Be Brave, Be Joyful

I've been working on a bit of Intentional Art for Neeps's room over the past week, and today I finished it up (minus spraying it with sealant, which I'll do tomorrow).  I chose to continue the vaguely nebula-ish theme I started with the heavenly foxes I did before he was born, which meant using a lot of purple and silver, with hints of blue and magenta.  It's basically a glitterific version of my own personal mantra, which I think is a good one (obviously, or I wouldn't use it), and appropriate for just about anyone, including little kids.

I started out by doing an under-drawing of the sigil I use to represent the phrase, "Be Brave, Be Joyful":

Kind of like a hula-dancing snowman?

I did this in black indelible ink, because I wanted it to act like the "bones" of the image, upon which everything else would hang.  I didn't necessarily intend for it to show through on the final image and more than our skeletons show through our skin, but it was an important piece of support.  I painted over the ink with silver acrylic, then sprinkled that with silver glitter, and finally went over the whole thing with a wash of purple.  Then I did my best approximation of a rainbow pull* with magenta, purple, and blue glitter:

(basically I just sort of tilted it and hoped for the best, then swirled up the corners with a brush)

Once that was nice and dry (and smacked on the counter a lot to try to remove excess glitter) I came back with black acrylic to write the actual phrase, "Be Brave Be Joyful".  It still needed something from a visual-weight standpoint, tho', so I added some horizontal lines (and thereby accidentally put the I Ching symbol for thunder, which is so incredibly perfect that I'm pretty sure my subconscious must have been in overdrive).

Then, of course, there needed to be more silver glitter over the letters.

But then it was too much silvery glitter, so I went over it with a wash of black, to take down the foreground bling and bring the focus back to the phrase:

Glitter is hard to capture in photographs.

I'm reasonably satisfied with the results, which are pleasingly graffiti-like (and, obviously, appealingly glittery) but I may eventually call this one a Rough Draft and do it again.  (Artists are allowed to do that, you know.)





*tracking that video down made me incredibly nostalgic for my silk-screening days.  ::sigh::  I need more free time/disposable income.

The Sea is Deep

(an explanation)

It was less than an hour later when the moonrise bells began to peal, and a hush fell over the entire Vault.  All of the younglings paused in their work to listen, to feel, as the gigantic Night Hounds passed out of their Kennel and into the world above.  With them went their piloting crews, made up of the brave men and women who could claim the title of Harrier.  It was a far more dangerous calling than those who ran with the Day Hounds, those who hunted secure in the knowledge that the sun weakened their enemies, and drove them into hiding.  The Day Hounds had long hours of seeking without finding: the Night Hounds did near-constant battle from moonrise to moonset.

"Someday," Miguel whispered.

"Someday nothing, if you don't focus on the task at hand," Lydia hissed, scrubbing hard enough to remove every potential trace of Spores from the metal beneath her brush.  Miguel scowled and returned to his own scrubbing.

"What's gotten into your craw today?" he asked.  Lydia was always serious about their tasks, but rarely so cranky about it.

"Oh, so just because I take this seriously, I've got something in my craw?" she snapped.  Miguel swallowed the sharp retort that sprang to his lips.  A Harrier couldn't afford to lose their temper, so he couldn't, either.  They finished their work in frosty silence, then broke to return to their separate homes for dinner.

As he was climbing into bed later that night, Miguel caught the tremor of a Night Hound's return.  It moved slowly through its descent, and he knew it must have sustained heavy damage to be returning so early.  He heard his father- crippled long ago and now restricted to working within the Vault- gather up his tools and murmur an affectionate parting to his mother.  He and the other mechanics will put it right, Miguel thought, and snuggled deep beneath the covers.  Next to him, his little brother Jeshua whimpered and rolled over in his sleep, so Miguel reached out to lay a comforting hand on him.  The younger boy's breathing quickly evened back out, then deepened, and soon he was dreaming peacefully once more. Miguel, however, lay awake and staring at the dim lights in the common room, mind churning through the events of the evening.  What was going on with Lydia?  He'd try asking again tomorrow, while they were out gathering.  Maybe she'd feel better in the sunlight.

Just then his mother came to stand in the doorway.  "Good night, Miguel," she whispered in a voice that indicated his eyes had better not be open much longer.  She moved away and turned the house lights off, but did not come to join them in the bed.  Miguel hadn't really expected her to: she often stayed up to wait for her husband on those nights he was called to tend a Hound.

Miguel's eyes soon adjusted to the new dark, allowing him to just make out his mother's dim silhouette as she nursed the baby in her rocking chair.  The gentle creak of the chair kept time to her soft lullaby, one she had sung to Jeshua, and to Miguel before him.  The words spoke of a time long lost, of a great body of water known as the sea, and how a new world lay across the other side.  Miguel felt his eyes grow heavy in spite of himself, soothed by the familiar tones.

Tomorrow, he thought sleepily.  Tomorrow I'll find out...

The Moon is High

There is a book that I- well, I was going to say "read", but that's not quite correct.  There is a book that I recite to Neeps every night, as part of our bedtime routine.  I say recite and not read, because after reading it for a week or two, I had it memorized.  Once upon a time I tried to have poetry memorized for recitation- now it's board books.  Oh the times, they are a'changin'.

Anyway.

As I was reciting it last night, it occurred to me that I basically use it as a sleep spell, which got me thinking about spells and teaching rhymes and such, and I started wondering how I might turn the silly little children's book into a darker tale.  Like Ring-Around-the-Rosies is actually about the Black Death.

What follows is (part one of) the result of that- feel free to let me know if you figure out the source material!


***

The boy watched the sun sink in bloody splendor behind the black tangle of trees on the horizon.  Not long now, he thought to himself, and shivered.

"Miguel!" his mother's voice, tight with worry, lashed out at him from the vault door.  "Quit dawdling!"

"Yes mother," he called, and obediently turned back towards the house.  He couldn't help a glance behind, for one last look at the warring colors of the sky, indigo slowly winning out over flame.

"What part of 'quit dawdling' didn't make sense to you?" his mother snapped as he reached the stairs at last.

"Mom, the sun's just now set-"

"Precisely!  Now get below," she gave him a light swat to the back of his head.  "You say you want to be a Harrier- start showing the discipline of one!"  Miguel felt his face heat, the words stinging far more than the blow.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and took off at a trot towards the Youngling's Bath before she could remind him.

He wasn't the last one there, by any stretch of the imagination- but he also wasn't among the first.  His best friend, Lydia, who made it a point to be first at everything she possibly could, waved him down as he entered the enormous, steam-filled chamber.

"Miguel!  Over here!"  Miguel waved back so she'd stop shouting, then shed his clothing, dropping them into the proper baskets and grabbing a small cake of soap from another as he went.

"What took you so long?" Lydia demanded.  She was sitting on the edge of the pool, already covered in white lather, and was systematically working the soap through her short hair.

"The sun has just set," Miguel groused, and jumped into the pool, making a point to splash her as he did so.  When he emerged and blinked the water from his eyes she was glaring at him, re-soaping the parts of her skin the water had cleared.

"Well hurry up, anyway.  I don't want the Titter Twins to take our spot."

Miguel grunted at that, but didn't argue as he began working his own soap into a lather.  Lydia called her cousins, Mariah and Grace, the Titter Twins due to their (admittedly annoying) habit of giggling whenever they thought they'd been particularly clever.  Which was often.  He could see them on the other side of the steaming pool, already working on one another's backs.

"Turn," Lydia said, and Miguel obeyed, letting her scrub the hard-to-reach spot between his shoulder-blades as he finished up his arms.  When she'd finished she presented her own back in turn.  She was more flexible than he, and didn't technically need the assistance, but he eyed the area carefully, anyway.  All it took was one moment of stupid assumption for Contagion to take root.

"Looks good," he said at last.  Lydia didn't respond with words, but instead dunked beneath the water.

Once rinsed, the two of them grabbed towels from the stack, dried off, and hurried into the next chamber to find fresh clothes in their size.  Miguel took a little longer than Lydia- he'd had another growth spurt, and the size he'd been able to wear last week no longer fit.  Lydia tapped her foot, glancing back towards the pool to check on the progress of the Titter Twins.  She frowned, unable to spot them.

At last they were on their way to the Kennel, where the massive, shining Day Hounds awaited their ministrations.

"Damn it," Lydia hissed under her breath.  Miguel followed her gaze upwards to where Mariah and Grace were already climbing into position near the teeth.

"Don't sweat it, Lydia- no one's on the claws, yet, we can still-"

"I hate being beneath them!" Lydia snapped.  They'll drop their brushes on purpose, see if they don't, and then we'll have to interrupt our work to fetch it back for them, the rotten little-"

"Maybe they won't," said Miguel, although he didn't really believe it.  He grabbed two buckets of tools, and shoved one against Lydia's chest, forcing her to grab it.  "C'mon, before someone else takes the claws and we're left doing something tedious, like the hinges."

The Draft Behind the Curtain

I've always been up-front about the fact that this blog is a mix of Real Life and Fiction. Usually it's pretty easy to spot the difference between the two (dragons and unicorns are generally a good tell).  Sure, there's often some Real Life in my Fiction (ex-lovers beware), but sometimes a bit of Fiction creeps into the Real Life, as well, because Real Life is almost never as polished a narrative as we'd like it to be.  Or, as my grandmother used to say, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

Yesterday was an example of that.

What follows is the actual interaction that inspired yesterday's blog, very lightly edited for clarity and the protection of innocents.  I hope you enjoy seeing how I try to keep the truth of something intact, even while altering the hell out of it.

(and for the record, I didn't hesitate at all before I answered his initial question.)

***

Him: has it been a hard transition?

Me: honestly?  not really.  I think managing my expectations has been key 

Me: and frankly being a lucky son-of-a-bitch is coming in SUPER handy for me at the moment (and always, really) 

Me: Neeps is such a happy, easy-temperament baby that it makes life a shit-ton easier than it might be 

Him: that's perfect 

Me: It's like... yes, it's hard, but hard in the way that anything awesome can be hard.  Climbing a new route or hiking up a steep incline or coming up with the perfect backstory for a character- all of these things have a difficulty that varies from day to day as our bodies and minds go through the shit they go through, but all of them are also really rewarding and you feel fiercely proud and happy when you get through to the other side 

Me: If anything I've been a little surprised that I've taken to it as easily and naturally as I have- it hasn't been as hard as I was braced for.  And I think a lot of that is, as already mentioned, pure dumb luck.  BUT I WILL TAKE IT AND BE GRATEFUL. 

Me: it also helps to have a good partner, for reals 

Me: like last night when i went to shake salt on the green beans and instead dumped out about half the container, and yelled "Son of a BITCH" and Nathan came in and saw what I'd done, he said, "I'll take care of it.  You go sit." which is a GREAT way to not get overwhelmed by shit.  Just having someone come in and say, "I'll take care of it," when you're nearing a breaking point

Is It Hard?

"Is it hard?"

The question is asked by an old friend of mine who has no interest in or intention of ever having kids of his own.  He lives far away from me, travels a lot, and will see Neeps perhaps once or twice a year, at best.  We're currently chatting via, well, Chat, and my fingers hover over the keys for a moment before I respond.  Because even the most simple of my answers rapidly becomes complex:

No.

But also yes.

If anything, I've been a little surprised by how easily and naturally I've taken to motherhood.  I was definitely braced for it to be a much more difficult transition (and my rejoining the corporate workforce next week may yet fulfill that expectation).  But it really hasn't been difficult- weird, surprising, even gutting at times, certainly, but not difficult.  I think perhaps my lifelong habit of throwing myself wholly and unconditionally into love is paying off hardcore with this season of my life, because I have that to anchor me: that deep, primal, almost violent love that makes it the most natural thing in the world that I be able to reach deep and give my son what he needs.

But that's not to say it is in fact easy, either.  Because actually, yeah, it is hard.  Hard in the way that anything awesome can be hard.  Climbing an overhung route, or hiking up a steep incline, or coming up with the perfect twist in a narrative- all of those things are hard, hard with a difficulty that varies from day to day as our bodies and minds go through the highs and lows they cycle through.  But hard as all of those processes are, they are also really rewarding, and you feel fiercely proud and happy when you get through to the other side.

And, of course, it helps to have a good partner.

I don't want to say that I couldn't do this without Nathan, because I've seen first-hand that you can and will do whatever you have to do for your children, with or without a partner, but I will say that he makes it infinitely easier.  Every time I'm reaching the edge of my endurance, I find him there, ready to carry me until I can start walking again.

So no, it isn't hard.  Except that yes, it is hard.  But most importantly?  It's worth it.  Easy or hard, it's so worth it.

Taken With Too Many Grains

Sometime you accidentally do something spectacularly dumb.

Like, say, use the wrong side of the salt shaker.  Just for example.

And then your husband walks in and says he'll take care of fixing it, so you can just go sit on the couch and watch Castle.  (Thank goodness for good lifemates.)

Intro to Jane

Jane Sydney was an eye-catching woman.

The first thing that Daniel noticed was her flaming red hair: he imagined that’s what drew most people’s notice.  Even smoothed back and rolled demurely into a chignon, there was something wild about it.  He reckoned it was natural: she had the sort of translucent skin that spoke of Irish ancestry, although it surprised him that she didn’t appear to have a single freckle.  Odd, for a woman living on the coast, even such a rainy one as Oregon’s.  But then again, she was wearing what he’d swear was a dress from the 1940s or ‘50s: pale blue fabric fitted through the sleeves and bodice, but swinging out wide from the hips.  It came down past her knees, but was short enough to reveal a pair of shapely calves, which tapered down into feet wearing a pair of peep-toe heels, perfectly matched to the bright red of her lipstick.  She might just be the sort of woman who wore big hats and carried a parasol.

And damned if there wasn’t a string of pearls around her neck.

She was engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat intense conversation with an absolutely ancient gentleman, so Daniel turned his attention to the art.  Several different artists had work on display, so far as he could tell, but every piece was somehow nautically-themed.  Appropriate, for a seaside gallery.  He leaned in to more closely examine a miniature watercolor of a small boat dancing on a shimmering violet ocean.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”  Her voice was a pleasant contralto, and when Daniel turned to face her, he saw that her smile reached the corners of her dark gray eyes.  He smiled back.

“I certainly hope so.  I was told you run this gallery?”

“Yes,” she said, and he thought he heard a touch of wariness creep into her voice.  “I own the Storm’s Edge.  Were you interested in making a purchase?”