All will be well
Not much to report as of late. I’ve been playing a lot of new games on the new consoles, as well as doing a bit of tinkering. We’ve been adjusting to K’s new job at GameStop, too. Lil is getting used to being okay without K being around, and things are settling down as the older kids get used to helping out more around the house, as well as adjusting to the environment at their new school. It’s not horribly exciting, hence the lack of entries, but it is the next step for us. My work is still very slow, and I’m not sure when it might pick back up if the holidays aren’t helping. In any case, all will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. 
Mask
People are not always what they seem. I was, as a child, exactly what I seemed to be: a daydreamer. Even now, I often get lost in trance-like episodes in which I go to other places or times, and receive information. In high school, sometimes this would lead to overwhelming deja vu incidents, in which I would experience something from different angles that seemed unrelated at the time, only to have the scenarios occur simultaneously later. One such concurrence involved the Queen of Butterflies.
I do not call her this because the person was a Queen, or because she had butterflies, or even because she exhibited the qualities of butterflies. Rather, she asked me to count the butterflies for her, and because of this request, I dubbed her as such. However, let’s go back to the beginning.
I was very excited in my junior year of high school to learn that I would be able to take a creative writing course. My sophomore year it had conflicted with choir, so I could not. However, this year they had added another teacher, and so it was available. The teacher didn’t speak English very well, so I was a bit disappointed, but she was enthusiastic despite the low caliber of students that had taken the class. I was already writing stories based on my Caerlux mythology, and I thought this would be a great venue in which I could explore some of the themes that were swimming around in my head. At least, I thought, I can more clearly define my themes by gaging my own reaction to the results of my writing.
It didn’t go well. The majority of the class were there to avoid doing any work, and I couldn’t make myself comfortable enough with the audience to put out anything of real value. I wrote poetry and danced around assignments, but my work wasn’t meeting my own standards, and I was very disappointed in myself. I continued to write at home, but never brought any of that work to class.
Half-way through the year, we went to a workshop at Fresno State. I was pretty excited to get to go, as only a few from each class were picked for it. Even though my poetry wouldn’t be read, I was eager to get tips, as I felt my poetry was godawful and definitely could stand for some improvement. On the way there, I met the Queen. She was an unassuming but pretty girl, with something of a lazy eye that only showed itself when she wasn’t focused. It reminded me of the ancient oracles with epilepsy: a defect that might hide something astonishing. I had with me a book of my poetry, and she read it. Like many before her, and many after, she offered little in the way of opinions. I usually take that to mean that my work isn’t worthy of comment. But it was still nice that she had read it and been polite. The workshop passed, and as is often the case when one has built up expectations, I left underwhelmed.
A year came and went.
Our concert was in a local church. The angles seemed very steep to me, and the balcony leaned in toward the stage quite far. We were singing something by Rutter. Perhaps it was his Ave Maria? Memory fails me. I was madly in love with another girl, someone who didn’t love me, and who would later laugh at me “because she could”. I was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. In the balcony was a little girl, probably someone’s younger sister or relative. She was upset and was making a great deal of noise. The director was growing angry, and I watched the scene with strange detachment. I was a Bass II that year, although I had Baritone range, and I could sing my part comfortably without a great deal of effort. Then the Queen took the little girl by the hand and began to dance with her. They waltzed, imperfectly but wonderfully around the lower area of the balcony. No one but the choir and the girls (from the lower grade choir) in the balcony could see, and all around faces struggled to maintain composure. I was awestruck. The power conveyed was tangible. I cannot quantify the symbols, but I could feel them unleash emotional wellsprings within me that I had not known before. The key was turning in the lock.
That was only one event. The unraveling was long and difficult. I left home and ran from everything I had once been. In the midst of it all, I found myself wondering what life might have been like had I stayed. I quit everything. I enrolled in the local junior college. In my first class, I saw Her again. It was awkward talking to the person. She was not the symbol I had seen. She told me that they had all understood, that they all knew that I had needed to find something. I read her cards, and she seemed impressed. She left for her next class. The people around me frightened me at some level. They all seemed hollow and false. I had lived in strange places with sick people who had nevertheless maintained their reality, their solidity. I could not bear to become like the shadows and veiled people around me. Once again, I fled, this time back into the crystalline hell I understood.
Women came. Women went. I cycled between drugs and jobs, women and solitude. Finally I called Her. She asked me why I wanted to see her. I told her that when she had danced with the little girl, it had changed me. She said that was an acceptable answer. I nervously drove to her house and knocked. She showed me into her room, where I offered her some of my stash. She shrugged and pulled out a bag of shake. We smoked, and sat quietly. I didn’t know what to say. The room glowed to my eyes, and it seemed holy to me. She told me to count the butterflies, that she probably had over a hundred. I began, but she interrupted. We talked, and the sense of power only increased as she went. I was talking in implications, in implications that lead to other implications, and she could hear me. We went for a drive, and she mused that it was ironic that I should be driving along with her. I couldn’t understand: what did I mean to her? What was my symbolic value? I still don’t know. We talked about nothing, and afterwards, I didn’t really talk to her again.
Now when I see her, every once in awhile, I know that she is just a normal person. The messages I derived from our encounter were only for me. The mask was her physical form, her personality, and the reality beneath moved on. And so I still count the butterflies, although I cannot explain what it means. I wait and watch for the person, although I know she will not wear the same mask. I wonder what person wears me. What do I mask?
Bye bye Ivanhoe
Well, the boxes are being unpacked, but everything is in it’s place. I honestly feel more at home here than I ever did in Ivanhoe. There was always an air of impending violence in Ivanhoe that I guess culminated in the events of the last couple of days there. After Drayton got his hand slammed in the seat (which I talked about earlier), the cousin of the child who did that decided to grab Drayt by the hair and grind his crotch in D’s face while pumping his hips and making grunting noises. So we raised hell with the principle and the District Superintendent (Visalia Unified School District includes Ivanhoe Elementary). We pointed out that D had been reporting lesser incidents of the same character for quite some time, but they had not been documented, so no real action was being taken, because each incident was being treated as the first occurrence of anything like this. There were written reprimands ready for the bus driver’s files and DS was going to do a full review of the documentation process, which was essentially the problem. Then the last day arrived. My wife went down to the school to do some paperwork and pick the kids up, as we had not let them continue riding the bus after the “face-humping” incident. So D was being helpful and was carrying Lily, when a girl decided to stick her foot out and trip him. He twisted and landed on his side so that he wouldn’t fall on Lily, so she wasn’t hurt, but it did scrape him up pretty nicely. This occurred in front of 4 or 5 teachers, the principle and the vice-principle, who had apparently been shielding many of the kids involved in these incidents from getting in trouble. Now it’s out in the open, and hopefully things can begin to change. That night, on the way to the dumpster, a couple of punks basically mugged my son for some trash we were throwing out. So we called the cops, and they ended up arresting a few people that night. We just made our final trip yesterday – to the post office so we could vote. I hope that we’ve made a difference out there, but needless to say, I’m not going to miss Ivanhoe much.
I still mourn.
“There was something Byronic about Oldman, brooding on his past and future, and facing forward to the darkness that shrouds the future in uncertainty. it was a natural thing to write a movement that riffed off of Browing and Byron – Childe Harold to the Dark Tower Came. And it is indeed a quest in music, with the slow unravelling of the filaments that hide a mystery beneath them, brutal encounters in the dark, joyous reunions and finally, victory.”
- Stirling Newberry, commenting on his String Quartet in Bb.
Heh
Ah yes, I forgot to mention that I completely destroyed Lego Star Wars II, and got my 100% completion right before we started moving. Whatta pain in the butt for no cool payoff! Now I’m off to bed.
Glad to be back…
I’m glad to be back online, that is. The move was tiring, but mostly uneventful. The whole affair officially took up two days, although we spent a solid month prior packing. Now, most of the essentials are unpacked, the DSL is back on, and we have phones, beds, and desks.
I have demolished several boxes with great vigor, and in the back of my mind a voice says,
“It’s all right, little brother… there are more!”
- Herger the Joyous, The 13th Warrior
