viewpoint is and can proceed that way. Or they may say, “I always fail at everything. That’s what this means.” Then you know you proceed that way. Or a person might say, “This is another challenge, and I think I can manage it.” This is another meaning. It was like the alarm clock story I told. Perception matters very much, and it opens the window for how you would proceed toward resilience and strength.

#letting go #grief #loss #sadness #pauline boss #sttress #ddeath #resilience #let go

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adulting-with-autism · 7 years ago

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Advice on dealing with shutdowns that are triggered by emotional situations? Whenever I feel strong emotions it gets very hard for me to talk. This makes it especially difficult to have difficult conversations with my partner because I can’t communicate what I want to say or sometimes even react to what she’s saying. It also makes it very difficult to bring up things that I need to talk about.

Hi anon. I have always had a hard time talking in those situations too. In my experience, it can get better. When I was in high school and trying to have a serious talk with someone I was dating, words just did NOT want to happen. At all. It took a long time to manage to say anything and usually it took a couple of attempts at discussion before I could communicate whatever I was trying to communicate. Now that I’m in my 30s, it’s still a thing, but it’s much more manageable.

I hope it will become more manageable for you soon, anon, and I think it can.

My first suggestion is to set regular times to check in with your partner. Maybe you check in every week, maybe it’s once a month - whatever works for the two of you. What’s important is that it is scheduled, it occurs regularly, and you both agree to it. (And if something comes up and one or both of you can’t do your regular check-in, re-schedule it for as soon as you can).

Regular check-ins function as a chance for you and your partner to bring up anything that needs to be discussed, big or small. Some months/weeks/whatever, the conversation might just be something like, “We’re still cool?” “Yeah, we’re awesome!” “Okay, I agree. We are great.” Other times it might look like this: “Is there anything you’ve been wanting to talk about?” “Partner, we need to talk about how we’re splitting up chores, because the current situation isn’t work for me.” Other times you might talk about something more serious or intense.

By making it routine, it will hopefully become easier. Why? For one, each partner will have a regular, built-in chance to bring stuff up, which will hopefully let you address any problems early, before the problem has a chance to grow and eventually explode. Two, by checking in regularly, it should make these discussions more routine and less scary; the more you’re in the habit of doing it, the less anxiety you may feel about it. It becomes normal. Third, it will give you both a chance to practice communicating with each other, so you become better at better at it faster than you otherwise would.

Partners who live together might also want to schedule a very casual, low-key check in sometime before bedtime. Not a relationship check-in, but just a how-was-your-day check in. Just a regular time set aside for the two of you (or however many are in the relationship) to stay in touch with how the other person is feeling/doing.

More suggestions behind the cut!

My second suggestion is that you and your partner work out a way to communicate when discussions Relationship Stuff that doesn’t require you to solely use spoken communication. Is typing easier for you, when you feel strong emotions? It is for me; I find I can say what I intend to say much faster and with much greater accuracy when I am typing. If you find something similar to be true for yourself as well, see what kind of arrangement you can work out with your partner.

For example, let’s say your partner has something they want to discuss with you. What if they talked out loud, but you replied electronically, by typing - texting them, replying via chat, etc? (If you both have access to mobile devices/computers.) Or maybe you could both type out your messages. Would your partner be willing to give something like this a try? Where you sit together and discuss whatever needs discussing, but with one or both of you typing your thoughts instead of speaking them aloud? The point is, relationship discussions don’t HAVE to look like the conventional, sit-down-and-talk-it-out option. Get creative, experiment, try different methods and see what works for you.

My third suggestion is that you build more time into your discussions. I’m picturing something like this: your partner lets you know there’s something on their mind that they want to discuss. You arrange a time to discuss it. During this initial discussion, the focus is on your partner presenting the topic that needs discussing. After they tell you what’s on their mind, then you two agree on a time to talk about it again (maybe later that day, maybe the next day - whatever works). And then you take a break from talking about it. Use the break time as an opportunity to process what they said, to process your own thoughts, and to process your feelings. Then you discuss it again, but now you’ve had a chance to think things through and hopefully your emotions aren’t running quite as hot. Again, get creative, experiment. There is no singular right way to communicate with your partner.

By the way, there is an advantage to taking a more layered, slower approach to discussions. I wonder if part of what’s going on for you is that when your partner communicates a problem/issue, you feel anxious, like you have to solve it all at once? If so, good news: you don’t necessarily. Sometimes it’s more helpful in the long run to take some time. Absolve yourself (and your partner) from the need to both communicate about and instantly fix a problem. When your partner brings something to your attention, just listen. Let what they’re saying sink in. Give yourself time to process. This can help you avoid feeling attacked and defensive, or defensively dismissing the other person’s concerns.

You also say that you have trouble bringing up things yourself. I totally understand. My next suggestion is about how to bring things up yourself. What if you wrote or typed what you want to say to your partner, before you bring it up to them? For example, you could write them a letter. You don’t necessarily have to send it; in fact, it might be better not to. Writing a letter first can give you a chance to process your thoughts and figure out how best to communicate your needs/desires/etc. Writing can also be cathartic and it can help you process your feelings.

For example, one time my partner forgot our anniversary was coming up (classic) and scheduled other plans with other people for that day. When I found out, I felt very hurt, like I wasn’t important to them. Like I myself was forgettable. I was traveling and they were at home when it happened, so I wrote them an email. My first draft was a very angry draft with lots of feelings in it. After I got those feelings out, though, I revised the email to communicate exactly why I felt hurt and to ask them what was going on from their perspective. My second draft made fewer assumptions about what was happening on their end, and gave them the benefit of the doubt instead. It turned out to be a case of executive dysfunction more than anything else - definitely not worth the angry email I first wrote.(And if I’d waiting to speak to him in person, I probably would have only managed to convey about 70% of what I intended.)

It doesn’t have to be a letter or an email, either (sent or unsent). Maybe you type up a bunch of notes. And even if you don’t send the letter/email/notes to your partner directly, you can keep them on hand for your in-person discussion. A sort of cheat-sheet to make it easier to bring up whatever you need to talk about.

Final thought. A number of my suggestions require communicating with your partner ABOUT communicating. Share with your partner the concerns you’ve written about here, if you haven’t already done so. Make sure that your partner knows that it is very hard for you to talk when you experience strong emotions, that you’re looking for ways to manage that, and that you’re looking for their help, support, and input in figuring out what will work best for the two of you.

tl;dr: Schedule a regular time to check-in, experiment with alternative ways of discussing things, write out your thoughts/feelings before trying to articulate them out loud. Talk to your partner about how you communicate. With patience and practice, communication-anxiety should become more manageable, even in emotionally intense situations.

Good luck anon. Hope this helps.

- Lissa

#ask #shutdown #emotions #Anonymous #communication #relationships #lissa #long post

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