An End to Somewhat Self-Imposed Exile, or Post The Fourteenth To Those Keeping Score: Reverie And The Revered

   Well gods! I have been gone while now, haven't I... For anyone wondering, it wasn't due to any great cataclysmic event, no psyche-shattering realization, nor even any petty annoyance or squabble. It wasn't even a collection of minor conditions; I just sorta stopped. I didn't lose interest, I didn't put it on a back burner for some other project - I just forgot to post for a few weeks, which became a few months, then half a year... well, you know how that goes. I even started on an alternative 14th post sometime in October, but never saw it finished due to technological impairments. But I'm back now, and with a new computer to boot! All and all and all and a little more, things have been looking up in my life.

   I've merely been struggling my way through the usual daily morass of apathy, drama, and bouts of ritual scarification. Nothing to complain about in truth, and plenty to smile about, much as my morose self is loathe to admit it. Last May we got yet another addition to the house, something I've been over the moon about; I managed to work up the nerve to call my father... perhaps the subject for another post; Mimi's pretty much all grown up and her sister Snickers and Snickers' kittens have come into our lives to stay (bringing the number of cats up to seven); Nathan's hied off to college and is thriving; I've begun studying several extinct abjads and alphabets as well as looking into Eastern European pagan revival and a general upsurge in my more spiritual pursuits - the changes in my life of late have been staggering. Still, though my life's been busy and bustling, I've hardly been kept from my thoughts - and what thoughts have found me of late!

   Recently the thought of thought itself has been haunting me - the violent, staggering poignancy of human comprehension, even in its lowliest forms - the awe-inspiring ability of man to take in the world around him, to ponder, to do more than simply survive. What evolutionary path led us to this - to the ability to grasp the abstract, the intangible, the bare mechanisms of the universe, our creator? How is it we came to comprehend ourselves, when did awareness begin to grace our ancestors? At what point did the need for such a power arise? It's enough to leave me reeling in wonder. I've just enough mind to know how little I have, and to lament my inability to comprehend the infinite nature of creation, to know what is there without ever being able to learn let alone master even the smallest fragment of it. Such realizations are bitter at first, but in time I've grown to be thankful of them, to have the time and inclination, as well as the childish wonder to appreciate them endlessly. I've wondered too at the thought of souls and gods as of late, and of the roles and personas of archetypes in mankind's understanding of himself and the world within and without, if there is really a true differentiation. The masks and facets we pile upon ourselves and others make me wonder if we are not the same - simply faces and names hiding one true self, one thought, one as-of-yet unthinkable truth.

   People often ask me about my religion, about what gods I believe in. My answer is simple - all. I believe in gods as thoughts, as the personification of that which our mind needs to humanize, as that which we fear or cannot grasp, or as the epitome of what we wish ourselves to be, dreamt up by man to give form and face to a world he couldn't understand, a universe we can still scarcely take in. I believe too that thoughts have power over the thinker, and over those who let themselves be swayed by the thoughts and words of others. As for divinity, I can think of nothing more divine or holy than man's propensity for thought. Every thought - good or wicked, selfless or greedy, simple or abstract - is a prayer, an exaltation of the most remarkable thing in existence - consciousness.

   And how I pray... Each day finds me brimming with new musings and queries, new thoughts leading to places I've never been. I wonder at the luck I've been given, at the love that surrounds me everyday from my family, from my wonderful husband, from my beloved cicisbeo, and from my friends who encourage me at every turn. I wonder how it is that a wretch like I might have all this when so many have no one. It's really astounding.

   Even as I think of the minds of man at large, I am still just learning myself. My dabblings in the more... scurrilous or scandalous of my interests have begun to unearth facets of myself I never realized. Some of them are heinous, terrifying. To act on a few would be my certain undoing, but there's a peace to knowing them, too. Suddenly parts of me I once saw as irreconcilable with one another, as paradoxically extreme antipodes have links, bridges hidden from myself  for my entire life. In looking into my darker fancies, I've been shedding light. As I explore secrets of myself under a false name, I come to know Endiry better than I ever had. Every time I look into one thing, I find three more that, though never having attempted them, they speak to me and strike me in a way I know I love. As I said, some realizations are a bit ghastly, some viler than I'd care to admit, I'm coming to know who I share my skin and skull with - a very strange creature indeed.

   It's all helped me put a lot of pieces in place, to get a more accurate picture in regards to who I am, and what I consider myself. It's also let me take a few skeletons out of my rather crowded closet and lay them at last to rest. For one, gender. I know I went into this also in a previous post, and anyone who knows me knows I tend to worship at the altar of all things masculine. I love maleness. I love strength, sureness, intelligence, ruggedness. I even try to emulate these myself. I realize though, now, that I am not a male. I want to act the part, even look it at times, but internally I am female. I am a girl, and through my delvings I've begun to reconcile this with who I am and what I love and hate about myself.

   I should clarify before I go much farther, as to what precisely I mean by 'manly', since the hideous parody often passed off as such today is an abomination to sensibilities like mine. No, when I think of a man, one poem springs to mind, a poem burned into my mind since childhood. Rudyard and I apparently share more than our birthdays; the picture of masculinity I was raised with was tantamount to what he described in 'If'. For those unfamiliar with my favorite bit of Kipling's verse, or perhaps not as well acquainted with it as me, it follows as such:

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

   My father read this to me growing up, and something in it struck me so; it rang true to me. I aspired to be man, to make him, and myself, proud. I'm a girl. I'm not great at being a girl, but I am. I've realized though, that masculinity and femininity aren't opposite ends of a scale - they're separate, utterly independent of one another. I may be a girl, but that doesn't change how I'd treat triumph and disaster, impostors or no; it doesn't mean I can't take on that unforgiving minute and give it my all; it doesn't mean giving up. Being a girl doesn't mean I'm not a Man. It doesn't mean I can't keep my head, that I can't find it in myself to say 'hold on'; if anything, it's made me stronger, given me the courage and constitution to do those things and more. Being a girl who wants to be something better than I was born, who wants to be a Man has driven me harder and farther than I'd likely have ever gone as a boy. And I've begun to really appreciate that. I've come to look at that girl, and smile. She's made me stronger than I've ever given her credit for. Plus, when all else fails, it's easier to get away with trouble as a girl!

   Alright, alright, babblings and irrelevant revelations aside, life's been wonderful for me. I've been eating better, and my cicisbeo's been keeping me honest, as well as getting me to exercise. Every week we walk to the local grocers three times. Rain or sweltering heat we manage, and I've been toughening back up. Our future plans include getting back into martial arts training and sparring, but for now just making it to and from the store is enough for ones as... rubenesque as us at the moment. Also I've become something of a culinary disaster of late; not sure what's come over me, but hopefully it'll leave off before long - I've a great lovely spice shipment come in as a late, late, late birthday present of sorts: cardamom, caraway, angelica, and more... it's all so lovely! I also got a pound of delicious gunpowder green I keep managing to burn into inedible waste... Enough to bring a tear to my eye.

   Ah, but the cardamom... I know Herbert described the spice of Arakis as cinnamonish, but I can't help but think of the spice 'melange' every time I catch the exotic scent of this spice. From Finnish pullah to the Afghan feast I helped pull off a couple years ago, to my homemade chai masala mix and even my coffee, this gorgeous spice is indispensable and unmistakable! Despite it's price (third dearest after saffron and vanilla), I couldn't consider parting with it. Its redolent warmth, its ambrosial hints.. its bright, irreplaceable presence in any dish that calls for it is delectable.

    Well, my poor cicisbeo's growing impatient with my waxing on all night; he's like a puppy, and I've left the poor thing pacing long enough! Until I write again my lovelies, take care of yourselves and thanks for listening to my probably incoherent drivel once more. I hope to be writing regularly again here, so fret not - no more year long absences, not if it can be helped at least! Tschüss!