Dear Memory: New Years Eve, Moving Day

Hello, Dear Memory.

I moved into my new house today. Just across from the college, with one of the main roads through town close by. A short-term ex-roommate and his dad helped me and Rylen move out throughout the middle section of the day. The new room is small, and were it not for the decently large closet, I might have had an extremely hard time piling everything else up high enough to lay my mattress down on the floor. It's a lovely house. The ensuite bathroom is an addition I definitely appreciate, although some of the fixtures in it are quite loose the way they are affixed to the wall.

Eventually I got my desk and my bed and stacks of boxes and the base of my round table set up in such a way that I could reasonably path through the room. That will have to be good enough for today. I somewhat aimlessly messed with Age of Empires 2 a bit while listening to an old Let's Play.

You have been on my mind a great deal, dear Memory, and in some moments I have wandered around the basement that was my house this morning murmuring aloud that I love you, I want for you to be happy, healthy, and for you to have everything you want most to have, and I want to be part of helping you with each if I can. It was almost as though I was dreaming, more in an imagined world than in my basement. I have mixed feelings about this. I grow cross that it takes up time, time I do not spend acting on my plans to bring me closer to you.

I worry increasingly, and I think this is the largest reason that I delay... I worry that I may actually have to wait three or four years in Canada to finish my schooling with reliable financial support. The long time seems to invite a risk of your being already caught up in some other plan for yourself by the time I return, with which I am incompatible. I can only move forward. I did not sleep well last night. I was not sure we were to move in the morning or not, so I slept fitfully, feeling I may need to be awake at any time.

The new house being right on the main road, and my room at the front of the house, there is a great deal more noise here. Rising irregular rushing of the traffic going by, not completely unlike the seashore, but without its rhythm. I shall have to get used to it, I suppose.

It seems an eerie repeat, almost, moving into this nice house just across the street from the college. Memories of my room at Gate Lodge rush back brightly. Oh, how impossible it was to get rid of all the dust, do you remember? But my heart is sore with all this remembering. I need rest. I need rest, and eventually I need action, if any fruit is really to come of all this. And around it all, I need to keep getting through school well. I lay down, and really notice the difference the lack of a box spring makes. My bed feels flat and firm. We left it behind at my behest; I did not think we could have reasonably gotten it back up the stairs. We had to snap bits of the frame for it to come down them initially.

Goodnight, dear Memory. Goodnight. I wish with a pain in my heart that I will see you again.

Dear Memory: Little Reminders

Dear Memory;

I have been going through my days trying to be dutiful and get things done that need doing. I set myself some bit of schoolwork, and to continue steadily packing my things into boxes for the move on January first. I have returned to tracking my activities in a variety of categories by scoring myself points for them day by day, and have gotten better about recording each day either in the day itself, or the day after while memory is still fairly reliable.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been repeatedly been reminded of you in a painful little way when I pull up the sheet to record my points. For the past couple of weeks I have been wanting to mention it here, but my writing has taken a different direction and it seemed a bad time. My document is divided by weeks, not by months, and it starts each week on the Wednesday, simply because it was a Wednesday back in July when I first thought up the system and decided to use it.

So, since early November, every time I have returned to the document to record points, in the first visible area of the sheet which Google docs must sit on for a moment while it loads, in the small description box under Oct 30 has been the text, "farewell to Fish", my recording of the most notable thing to have happened on that given day. It has given me little pangs over and over again to see it. In another couple of weeks I will be on a new sheet and past it, but it is something that turned my mind to you in a particularly bittersweet way since the silence fell.

Another thing has been the audiobooks that I have been listening to. Jane Austen, old classic literature that I got from freeclassicaudiobooks.com. The quality of the reading is often not very good, but I have been enjoying the stories anyway. Of course, Pride and Prejudice rang quite close to home with the wondering whether someone far away actually loves one, and still loves one after mistakes and obstacles have fallen between you. Now I am listening to "Emma", and I think it has not really gotten into its strength yet. Still, today I was almost vexed to find all of a sudden one third of the way through a part of it about some young lady being anxious to go back to Ireland to return to her family. It begins to be irritating how many things casually spring up to point there, all because it means so much to me now.

Earlier, this morning, while going through my things to pack and sort them for the move, I found another reminder. Of course, there are many among my things, so that's no surprise. For instance, I still keep a bus ticket that brought me once from Dublin Airport out to Athlone. But this is a special one, a precious one. I found those little slips of paper, bundled together, that I saved from our exercise of suggesting things to do together. I looked through them all, remembering and wondering. Such sweet, humble little things are written there. Some of them, we did do, I think, after writing them. We went to a restaurant, for one. Humble little dreams, affectionate wishes for happy times future. I keep them still. I will probably bring them with me when I come back over the sea. Perhaps there is yet the chance to see each one fulfilled. Perhaps.

Dear Memory: "Shake Me"

I slept fitfully last night... For the first time I can presently remember, Eoin was in my dream. You... were in my dream. Behind me, while I was laying down in bed. But not the same bed as I was actually in. I heard your voice and felt your presence, but my eyes were closed and my back was turned and I was paralyzed. A familiar hated feeling of sleep paralysis was part of my dream.

Since I could hear your voice, and feel you behind me, I pushed my paralysis to speak through it, so dimly, so faintly, all I could manage. I said, "shake me". You, the you in my dream, seemed confused. "Shake me," I repeated, stuck in my prison of paralysis and unable to give any but the very faintest instruction. You, the you in my dream, touched my shoulder and shook it, but very gently, as one might to test if someone were sleeping, with great reluctance in case they were.

"Shake me so that I actually move," I said, with slightly more power, fuelled by my frustration that you did not understand. I think I felt your touch again, but it still failed to move my body to any appreciable degree. It did not disturb me enough to break my paralysis... And so, perhaps I gave up. I got the sense, thinking about it afterward, that in a sideways sort of way, I recognized it as a dream, but had thought that... even if it were only a dream, if I would see your face and believe you were with me, in this dream, I would treasure the dream. But, if I were only to be tantalized by the sense that you were close but could not reach through the paralysis that trapped me, that I might hear your voice muffled and concerned but not see your face or reassure the dream-you that I love you and want to turn and look at you, because my body was stuck, stuck facing away...

If even in the dream I were only to be teased, it seemed I may have decided not to suffer it. My dream flew away to something else, and I remembered no more of this.

The thing is... I think this is the first time also that I have dreamed about suffering sleep paralysis. When I am paralyzed, I do very often want to call out to someone to shake me... I think, if someone did, it would break the paralysis. Trigger that part of my brain that has not triggered in the waking process to finish waking me up to react to the real thing disturbing me. When I am helpless to do anything but struggle vainly to maybe, just maybe, give my head a tiny shake of desperate refusal, how much heroic power someone else must have who has the strength to move my body for me, and bring me into it again.

I am not completely sure what to make of this dream. To dream of sleep paralysis, rather than actually being dreamlessly paralyzed... And to dream of you... It seems poignant somehow. Seems important, in a muzzy, dream-logic sort of way. And so I come here to record it. To tell you. To ask you, maybe, if it is some plea that a deep part of me is desperate to make. "Shake me", wake me up... Let me know... that you are really there?

Christmas Crash

After my last post here, I decided to look back a ways and revisit what my feelings had been in November, when I was just setting up my resolution to return to Ireland. I was a little shaken to see how uncertain I had been about how I might expect Eoin to feel, and how much more confident it seemed that I had become.

Of course, I have been careful to avoid developing any sort of certainty that I would be welcomed, and every time I think or speak on it, I at least pay some lip service to the possibility that for some reason or another I would not be welcomed back. But by often envisioning him hugging or kissing me, by remembering his smile and his affection, I think I have further reinforced the notion to myself that I will be greeted with love of some kind.

Upon observing the distinct change in my confidence, a crumbling came on me that was probably well due. I had been working hard, catching up and keeping up with my schoolwork in one thing or another, for a solid stretch and I was tired. My spirits had been flagging uncertainly, waiting for the fall for some time, but I kept pulling them up again. This observation, though, and an opportunity to doubt and wonder if all my confidence had been built up by self-conditioning and wishful thinking, was just the slip I needed, and the fall came.

However, as these things go, I will say it was short. I spent almost all of a day in bed or idling, watching YouTube videos to fill mental space with noise, sleeping in frequent bursts. The next day, I reached out to my friends, although wretchedly and in an awful conflict, grumpy from social neglect and fatigue, feeling the stresses of ancient habits of self-doubt and deprecation bending but not entirely broken. I was surly and rude and plaintive to those who took the time to listen, but...

Throughout it, I acknowledged that I was in a crash at the end of a long streak of positivity. I spoke through all of my feelings and complaints over everything from my doubts about Eoin to procrastination of tasks I found intimidating or dull to feeling fatter than usual, but at every point I spoke of feelings and imaginings, and did not say that any great flaw I saw in myself was fact. I managed some gruff apologies and excuses to those friends I leant on. I held my tongue for vital moments some moments, and pointedly avoided some opportunities to pick fights even though I had to wrestle with my impulses and irritability to do so.

I was invited to play Jackbox 4 games by one of my dear old friends and enjoyed them, although the way we played over stream and without voice chat was less intimate than I used to enjoy from Jackbox games and had an irritating delay. Still, being welcomed into the fold for social fun was something I acknowledged that I badly needed, and had gone too long without.

I did not expect anything for Christmas, and did not get much. One friend bought me a game soundtrack that I had put on my wishlist at some point. I was happy to have been thought of with such a gesture, and made a point of saying so and giving my thanks.

With the patient ear of one friend, some friendly invitations and thoughts from others, and the vital acknowledgement that although not perfect, my judgement in times of happy optimism is probably better than when I am breaking down with doubt and fear; that so long as I do not presume to be infallible, sustaining my spirits on a reasonable hope is a fair and fine way of carrying on, I recovered fairly quickly. This morning, I woke and got back to some schoolwork pretty much first thing. In the early afternoon, I made a point of going outside just for the sake of my health.

Having come back here to write, although I have paused uncertainly many times, will be the last thing on my list of things I have set myself a duty to do today. Having done this, I will be free to relax, or to work up the courage to do something a little more intimidating, like returning for a brief refresher to my JavaScript lessons, or working on my resume to send to companies that might be my key to get back to Ireland. Ah... Breathe, Serp, breathe. It is still intimidating, that. Taking a solid step toward a desperate goal usually is, I think.

Dear Memory: Merry Christmas

Good morning, my dear memory, Eoin...

Whether it is mania or high spirits, I have been more or less able to maintain a streak of it this long, and I feel happy and fortunate for it, although my sleep schedule bends one way and then the other and I do wonder how much longer I can keep it up. Recently, I wake at about 4:30 in the morning, and particularly recently, I have been inclined to set to some form of productivity or another very soon after. Gradual progress is being made toward moving preparations, and on completing each of my school assignments before they come due.

Well... There was one I let slide, but it is in an easy class. I will need to cover the material on my own time anyway, I think, since I did not go to the class that gave instruction for it. I have not gone to classes Monday or Tuesday lately, because those classes are in courses that I excel at easily and my sleep schedule frequently gets all turned around on the weekend.

You are often on my mind, and sometimes I am not sure what to do with the thoughts of you. No longer driven to despair about them, for I have my plan. At the same time, I feel as though I must exhaust the variety of fancies and hopes and get tired of repeating them over and over.

Often when you come to mind, it is just the memory of your face, your hair, the soft deep sound of your voice and its mild accent. Sometimes, the way I remember you saying "shore" (as I always heard from your "sure") as you often did, open to suggestion and rarely fussy in any way. I have remembered the meal you often made of pasta with tomato sauce full of bell pepper, remembering and revisiting my happiness with your unpretentious, resourceful competence at cooking.

My fancy wanders to other happy wants. To go swimming, or skating, or to eventually learn to fly in a squirrel suit, and more.

Winter has softened for a bit, and some of the snow has melted to show patches of green. The large banks are filthy with all the accumulated dirt left behind from what has melted, to sit on top of what has not. The weather is still cool, but less cold and these past two days I have gone to school comfortably with just my t-shirt and a jacket.

I have a pupil at the college for tutoring, in the system that the college sets up to enable it. I will meet him later today, although all the details are of course confidential. This will be the first time I have actually gotten to meet a student to tutor them for pay, despite being on the register of available tutors for two years. I am happy about the occasion, although setting up the meeting through conflicting schedules has been a chore.

I begin to fear that I might run out of things to write here to you... Perhaps it is just that no particular subject has brought me here, but I thought I ought to write soon, since it's been a week and if I leave it off too long, I might forget right up until some awful pain of heartbreak reminds me. It is better to take a moment to acknowledge you, my love, though awfully far away and entirely beyond my reach by our mutual agreement, before the force of needing to do so rips it painfully out of me.

Anyway, it is clear what I should say just now. Christmas comes... I will feel myself probably to be solemnly and sadly alone for some parts the holiday. I will certainly reach out to my friends for happiness as I can. But you... You should be either with dear friends of your own or with your close family, perhaps back in Athboy and meeting your brother and the friends of your childhood. With a tear in my eye, I imagine you there, remember the house where I got to meet them. Or perhaps you might still be abroad in China, meeting with your beloved sister! I know you had plans to go meet her this winter. Above all, dear memory, I wish you and all your loved ones the very best holiday you could have, wherever you are. And for myself, I might hope that sometime this Christmas, you would spare a thought to wish me well in kind.

Merry Christmas, dear Memory, Merry Christmas and a fresh and wonderful new year. It may not be in the coming year that I set foot again in your country, but I will be taking slow steps toward it, one after the other, in the midst of every other obligation of school and home and friends. This is what I offer to you this Christmas, the only thing I can really offer you now. I hope that when at last you know of my efforts, you will be happy I made them. I hope that this Christmas, before you are likely to know any more of them than a distant and uncertain possibility, you are happy as well.

Dear Memory: Stirred on the Breeze

Good morning, dear memory.

This last few day, I have been, instead of the oppressive fatigue, instilled with a greater brightness and whimsy. I am more easily caught up in emotions both grand and fearful. I sit in my classes attentively and answer brightly, but I worry more that I am annoying those around me by speaking too often or giggling too much.

In the same wave, you come to mind more often and more strongly. I yearn for you gently, and push the feeling away gently if I am set to a task, or turn into it for a moment, wistfully, if I am not. But I am not sure what to do there.

The land has been gorgeously white. I have walked so much in the shallow sidewalk snow that some muscles in my legs ache, for the walking is more difficult on this purchase. I often imagined bringing you with me. I would love so much to show you what winter, real winter, Canadian winter, is like. Walking on the shallow sidewalk snow is a bit like walking on beach sand. It churns away slightly under the foot, rather than giving a solid surface off of which to push. I do think the shallow snow trodden into a path by bootprints is a bit more difficult than beach sand though, because it is also inclined to be slippery and inconsistent. Some areas are loose, and some are dense, and it is not always evident which are which, so that the churning under your foot might take an unexpected direction, or turn into a slide sideways instead.

The snow is deep and white and gorgeous, fresh from its recent falling. It formed banks up to meet the hoods of cars in the used car lot I pass to and from school. Icicles hang in sheets from roofs and signs. Here, let me show you some pictures I took:

The last few days, I have also been suffering frequent irritating headaches, and keeping them at bay with painkillers. I misplaced my bank debit card Wednesday, and intend to go in to my bank branch today after classes to replace it.

I have been getting back to my studies steadily, an hour here, an hour there. So long as I gently push thoughts of you away into the future when they come to me, and push aside other intrusive thoughts like momentary conceptualizations of eye horror with patience and endurance (those do come to me sometimes when the work is dull and invites reluctance) I can focus well enough to perform well.

Today, I had put Heroes of Might & Magic soundtracks on as my background music, seeking something fresh. The strains of one song, I think it was the one called "Searching for a Dream," (although I think this one ultimately carries the feeling better) sang a reminder of you and of Ireland into my heart that was particularly stirring. I faced the dilemma for a moment. I was busy working, and was not to be distracted, but I did not want to neglect or entirely ignore the beauty of remembering you in a poignant moment, feeling as though a dry leaf fluttered in the breeze, looking toward a future I hope dearly to see.

I wrote "write love letter" on my list of things to do that day, as a promise to myself not to forget, not to neglect that beauty, nor the part of me that insists on acknowledging how it moves me.

I dearly hope that this is alright. To feel, and embrace that I feel, for you, my dear memory... I hope that this does no harm. I might worry that it is something that might someday offer pangs of guilt to you, if you were to consider turning me away. But I feel somehow that in this particular context, in this frame of mind, it is right to remember you with a wistful tear on my cheek and an uncertain but hopeful half-smile on my lips, looking to a past I cherish and a future I hope for. Hope for, but intend not to demand. Surely, that must be alright.

So here has been my love letter. It seems likely my blog will be crowded with them in the coming months, but I think that is alright. It is usually quite barren here, after all, and I am happier to populate it with whimsical love letters to a memory than not to populate it all.

Besides that, when I speak here, as though whispering to a plush toy perhaps, I spare the energies of friends who might be fatigued of my endless obsession with you, or my difficulty in maintaining or regaining an acceptable balance of self through the fits of intensity and patches of slump that I am prone to.

And again, some distant day, perhaps I will share them with you, sitting on the edge of your bed and turning often to look upon you, admiring the beauty I saw in you in that self's past, and which I still see, but may be brought out in a special way in the light of these memories.

My Season

I wrap my heart in a net and throw it out to a vast sea.

I walk, with an uneven gait, favouring one leg over the other. Snow flies out before the toes of my boots in little powder waves. Powder water, cold and dry. I scoop up the top of a bank experimentally, clench it together. It falls apart as I open my hand. Yes. Very dry. Cold, dry water.

I smile viciously, savouring the darkness of the sky, the constant texture of the falling snow through it. The struggle of snow, shifting softly under my boot with each step of an uneven gait, favouring one leg over the other. It parts or compresses readily, and my boot comes down further. It resists, a packed clump more solid, and I slow to drag my body over the momentary obstruction. Sloughing powder snow away with my boots, I feel slightly like a sea turtle, dragging itself across wet sand. I feel a little like something like a horse and something like a bird. A chocobo, maybe? I smile viciously at the sky. I feel at home.

The snow is deep, at least a foot of simple fall and stacked up much higher where it has been pushed to the side to leave mere inches slowly accumulating under the unceasing fall, diagonal texture, dry water.

I took pictures of it, at my porch this morning, at the campus before I left. This is the picture of real winter as I know it, wild and troublesome and inconvenient. This is my season. It is cold, but the wind is not harsh, and it is not too cold. If you step out into it, and you expect it to be cold, then it is... but like water at the beach, if you expect it to be cold, and step into it anyway, you can quickly become used to it.
Or at least, I can.

Hunger reaches up across my chest like a wooden brace that I press against by walking forward. I feel the pressure and smile viciously. It is a part of the season. Dark night, falling snow, walking made more effortful by shifting pressures and uncertain hold. I pick my feet up and sprint for a short ways, grinning. There is ice in my hair. I am listening to Welcome to Night Vale. It is a particularly good episode, and the ending credits cease just as I am turning down the driveway of my house. A walkway has been carved out, and shoveled bare recently. I suppose I should feel grateful. But what's true is that I will be glad to leave this place. There are many places I have left, and been glad to leave, in my life. But then again, there are a precious few that I have left, but have pointedly not been glad to leave.

It took me about 50 minutes to walk home. I considered taking the bus, as I walked out of the campus doors. It was close at hand, just filling up with students as I reached it. It was packed and crowded inside, with still more students hoping to board it. I have a strong preference not to be crowded. I made my way through the crowd and past it with little hesitation. I walked home, smiling, sometimes laughing at my podcast. I smiled viciously at the sky and let my mind wander, let my self imagine the shape and perspective of different creatures as they came to me.

I enjoyed my day, those parts of it in which I was doing something, clawing life out of fatigue. I paused at the door of my house, and shook my backpack, and brushed small piles of snow off of my headphones and jacket. I stepped inside, to toasty warmth. It seemed too warm. It smelled of warmth in a way that I cannot identify with any other smell. The remaining bits of snow immediately began to melt as I came down to my room. My pantlegs are damp. My socks are damp. My ankles are itchy. I pick little shells of ice off of my hair, and set down my backpack, and take off my jacket, and hang it up to dry.

I filter the rest of the ice out of my hair with my hairbrush, overcoming stubborn resistance, embracing every detail, preparing to sit and relate this story, which I fully expect to seem wild and rambling. It is meant to seem wild and rambling. It should not worry you, if you read it. It does not worry me. I am happy to allow myself, for a while, to be wild and rambling. The weather outside is a face of true winter and I am home. It is too hot inside. I laugh to myself, and begin typing.

The words and the images as I had thought them while I was walking come readily back to mind with just a little prompting.

I am a little inspired by Welcome to Night Vale. I have been enjoying it. The episode that was ending just as I turned in to the driveway of my house was A Story About Them, set sometime in 2014 of the story's timeline. On this day, I particularly appreciate the weather.

Dear Memory: The Tide Running High

I did not go out to Gibraltar market on Saturday.

For most of the past four days, I did not leave the house, but fell into a slump of low energy and continued oppressive fatigue, sleeping through most of the days and waking through most of the nights. I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, on a strange whim, but more often just re-watched old videos listlessly in between sleeping.

I missed two days of school out of fatigue and a deadness of will. I thought often enough of doing my homework, but as soon as the impulse came to me that I should try, it was dragged down under some surface perhaps like a lake by the weight of reluctance and fatigue. I spoke little to anyone, but spoke that little to a close friend who has felt things like this, and understands them fairly well.

Tuesday, I got dressed, and prepared to go to school, but stopped and returned and did not, because it had finally snowed the true heavy snows of what I understand to be winter, and I had not prepared for that. That evening, I did the homework, because it would come due that night. It was not difficult, but I took close to two hours to get through it all, partly because I could not readily drag myself back to the task after each milestone was finished.

I think I am through the slump. I am at school again now. I woke today at four in the morning, and felt more awake than I had in days. I finished a quiz for school before turning back to my comfortable videos, and took another bit of sleep before I would need to go to school. It was broken by the sounds of argument from the upstairs neighbors. When I woke to my alarm, it was tempting to go back to sleep. The habit, perhaps evasive, is a seductive one.

Dear Memory, I think I came to understand something important during my slump. In this numb, half-dead time, it was not you I waited for, but me. I still thought of you, from time to time, but what I waited for was spark, life, the power to move... You are not the only source of that, although I do think that your nature tends to nurture and inspire it in me.

My first class back at school, I was rapt and perhaps overexcited. I giggled often and bowed my head and blushed when I gave wrong answers, but turned back to listen more. I worried that I was being a pest, obnoxious in my brightness, or seeming pretentious. ...I just sat here for over a minute, I think, trying to remember the word pretentious. I wonder whether it is okay. I worry that it is unhealthy. I remember my mother's friend Tom, who seemed so wonderful and sensitive, a man who loved mysteries and riddles. He suffered from bipolar disorder, and I think... The way it was described to me in relation to him, this reminds me of that.

I do feel as though my emotions are perhaps bent, too-sharp and nervous. I feel slightly like a whirring wheel in a greater machine juddering out of balance. I still feel the distant cling of fatigue like traumatic memories of oppression. I fear slipping back into it, although I know I still must rest sometime. I prepare to encounter again the sequence of tasks and due dates that I have spent a bit of time neglecting and pushing into the future in order to deal with the present, first as a week of midterms then as a slump of fatigue and dead will.

My friend Coda reminded me, with encouraging words, that it is important to forgive myself these weaknesses, remember compassion for myself when things are difficult.

I am confused by spikes of emotion and memory, fresher and harsher after the muted time of feeling little. Although, from a center more stable, despite my fears, I suspect that other people really tend not to notice, unless I tell them. To those who do not have my confidence, that is, in whom I have not confided, I probably seem just to be a bright and reliable student, continuing to get through my work in whatever way it is that I do. Perhaps strange and unstable, but I cannot really say whether others commonly think so.

To you, dear memory, my mind continues to turn at idle moments. I thought a scenario, like a purposeless daydream, in which I referred to you as my husband. I intend not to presume on any such thing when I meet you again. I will not pretend that it is absent from my hopes, however. I will try to learn myself still better and yet better, and how to steer this thing, this storm, better and yet better. I will try to come to you healthier than you saw me before. Healthier than I am now. It is certainly what I would hope for an unbalanced person I had loved, and it is better all around, regardless of whether you want me or not, isn't it?

Dear Memory: The Present Strategy

Hello, Dear Memory.

My mind is full of jostling thoughts, and I am not sure which way to begin.
However, it is not painful. Not the pain of uncontrolled and vivid fixation. Not the pain of unfeeling or feeling too much. It is a bumbling confusion after sleep, for I only recently woke up... Thoughts and priorities, possibilities... The haze and confusion of trying to choose which things to do today, and which things to do first.

By the notion of my counselor, and of kitten mother, in order to make this strategy work of pushing away your memory into the future and avoiding being ambushed by it, I should take time to think of you intentionally, without being driven to it by madness or pain. And so, when I woke today, for what seemed like the sixth or seventh time in a sleep full of interruptions, but awake enough to stay for now... Laying in my room, not really looking at anything, for I think my eyes were still lolling and unfocused then, I decided that I should think of you for a while. I am not driven to out of madness or pain. It is simply that for now, the tight deadlines have passed and I have more time, and it seems like a thing to do.

Dear Memory, I looked around this basement room and thought that is is quite a bit bigger than the bedroom I shared with you for a while, or the one you shared with me. I wondered what it would be like for you to be here, looking around inside of it. Although, I suppose, if you were, it would be annoying for you, since it has such a low ceiling. I wonder, did I ever mention on this blog that I am moving in January? There is a lovely house right across from the college that I was able to take a room in for only $500 per month. It's more than I pay to live in this basement, but still on the low end of what a student seeking room rental can expect in this city, and it is not a basement, nor a patchwork of low ceilings with dripping in the vents and an old, fussy furnace.

I have been going through some of my things, sorting. Keep, donate, trash. It is a good time to thin my collection of things. That way, I will have a bit less to move into the new house.

I think about my plan for the future. This hazy, strange plan built mostly of wishes so desperate and shy that perhaps they would waver when I examined them, or began to write about them here... But although desperate and shy, they are too strong to waver. Hm. Perhaps that is like me.

The plan is to leave all this behind, really. Take only those things I can put in a couple of suitcases. A supply of clothing, of personal effects and tools that I feel it's important to bring with me. But most of it, to leave behind; give away or throw away. I feel as though... for most people, that would be a fearsome thought. It is part of the plan, so that when I meet you again, dear memory, you are not possessed of any misconception that there is a place back in Canada to which it is important that I return. It seems as though you may have thought so, last time, and through such thought may have been convinced that you ought to push be back towards whatever was home for me.

Although I have tried to express it, perhaps you do not have the frame of reference to understand. The process of leaving the bulk of the objects I have built my nest of behind and leaving for the next adventure... This is more my home than any mere place has ever been. Houses have been places that I am tied to out of convenience. Houses have been places I am fond of as well, do not mistake that. But houses have also been prisons to me, with parents as wardens who have sought to keep me from leaving. My mother, at least, who was a tyrant to desire escape from.

I wonder... perhaps others who are so happy as to have enjoyed the support of loving families with whom they could get along better cannot understand what it is like for home to be a toxic, poisoning thought, and the uncertainty of the road to be better. Not every home, I certainly hope. But I did develop a habit of leaving, and of leaving being a bright and wonderful thing. The objects of comfort and habit, from which I built my nest, they are not evil things. But sometimes my nest grows confining. Too small for me, or not the right shape, and so I leave it behind like a shedded skin. There is no other time when a serpent's scales are so healthy and shiny as when the husk which bore most of the accumulation of dirt and scars has been split off and left behind.

To leave a home behind, for me, is a process of renewal. I say all this because it seems important to me, to convey to you, Dear Memory, that although I plan to leave much of my worldly possessions behind to seek you someday... You should not feel guilty for your memory having driven me to such great sacrifice. For... it is not so great a sacrifice, for me. I am glad of it. When I have something toward which to adventure, it feels like a Story Worth Telling, which is a thought that means much to me.

The plan is... In the future, when I am ready, when I have prepared... To come to Ireland with all I should need to arrange to stay permanently. Find a place to rent by my own dollar (or euro, as the case is there). Set up some interviews to seek employment. The plan is, once I seek you out, to present you with as pure a choice as I possibly can. See, Memory, I want to be able to tell you: I intend to stay. I have set it up so that I can stay as long as I might wish to.
I will not approach you in a position of weakness from which you should see any obligation to rescue me, but strong and self-sufficient and available.

It seems important to me that you should know that at least in terms of money and property and law, I will be well able to support myself alone, should you turn me away; and there will be nothing that you are taking me away from that I am unwilling to leave behind, should you welcome me back. I think that would help to present a pure choice, so that you can simply decide what you want, and not be bullied by feelings of guilt either way. At least, not any more than can be avoided. There may always be some guilt in turning away someone who wishes to be welcomed, but I don't think there is anything I can do about that.

I write, in scattered thoughts and long digressions of explanation. I write to you, Dear Memory, and I hope to myself that someday I will read you these things I wrote, thinking of you, and perhaps now long ago. I wonder, will you be embarrassed of how much I thought of you? I wonder, will I find reasons why I should not share these blog posts with you, even if you have welcomed me back? I think... I think I might not have written that here, but it seems important that I do, because I should affirm to myself that that desire for the future, like all desires for the future, is a thing of the present. It might not hold through time. And that is alright. I write it here as an artifact of what will be the past, so that it can have had its day now, as musing and hope, even if it does not ever come to pass.

I wonder if you think of me. I wonder if you ever have vivid memories of the time that I was there, and cry because I am not. I do not think it likely that you would write diaries about it. I know you are not much disposed to writing. So perhaps even if you do miss me so, there might be no record of it save your own memory, with all the warping and unreliability of memory.

Or perhaps you do not think of me much, just another part of your past that you might look back on thoughtfully from time to time among other things, like your thesis, or your time at Magic: the Gathering tournaments, or past years' celebrations at the Macra. Or other things you never told me about.
But I think to myself that I should not be angry, if that were the case. It is only a mark that you are peaceful where I am driven, and prepared to leave the past in the past while I plot to return in the future.
I can readily believe that you might not think of me often, or with much longing, but still welcome me back when presented with the chance. Even if you had not wanted me desperately, you might be happy to recieve me like an unexpected present.

I really cannot say what you think. I find it doubtful that you would not think of me at all. I am sure I left a mark on your life. And I wonder what shape that mark has grown into over time; past and future, over the time until I will see you again.

The other day, not long ago, I was thinking of canoeing, and wondering whether you would ever like to go canoeing with me. I should like to share it with you sometime, if you think you would enjoy it. I was thinking of skating, too, but I already know the answer to that one.

Perhaps a me who reads this to you in the future would have forgotten to ask, and this can be a friendly, casual reminder. Perhaps it will prompt a canoeing trip. Perhaps I should stop speaking in a way that might seem prescriptive or creepily predictive to my future self, and your future self, Dear Memory.

Perhaps then I have written enough, and I will go now. I think I might go down to the Gibraltar Trade Center. It will have its weekend market open, and I wanted to visit Forest City Surplus, which is next to it. See if they have any more of the incense I bought there.

Here's to you, distant and dear memory, wherever it is that you are now, and whether or not you will ever know that I have written you these words.

Vivid Fixation and the Next Thing

I woke this morning in the dark and quiet and the cool air. In my sleep I had kicked all the blankets into a heap on the left side of my bed, and become naked and unprotected against the cold. In that way, it was just like every other night in recent memory.

It was still dark, though, so why was I awake? I curled over, picked the blankets back up again, and closed my eyes, but although it was pleasant to do so, sleep did not return.

I felt more awake than I have enjoyed much lately. I have been going through my days oppressed by fatigue since the weekend at least. Sleep did not come, but memories did. Vivid, bright, full memories, as though the moment played again before my eyes. A certain face. A certain closeness. A certain sofa, in a living room with broad, open windows toward the college. A certain voice. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying, not today."

Too vivid. Too bright. I grew mad and somewhat frenzied inside my skull. To the dark and empty room, I said, I love you, I miss you. I hope you are well, Eoin. I hope you still want to see me again.

The memories, bright and blinding and all-consuming in their vividness.
I turned on my laptop, looked there, and found someone to talk to.
I told kitten mother the story of Eoin, patchwork and out of order, out of a crazed suspension: I don't know if this is okay.

Kitten mother listened. She heard. She understood. She's good at that. Offered some soft advice, once it was asked for. I go away calmer, soothed for now out of the madness, brought back to the strategy for moving forward, so simple and obvious that it seems odd to have been confused. Except, of course, that I was in a state of madness and confusion, so that too is obvious.

Tell the future to stay in the future. Do the next thing next, not the last thing next. That is impossible, and so of course it will only leave me with fretting. Do the next thing next, and with stubbornness, until that which belongs to the future is willing to wait.

I practice returning for a moment to the vivid memories, and then pushing them away. There is bending and echo in my mind when I try to push them away, but I am able.

Think of anything, absolutely anything, except a purple elephant. Next thing. Next thing next. Old fashioned boombox. Yellow floral bedsheet. Canoeing. The elephant looms, but is told off and told to return to its corner. It is quite like an excited dog. It is not at all that I don't love you, it is that you are in the way. Go. Hide your face. I still love you, and I will tend to you later.

I think I can do this. I will worry that I might fail. Fine. Mistakes are mistakes. Mistakes are of the future. I'll deal with them when I get there. I worry. But I think I can do this.

I have an accounting assignment to work on. That, at the moment, is the next thing. Perhaps food first, and then that.

Dear Memory: the Farmers' Path

I turn to this blog again for the moment, in order to speak as I would to Eoin, if I were free to speak to him. Writing to a memory, in a diary left open for anyone to read, if they find it, if they care.

Dear memory...

I return to my schoolwork with some diligence, some gratitude for the occupation, and mostly an air of restless boredom, as of waiting for a bus or a flight during my travels; a long space of time I must endure, and so I do, occupying myself as I can, or sitting still and watchful, tired; my mind flitting forward to where I am going, the processes of getting there; flitting back to the places from which I've come, and resting for brief moments on the experience of waiting, the in-between state, the present with its burdens and fatigue and expectations, a trial long but not difficult; I have little doubt of doing well in my courses, so long as I put in the time. Voldemort slowly stirring a cauldron, perhaps.

-----

The other night, I ran a D&D game that I had put many of my hours into designing during the strike; a project while I had little other structure, a way to engage with friends, perhaps make a few new ones. Provide some measure of entertainment, support some kind of community, take some measure of fulfillment for my need to be of use to someone.

The first adventure space was intentionally simple, but still, we played five hours or so, into the morning, to finish a big fight even though most of us had grown very tired. The tone was more joking than I had hoped, a bit; I can seek to moderate it to a more serious tone in the future if I put my mind to it. I think all the players had fun, although one was a stranger and did not talk much, in the face of much familiar chattering between the rest of us who knew one another already. I saw in retrospect that I had not been applying cover rules where I should have been. However, the party did get their impressive victory surviving a tough fight, uncovered clues toward their goal, and established the first themes of inter-character interactions. I worked with a player to level up a character, having gained a level faster than his companions due to starting a bit behind.

I didn't mind all that much in the grand scheme of things that I missed classes the next day, having forgotten to take my phone off silent so it could wake me up.

-----

I had a test today, covering the various uses of Excel one of my classes has focused on. I forgot that it was today, and did not find it notable except as another thing I submit to because it is to be done, with neither any particular anxiety nor a great deal of interest. It is part of the waiting to me.

Last week, I went to speak to a counselor, as I had planned. I spoke of my feelings about you, dear memory. The surrender of the resolution I found that I had made. I asked her to check me if she saw any sign that my intent was reckless or foolish. No; she could see that I was deeply affected, that my eyes shone and glittered with emotion when I spoke of what you meant to me, and in that light, she could understand my resolution to make my way back to Ireland, marked that I intended to take my care and ensure my means carried me there steadily.

I say surrender. This may seem like a strange word to give to resolution. I say surrender, because I was at war within myself, and that conflict had been bad for me; war always scars the territory on which it rages. In order to bring the constant drain of the fight to peace, I would have to surrender on one side or on the other. Sacrifice myself to myself, for wisdom and power, like the legend of Odin.

So I surrender, and accept that this is how my story must go, for the time being; for fey glamour, the essential element of fairy stories, that strange vividness beside which any colour is faded and grayed, the stirring resonance without which life is merely existence, that force which renders any move aimless unless steered by the pull of its particular compass...
I have always been prone to feel this way, a strange impossible wistfulness for something so nebulous that I might not even have ever had this unknown thing, I may not know the shape of it, but there is a wounded place in me where it is missing. Perhaps this is part of the reason I always loved fairy stories, which captured that sense so well.

And for this particular chapter of my life, the glamour is upon you, dear memory. It whispers your name, your smile, your voice, and all the things we have done together. I never really wanted to turn away from what my heart demands; those things you said that gave me the uncertain and fearful impression that you would rather I leave you behind are no longer said to me, I can begin to forget them.

-----

Today, my mind wandered back to one place in particular. The farm roads I showed you that forked through the bands of trees and between the fields. Wooded enough to soothe some of my desire for the deep forests of my youth; open and soft enough to stretch and learn your art beside you, take stance and step and instruction. Secluded enough to sing without shyness, and long enough to walk for hours.

I remembered sitting for a while on the rocks where the stream came under the path, and listening to you speak of your grandparents and their stories, and the places familiar to your youth.

I remembered again the magnificent mystery of the destroyed car we found there, the delight of finding every clue; the melted glass, the ash, the metal bent out by impact and by blasts of heat, the marks of how far it may have been dragged off to clear the path, the shell cases in the bushes nearby. It was a great and joyful thing to me, sharing that investigation with you, seeing you just as fascinated, someone who did not tire and bore of it much before I did. Someone with whom I could share the joy and discovery and the patient work of unraveling a real riddle.

I remember navigating past those deep mud puddles, and talking of the past. There were things I told you along that road, with eyes glancing to and away with uncertainty and embarrassment, parts of my story that are so personal to me that I do not think I ever shared them here. A sort of experience I didn't expect you to have much respect for, more superstitious than you are or care to be. But you did not pass judgement then.

I remain convinced that in all my memories of the time I spent with you, although I was sometimes stiff and intolerant in some conviction, and sometimes so wild and desperate with pain and isolation that I could not let you reach me, the only time you ever seemed to judge me or show any disappointment was when I let my pain run over into spite.

I do not know whether I ever thanked you properly for that. I cannot say enough how I love you, and I love you for checking me when I crossed that line as much as I love you for forgiving me everything else up to it with such easy grace. You had the conviction to hold me to my own values when I fall apart so much that I begin to forget them. I want that in a companion.

Forgiving Mentors, Relentless Longing

It is the second day of classes resuming, and much of the miserable doubt and worry of the empty time during the faculty strike is lifting surely as our professors reassure us, cut out small pieces of the courses, and focus the first week largely on review. Every gesture shows understanding and mediation for the difficulties of resuming after such a long interruption. My intermediate accounting professor, having read an email I sent him telling him that my morale and confidence had been very low trying to navigate his online course with the textbook alone, thanked me for my refreshingly candid words and invited me to sit in on classes in person. It is all a soothing balm to my troubles.

Sadly, the professors themselves may have had little relief from theirs. The strike's disputes were not resolved, and there is some worry that this might all repeat in another four years, after the new contracts expire again, and they must meet to agree on terms of renewal again.

My spirits are higher, and I look forward to moving into a very nice house directly across from the campus, the nicest I have lived in... Looking back, and looking back further, it may be fair to say that it is the nicest looking and most modernly appointed house I have ever lived in in Canada. My parents' houses were a welcome home to me, but simple. My new room will have an ensuite bathroom, and the kitchen has a central island and two big fridges to accomodate I think five female tenants.

Through all that, though, my thoughts remain restlessly and inexorably drawn back to Eoin and distant Éire. It feels to me as though the memory of him stands always behind my shoulder. When my mind wanders, it wanders to dreams of return, and meeting with him again, with much tear and hope and fear, desperate to know what his answer will be...

It has been three weeks since our last goodbye, and since the law of silence has been set between us. These last few days have tested my will to adhere to that law. I felt that I was doing fair well, for a little while, at looking to my own life alone, although it was a miserably empty stretch of life indeed with neither love nor work nor school to sustain me. I took up to make a game to run for friends, which I have nicknamed the SCDP game, a Super Casual Drop-in Pick-up game of Pathfinder such that I can run it and invite people to play it without a set group or a set schedule. I finally finished writing all the stats for available player characters to the website I'll be using just a day or two before the return to classes, and I have not played it yet. I am not certain I will even get the chance, but the project was something with which I might hope to enjoy the social attentions of friends.

At some point, perhaps a week ago... I lost track of the empty days for a while, so I am not sure... I was re-watching a bunch of video reviews, and one of them ambushed me with the high, haunting and familiar voice of Loreena McKennitt and the sweet melancholy violins of Irish tradition behind her. I knew the song, The Old Ways, I had heard it and loved it and felt magnificently drawn by it from my early youth. It hit me like a hammer blow, and broke open yet again any thought that I could deny my desperate want to go back there, back over the bounding waves to the distant shore of a land I have always loved, in music and legend, and the man I loved who lives there.

Eoin could not promise me any answer. It has been three weeks since I last heard his voice, and now at last doubt begins to creep back, and I begin to worry and wonder. We knew each other scant three months, and it is already past that long ago. Even if I do make my way back to that great isle, and see his face again... If it is a year, if it is several, how could I expect him to look on me as other than a sad and obsessed woman whose storms and ferocity he may have been glad to be rid of?

But. I know with enough confidence to say that I know... whatever may happen in the coming years, at the time three weeks ago when he bid me leave him be, Eoin was yet undecided. If he had in his mind any certain answer, I know with confidence he is too good and honest a man not to have given it. When last he spoke to me, there was love enough in him, and perhaps also longing of his own, that he was not set against seeing me again someday. He was not sure what he would feel. If it had been more honest to tell me he would rather never see me again, for all the pain it may have cost him, I am sure he would have said it anyway.

So. What his answer will be, I cannot know until I have heard it from his own lips. I cannot hear it until I go there, for until I am there, he cannot know himself whether he will be willing to bring me close again. As I walk out from my house into the cold, bare young-winter, gazing up at the steely light where the sun shines through the thinnest parts of the grey clouds, returning at long last to my studies with the weight of my work things at my back... As I walk the cold and formal halls of my college, which now seems too large and too impersonal... I know that Eoin is not the only or the first man for whom I have felt this utter determination, the deep and aching sense that I would be willing to do nearly anything to see him smile at me again. I feel rather as though I will set my determination to heading there, but do it all with a sheepish apology to him, and hope he will not feel my devotion cheap because he has not been the only one to inspire it.

I know my will, though mighty, is shifting. I know I may look back on these words with embarrassment and a shake of the head that I was so caught up in love and grief. Still, from here, as of now, I am determined by all the madness of my heart and a relentless longing in my bones to go back to Ireland, to distant Éire, and find out what his answer will be. I know that to do any different while I feel as I do would be to rend apart my nature, to bury my desire and smash my compass, and live as someone I am not. It would not be a story worth telling. Better to go, full of all my courage and wild strength, and profess myself to him as simply and as gently as I can, even if the answer I find is to be turned away as a nuisance, and go back to the rocky path of lonesomeness, to stalk on like a restless ghost and seek on anew for someone who will at long last stand and travel by my side.

So every day, whether I resist it or not, my thoughts wander back again when I am not looking, and I imagine living in love with him again; or I imagine troubles there might be in trying to get in touch after I land; or I imagine cautiously studying his eyes when he first sees me again, asking how things have changed, what shape his life has taken, and trying to learn whether there is room for me in it; Or of being greeted with a kiss and falling into desperate tears, begging to know if he meant by it that I would be given a chance to stay this time. Sometimes I imagine talking to a border guard of my intent to immigrate. Sometimes I imagine talking to a representative of an accounting firm for which I intend to work in Ireland in an interview about my reasons for coming. But it is always something, and it always pulls my view East, across the ocean, with the call of the bounding sea.

Drifting in Snow; The Season of the Scavenger

Eoin weighed particularly heavy on my mind today. I went walking in the first snow of the year that I have seen. It was beautiful, and I was happy to stay out in the cold until some areas of my skin began to feel slightly numb.
I had wanted to send him pictures when the real snows came.
Pictures of winter as it is in Canada.

There was a particular street, where streetlamps positioned between pairs of trees offered a gorgeous image that I felt, if I had the materials, I should like to paint. The bare, arching branches curled over the top of the sidewalk, giving it the beautiful natural-tunnel look of paths between trees, but the light cast the trees against one another in alternating light and shadow; the light in front of every second tree so that its part was cast in beige, and behind the others, so that their trunks and branches were dark silhouettes, and layered like that; light, dark, light, dark, light... Giving the path's length gorgeous texture in contrast.

A friend asked me what was my favourite part of winter.

I don't think I have a favourite part, per se. I prefer cooler temperatures, and so I appreciate that winter is a season in which I am not likely to feel overheated. I often tend to see seasons, much as I see other things, in the things they symbolise. Winter is endings, death and rebirth, rest and repose, the elegance of the lifeless and the dangerous beauty of unforgiving forces of nature, such as ice and snow.
It may also stand for austerity, the time when nothing grows being a natural time of scarcity, but humankind in this country is now divorced from such things.
I suppose I see it as the difficult season, and that appeals to my need to be challenged and face adventure.
In much the same way, spring represents birth and renewal, autumn represents change and shares the motif of endings with winter, and the motif of plenty and harvest with late summer.
Spiritual symbolism. I do it.

Winter speaks to me of wandering, which touches me more and seems to me less obvious.
But it is an ancestral symbol, too. When nothing grows, predators hunt and prowl, wandering farther from their homes to find sustenance.
Humankind are predators, and do so as well.
It is the time when scarcity may force conflict, and unwelcomeness shows its ugliest face; some may be cast out to freeze or starve if they cannot make their own way.
For both of these reasons, perhaps, it feels like the season of the wanderer and the outsider, that one who must always seek and cannot be satisfied for long with what it finds, for even as today's hunger is satisfied, there is always again tomorrow's empty belly to fill as well.
Of course, this time of difficulty is marked with revelry and defiance once we make it through a significant enough chunk to feel we have some measure of victory.
Hardship brings joy at overcoming it.

I certainly identify with the symbols of the wanderer and the scavenger, so in a way I feel that this is my season. The cold is a welcome discomfort to me, a connection to the sense that this cold North land is my home, and a little challenge which makes weathering it more satisfying...
There is nothing quite like coming in out of a harsh cold.

To Love Left Behind

My perspective, the shape of my life in the context of memory and priority, bends around you like a center of gravity.
The time before I met you takes on the aspect of a prologue, the content of the story a few short and treasured chapters I wish I could relive.
When I lay down in my bed, and am not thoroughly exhausted, I am disappointed by your inevitable absence, and accompanied by your memory.
However, the ghosts have grown more peaceful. I will not say they haunt me. In reflection...
My heart is sore, but it is a pain I can live with and appreciate, like the ache of muscles after exertion.
I am okay.

I remember your face, contorted in judgement and revulsion; not at me, but at the wounds in my mind which have hobbled me. Yes, that is one of the memories that stays with me. I cherish that understanding, seeing you sickened by that which stunted my growth; that you saw it as an awful thing is a tender and cherished measure of your respect for me.

I also remember your face smiling, as I so often saw it, and the context that gave this so much beautiful light. No, you told me, you were not someone who smiled a lot. But you often did when you were looking at me.

There was so very much that you did for me, and now...
You are a memory, to me, and a distant unknown actor. Somewhere, you are something, and it is not for me to know what.
Laying in bed, not quite exhausted, and keenly aware of the empty spaces under my blankets, the silence in my ears, the empty in my hand where I wish your hand would be... And I don't regret a thing.
Only perhaps, that it may take a lot of searching to find someone to fill those empty spaces now, after your legacy.

If by some chance you wind up reading this... Yes, it was probably the right thing to do. I have been recovering much more cleanly of late.
I am sad, and I miss you, and I can live with it.
You left me far healthier than you found me, old friend.

The Sun-in-Rags has its tribute for now. I am distant, I burn, I am not as I was.
I continue along my path, moving more slowly for a while.

October; Natural Cyclical Endings

A chill rides on the quiet wind, what some old friend of mine once called a "culting cold". The ground is littered with leaves in yellow and red, although many yet remain green on the branch.
The temperature is just the way I like it most. It has an edge of cold that might grow uncomfortable if I were tired and had no protection against it, the better to hide in a comfy sweater or a warm blanket. The sky grows dusky around six, and grey with cloud. It is not bright enough to hurt my eyes, though I still see clearly and in colour. Meandering through the campus grounds, I take in the beauty, alone. I allow myself to meta-think about my heartbreak, still not fully healed, and to notice and embrace that I am capable of enjoying this autumnal atmosphere, the beauty of cyclic endings, alone. It is not too much to bear that no-one stands with me. Perhaps it would be too much if there were no way for me to share my appreciation of it with... But I can write it here. I can mention it to friends in passing.
Alone, I can walk across paths laden with fallen leaves.
Alone, I can feel the chill of coming winter foretold on the breeze, but not, as yet, here.
Alone, I can walk away from those things I must leave behind, without knowing in any certainty whether I will ever see them again. This is life and mortality.

I remember the similar chill of mild Irish winter, and smile fondly. In the coming months, that mildness will make way for the harsh and savage ice winds. I will walk through paths carved in deep snow... probably, anyway. I wonder if I will feel more or less lonely then. I wonder if I will spend my time with new friends. I wonder if I will build a snow sculpture on some day when the snow comes plentiful and wet enough to inspire it. I wonder if I will take an opportunity to slide down hills as I did when I was still a small child.

I have a test today. I know the fact, acknowledge, accept, and then hold it at some distance, although I do not push it away so that I might forget. I walk through the chill air, admire the campus clad in autumn. This is one of my favourite times of year, and it is good to relax before a test.

I feel well. Parts of me are certainly still grieving, but overall, I feel well. I am beginning to imagine ways that the future might be acceptable even if I never see that person again, although I should hope I will. I am beginning to imagine that I may be happy in other places, with other romances. I reflect on age and maturity, on the continual process of growing up. I consider that I seem to have a much better time meeting and keeping friends than I used to. I consider that my radical views have, to a large degree, mellowed out. I tend to give more credit to those I disagree with these days. My mind wanders, philosophical, serene, reverent. I write half from memory and half as a lucid stream of consciousness. I feel I have written enough, for now.

Double Negatives and the Philosophy of Overthinking

Yesterday, I sent an email to a lecturer at my college asking about a quiz question on an online testing resource my course uses on which I was marked wrong. I thought the question may have a mistake in it, because of a double-negative in the wording of the question and the "correct" answer. Today, I received an email back praising my understanding of the content, and suggesting that the publisher might think I was overthinking the question. This is an excerpt of my response.

I stand firm by a belief that if thinking about a question obscures the answer, it is probably a bad or poorly worded question. Getting distracted by minutia is one thing, and a personal foible it's fair to test resistance to. Thinking, however, should never be an enemy in an academic subject. I would argue that a double-negative in the core structure of a question is not minutia, as they are frequently used intentionally to ensure a student is reading the question thoroughly. If the correct answer isn't actually correct because whoever wrote the question forgot the double-negative, that is a problem with the question, not with me, and I hope others will understand if I object to being docked marks for a mistake someone else made.

If on the other hand there's something I'm not seeing that explains why the answer the publisher registers as correct is actually the most correct answer to the question as posed, I want to know, for the sake of my own understanding.

Regarding "overthinking"...

People have often accused me of thinking too much. I have come to resent it. It does not tell me how, or whether, my conclusion was wrong, which I think ought to be, generally speaking, the measure against which my thinking is judged.
I also find it is frequently used as an excuse to dismiss constructive criticism or complaints I attempt to make, to save someone else the effort of updating a flawed system, habit or stance.
On the other hand, sometimes people are only trying to advise me not to waste my time on something they don't think is worth it. Well-intentioned, but I would usually prefer they didn't do that.
If I 'over-think' quiz questions, it is not likely that I fail to think when deciding how to spend my minutes and my effort. Besides that, how I spend my time and effort is my business.
The quality of study and testing materials in a school I attend is also my business, as well as the business of every other student in the course, and the school itself. I think it justifies a little bit of time and effort giving feedback if I notice a flaw, and there is even a small chance that it might be improved on for later years. Every change must start somewhere, with someone noticing something that could be better and doing something about it. Student engagement is often criticised as dangerously low, and generally I agree. I do my best to compensate in what small ways I can.

Common or Garden Heartbreak

If you've had any romance in your life, you probably know all the symptoms. An obsessive compulsion to listen to songs that remind you of Them; the mind turning irresistibly toward Them in every idle moment; the transformation on the context of every song you hear; the feeling of guilty wrongness upon seeking the company of other people which may be pleasantly distracting, but doesn't fit the craving for Their company.

Every part of it is predictable, as reliable as the tide; what fills me with joy leaves me with sorrow. I've certainly been through it before. This iteration is better in a number of ways. We did not part angrily, but honestly and with respect. There is no other new partner to blame, only distance. The spirals are looser, less clinging. All the questions about self-worth have easy answers, because our parting did not reflect badly on me.

But there's no dulling the sting of that core blade. Whenever my mind is idle, songs and memories and a desperate hope that I will see Them again fill it up. I cry silently in public, and wait, patiently and impatiently, until the tears will finally run out. How many months will it take? And more importantly, what I actually fear... Will I be able to get over this heartache without letting go of the hope that I will see Them again? All sense tells me there is no reason I can't. Desire is the partner of sorrow, but if I can make that desire light enough not to crush me, that doesn't immediately mean it will fly out of my head altogether, and what could possibly convince me that going back to such a fine thing, if and when it becomes possible, would not be wonderful?

But still I am afraid to let go too readily.

Estimating Confidence in Astrology

Follow-up to a conversation about Zodiac signs...

I notice a strong correlation between the descriptions on a particular website for the Aries sign, and my own personality. I do not attribute this correlation to any particular cause, and would answer with a couple of vague notions off the top of my head and a shrug if asked to name a phenomenon that caused me to have "Aries" traits.

I do think that astrological signs in general describe collections of personality traits that tend to correlate to one another, such that if any given person possesses one notable trait of a given sign... take Aries and a hot temper as an arbitrary example... it is more likely that that person will exhibit any other given "Aries" trait than it is likely of a random member of the populace, regardless of whether Aries actually is that person's birth sign or not; I am not claiming that being Aries is the cause, only that, for e.g., having a hot temper, and having a passionate approach to romance, are positively correlated.

I don't put any particular stock in Astrology. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd rate the likelihood that the position of earth relative to the stars at birth has a significant and known effect on the development of a person's personality at somewhere in the ballpark of 10-20%, along with most other specific supernatural theories.

I do, from time to time, wonder about the idea, and how it could be true, if it were.

What I actually intended to express confidence in in any way was more or less like this:
If I were to link you to the specific article I found about the Aries sign and asked you to read it and select any given claim it makes about the Aries personality type, I would estimate the likelihood of that particular claim being true enough of me that bearing it in mind would likely explain some of my behaviour at around 80%.

Given that I don't think the stars are the reason, just that the traits described happen to coincide with how I turned out... If I were to make a numerical guess, I'd expect that 20% or less of the population of the Western world match their own Zodiac signs (whatever they may be) that well.

I think that Astrology, like Tarot and similar sorts of things that suggest meanings and explanations behind peoples' behaviour, may in some circumstances have some use in pushing the mind out of an established view to look at things from a new perspective. Reading about an Astrological personality archetype may prompt me to wonder if the perspective described is similar to the perspective of someone I have been arguing with, so that I have a theory that might help me understand them if it proves relevant, rather than being unable to come up with anything besides frustration when their preferences and values are not like mine.

There doesn't need to be any magic behind it at all to have that use. Rather, it is functionally a deck of cards, upon each of which is written, "Is it happening for this reason?" For any given situation, some of the questions will have no bearing on matters and may be discounted out of hand. To others, a good answer is a considerate, "Hm. Maybe. I'll look for evidence to confirm/refute."

If you take this view, then it follows that the mysticism and ceremony surrounding their use exists purely to lend weight and importance to the consideration of the possibility, without which it may be too easy to shrug off the competing theory in favour of one's existing worldview, even if it fails to properly account for the behaviours or events one is noticing.

Tabletop Story: Rogesh the Spy

The last time I played D&D was a cameo in a Pathfinder game while I was visiting an old friend in Northern Ireland. He suggested I make a character to join the party in his game for the short time I was there, so I asked about their current situation in order to make a character who could arise out of it. They were a party at around level 10, I think, and they were on a mission to find various pieces of the true name of a demon who'd been established as a nemesis of theirs. This had taken them most recently to a city of vampires, where they had been tested in battle by the vampire god Malkav (Vampire the Masquerade reference, there) and defeated his avatar, thereby earning his blessing on their quest.

My character was a half-breed (dhampir) called Rogesh who'd grown up in the city and made a name for himself as a thief, spy and assassin. He was a casual worshiper of Malkav and identified with the vampires of the city, but knew he was street trash. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle funded by selling his skills to the nobles in their petty power struggles. He was a rogue/shadow dancer and pretty much all of his powers had to do with shadows. He could step between them, hide well in them, bend them into illusions, and (fun fun flavour) the shadow companion he relied on to scout and sometimes flank for him was his own shadow - as a half-vampire, his human half did cast one, but his studies and powers gave it sentience and independence. When he wanted to stay subtle, he kept it near him, walking with him footstep to footstep as mortals' do, but he would whisper to it sometimes while stalking the seedier streets of the city.

Anyway, he'd been hired to spy on the arrivals to the city who had crashed through the gates a few days earlier, and see what they were up to. He tracked the party to where they were entering the sewers (vampire city sewers, full of blood and viscera), but his stealth was matched by the intuition of their drug-addled seer, who sensed that someone was watching them. This led to an awkward confrontation. Rogesh surrendered immediately (his advantage is stealth - once that's broken, he doesn't have much) and admitted he'd been sent to spy on them, but was somewhat awed when he saw the mark of Malkav's favour which showed magically behind their eyes and was eager to join them when they explained they were on a quest approved of by the vampire god. After all, he could still report back to his employer, and give even better details if he was observing their work from the inside.

In their trek through the sewers, Rogesh helped them fight, earning some trust and respect from the others, and his shadow was destroyed by an unknown danger after he sent it out scouting down a side path. He snuck past a gigantic otyugh embedded in the sewers, and when the rest of the party attracted its attention, he shouted threats at it and shot it in the inside of the mouth until it was convinced it would be better not to eat them, and let them go by.

Finally, they found a fleshy spire covered in writing, which they were sure somehow held the piece of the name they were looking for, but it was trapped, and the demon showed up in an avatar form built of blood from the sewers and fought them. The demon had prepared a strategy for fighting them, but was not expecting Rogesh. It was wearing the shape of a humanoid whose body it had taken over. Apparently she was a relative of one of the party members as well, and was known as a vampire hunter who had once posed enough of a threat to the city's undead population that Malkav rose up and claimed, or proved, his divinity in order to drive her off.

Before the fight, she offered Rogesh that since he was a half-breed, and had no part as yet in their fight, he could join her and serve her forces - or, he could stand against her with the party and be tormented horribly after she won. Rogesh stood uncertain for a moment, then realized he recognized the shape, and made up his mind. He fell to his knees, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he prayed aloud to Malkav. He had never been particularly devout, but he lived his life for life's pleasures, as was Malkav's way, and had always belonged to the city and the vampires. He prayed to Malkav to give him the strength to fight for the love of life and the joy of going down fighting. It seemed his prayer was heard, somehow. As a response to his passionate plea, his shadow returned. Normally it would take a month to grow back after being destroyed, but it came back immediately, visible against the chamber floor, and it looked subtly different, with long, flowing hair as would often be seen in depictions of Malkav in his role as the handsome prince-god of vampires.

The shadow wasn't any more powerful, but it was back to help him fight anyway, and Rogesh dug into the fray, leaping at the demon along with his new companions and digging blades into its back. In the end, they won, and Rogesh survived, falling to the floor of the sewers and laughing manically at how his life had suddenly become entwined in the affairs of gods and demons.

Denouement:
As the adventuring party left the city for their next destination, Rogesh returned to report to all the important vampire nobles (though his client first), and the church of Malkav, what had been happening, and that the demon had sought to usurp Malkav through the religious uprisings of the city's mortals. The uprisings were quashed in a bloody slaughter, Malkav himself taking the form of a gigantic ugly beast to rampage through the streets, supported by priests and warriors.

Rogesh watched the fighting from hidden alcoves in towers, in awe, and later asked a priest at one of the temples why Malkav took the form of an ugly monster when he was fighting. The answer given was that slaughter was an ugly thing, and Malkav did not think it fitting to offer it any of his beauty. Rogesh, who had never been beautiful and had always been a mercenary, found this to be a somewhat validating explanation.

His shadow retained its handsome new shape, although its personality and knowledge remained the same as ever. He was honored as a hero for warning the city of the danger; his reputation was greatly improved, earning him more prestigious contracts; and he told stories of the adventure in the city's bars and brothels while showing off the image of Malkav in his shadow to attract ladies.

Beyond the Emerald Isle

I've left Ireland behind me and moved on to Vienna. The grasses that fly by the train window are green, but dark and dull, not the exceptional brightness I often saw in Irish grass. Why? What is so special about it? Is it a different species of common grass?
I feel loss and already miss the island itself, not to mention the people that I grew so very fond of there. Vienna is interesting and huge, full of young punky people at first glance. It is the first city I have visited where signage is everywhere, but does not speak my language. I stare at public notices dumbly, instinctively trying to read them, wondering what they say.
I immediately feel great pity for those in North America who don't have much English and are at every moment at a disadvantage. I, at least, have a friend by me who grew up here and can help me navigate.

The first morning, after the first night, I wake up and I feel grief, low and soft and lapping like muscle ache. I wonder why, and try to imagine if there is any other reason but the obvious ones (I miss you, I miss you, I'm sorry...). But then, I am naturally and habitually prone to grief. Perhaps the habit and the stress of a long day travelling on little sleep is all the answer there is. Perhaps the answer is just as simple as it seems, and why am I trying to deny it?

Ah, of course. I am looking for something I can do besides waiting for the grief to eventually subside. I want to be good company to my host, rather than crying mournful for all the time I planned to spend here.

I miss you. I miss you. I'm sorry.

Somehow, writing those words presses on the grief more directly than anything else I had tried thinking about or looking at, and pushes tears out of my eyes. This may be some kind of progress. It may be... Important to express it.
My host asks me if I need some tissues. He can see me crying. He might not know what they are called in English, but he holds them out to me with his question, so it is clear what he means.

I miss you, Ashlynn.  I miss you. I'm sorry that my travelling and polyamory was too much for your heart.

I miss you, Coda. I'm sorry I had to go so soon.

I miss you, Ireland...

Distant memories of every love I ever mourned for march solemnly through my head. I feel tired. I feel tired of walking away from people I care about.

I miss you, Alex... I'm sorry, Jack... I miss you, Kitten... I miss you, Damon... I'm sorry, Jason... I'm sorry, Pieter... I miss you, Di... and Zi... I miss you, Robby. I'm so sorry things went that way. I miss you, Zephon. I'm sorry I hurt you... I'm sorry, Fancy... I'm sorry, Wolf...

and now, the latest in a long line joins the list of bright links, fragments of time when someone else shines through the veil of life's general impersonal darkness and pierces my outer skin to reach my heart and shake it... one of those bright as primacy, and sweet, and seeming to promise endurance.

I miss you Eoin. I'm sorry I left. I will try to come back to you. I want to come back to you. I'm... so sorry. I miss you so much.

No doubt, I will miss Sen too, by the time this journey is over.

At every juncture, turning back to the long, long road again.

You may remember me saying this, Eoin; perhaps someday my path will lead me to a place I can really see as home.

Life Across the Sea

The Irish winter is mild compared to Canada. It was particularly mild when I arrived and for a few days then, and felt like spring, but now it's quite bitterly cold enough to be irritating. Being outside and moving is really not a problem in winter clothes, but inside, my apartment is not heated efficiently enough to cope well at all.

Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.

I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.

For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.

In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.

I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.

The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.

At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.

Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.

Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.

An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.

I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.

On The Plane from Iceland to Ireland

Written in the air on 6th of January, 2017

My breath hitches a little. I am on the last leg of my current journey, by air at least. There is an hour or so of bus yet. Irish security, whatever that turns out to be. Some waiting, of course.
After I arrive at my lodgings I plan on going out to local thrift stores to buy some of the things I elected not to bring from home; sheets, a towel, perhaps a pair of shoes or who knows what else might catch my eye.
For now, I am in the softly shaking belly of the great metal bird. Flight attendants dressed in brand purple have been showing everyone about, packing up the plentiful luggage wherever they will fit in the overhead luggage. The surge of speed when we take off scares me, reminding me of my old roller coaster nightmares, but I recover well, and now I am relatively comfortable. Crowded, and feeling the occasional aching and popping of my ears, but relatively comfortable despite that.
My first mp3 player runs out of battery and I switch to music on the second. Sarah McLachlan, her haunting I-miss-you winter songs. It occurs to me that long journeys have always been emotional to me; I have a habit of taking them for romantic reasons. This time is an arguable exception. At least, I see it that way, although I do look forward to meeting my dear friends in Europe. No primary romantic obsession this time though, just good and valued friends with possible benefits to be negotiated.
On the other hand, McLachlan's love songs have often caught at my heart. Ashlynn's recent musing about long-distance travel as a group only encourages me further to pine somewhat for her company beside me in my journeys.
Someday, my love, will we go together, side by side like the seeming partners who share my row with me? I look forward to that day, when you prove against all the world's biases that I don't have to leave love behind when I move on for adventure, for challenge, for fulfilment of potential or whatever else I may seek.
"This is how I see you, in the snow on Christmas morning; love and happiness surround you..." Sarah sings in a whisper, and my breath hitches a little again.
I try not to think about the delays of my RESP cheque, the one thing I am still very worried about in preparing for my term here. There is not much I can do about it now. Instead I think about Dublin and Athlone; the train I will take; whether I will be able to find a payphone to call my new landlord, since my phone will likely not have service in Ireland; whether I will be able to get a temporary phone or plan or something.
My ears crinkle, and the roar of the engines seems much louder all of a sudden. My mind wanders, wondering about astronauts and how riding a rocket bound for space compares to riding an aeroplane bound for the other side of an ocean. I think of the fair where I deliberately challenged my fear of fast rides, and the tree planting camp where I challenged my fear of failure in the face of hard work, and somewhat unintentionally, my claustrophobia. On the first flight into Iceland, I had a window seat, which meant the curving wall against my arm was close and closed-in, giving me an entrapping lack of space.
In the crowded and claustrophobic plane, I nevertheless managed to nap intermittently through much of the flight. For one moment, I think I suffered sleep paralysis again, that struggle to reclaim my body from dreams, to twitch, to so much as open my eyes. I was surprised I slept so easily.
In Toronto Pearson before we left, I dropped my boarding pass somewhere and panicked a bit about it, but the staff reassured me that it could be re-issued at my flight gate; all the data behind it was still there, and I still had my passport.
My sturdy work boots surprised me by setting off the metal detector. I hadn't thought of that. I thought the toes were composite, not real steel. Perhaps it was a protective shank. Anyway, taking off my boots before walking through again was not that much of a hassle. There was a place to buy power adapters at the airport as I suspected there might be.
Between the landing of the train from Union station and the terminal I needed to go to was a quite fast train suspended on high rails (on the subject of being reminded of my fear of roller coasters). Taking it was somewhat uncomfortable, and somewhat fascinating. It's not as though I had much choice.
To get through security, I had to let them throw away a Monster drink I had brought with me and my other water bottle, to buy another drink on the other side of security. I finished eating all the food I'd packed before leaving Iceland on the plane to Dublin. I packed well. The sandwiches were a little repetitive, not to mention deformed by the pressure of other things in my bag my then, but I had enough to eat and the fruit was a delicious side too. I can grab myself something to eat when we land, I suppose. It will be soon. The lights have already been dimmed for landing. It seemed short. It was a pleasure to pass the time by writing here. I look forward to sharing my little stories with my friends.

-----

It turns out, I was mistaken. The lights were being dimmed temporarily for turbulence or something. We still had some hours to go. Nevertheless, I present my record at the time here.