Throwback Thursday: April 24, 2012

There were twenty-six days left until graduation.  That was my primary concern on this date two years ago.  My calendar marks events that I meant to attend and didn’t, due dates for class assignments, rehearsals for final performances and ceremonies honoring my accomplishments, and every single day had a little pencil mark counting down the days left.

I don’t like to think of myself wishing those days away.  My last days at my beloved alma mater, the last days living with my wonderfully mouthy college roommate and my nerdy neighbor, those last few tranquil classes (I scheduled my senior year very carefully)—they were precious times.  But living in those moments, you really can’t help yourself.  The coming change, the leap from college to “adulthood”, whatever that is, was all-consuming.  I thought I was ready, and I wanted it.  As it turns out, I wasn’t quite, but it only took a summer sleeping on the couch and a gentle kick in the pants to make me so.  But that’s a topic for another throwback.

Those days—the days when my homework was dwindling and I was easy while my classmates panicked, the days I spent finishing my thesis and dreaming about my own apartment and total freedom—were dreamy, peaceful times.  I may not have left college with a bang, but that wasn’t my style anyway.  I sauntered through my days, counting off each one, and looking ahead.  I don’t think that’s a terrible way to live life.

The End

It’s hard for me to move between worlds.  Don’t worry, I’m not claiming that I actually left good ol’ Terra today.  As a matter of fact, metaphorically, I was still on the same continent.  I was reading Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey, the last book of its series, and a good portion of the book takes place in North America, among a fantasy equivalent of the Aztecs.  The story—which is the conclusion of three trilogies of books, beginning with Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Scion, and Naamah’s Kiss, respectively—is a revised history of the world spanning from the late middle ages to the end of the fifteenth century, centered on present-day France.  This land, called Terre d’Ange in the books, is the homeland of a people who are descended from angels, their primary god giving them only one precept: Love As Thou Wilt.

The books are beautifully done.  The first series follows Phédre no Delaunay, a courtesan and spy chosen by the one-time Punisher of God to endure pain as pleasure.  She moves through a world of intrigue, art, beauty, and yes, gratuitous sex.  In the course of three books, Phédre becomes a great heroine, traveling all across the known world and saving her homeland multiple times.  She even manages to rescue a young prince, the son of her deadliest enemy, and it is this boy, Imriel, who is the hero of the following series.  He, too, journeys all across the world, more often missing than not, but he, too, finds love by the end of the series.  I had thought that his story was the last that would be set in this intoxicating world, but I was wrong.  Carey wasn’t finished, and in Naamah’s Kiss, she introduced a new heroine, the wild and beautiful Moirin mac Fainche, daughter of a d’Angeline priest of desire and a witch of the Alban faith that worships the Great Bear.  I know, complicated.  If you read them, I advise that you begin with Phédre’s stories, otherwise all the implications will be lost to you.

Moirin’s stories are filled with more magic than in the previous books, and to be honest, the magic put a toll on my ability to disbelieve.  Poor Moirin is put through a lot, more even than one tends to expect from the heroines of novels, without much of a chance to rest.  Still, the books are beautifully written, with Moirin an impulsive, loving, and sexy character who is easy to like.  And the books do have something simply wonderful to say about the value of all faiths and the commonality of the human condition.  Finally, it is simply fascinating to look at our world in a new light. 

It was out of this world that I rose tonight, reluctantly, on closing the covers of the last book.  I sighed, smoothed my hands over the cover, and went to put it back on the shelf, and outwardly, that was that.  But in my head I’m still caught by the faces of Moirin and Bao and Desirée and Thierry and Brother Phanuel, as well as the City of Elua, Bryn Gorrydum, and the true Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond.  It’s hard to leave them behind, hard to remember that there is no magic in the world I’ve returned to, or at least if there is, it’s only the ordinary, every-day kind.  It’s hard for me to move on, and in a way I don’t want to.  I want to nurse this painful softness to myself, to appreciate just a little longer the art of a good story.  This is the gift I give to the author, the tribute I pay to her work, and I know that even though she may not know of it, she is glad of it.  It’s all I hope for in my own future, that someday someone might do the same for my own books, closing the last cover and simultaneously exalting in and mourning the end.

An Evening Walk

It has been a long time since I wanted to go to bed early due to physical weariness.  This evening, my roommate and I went on a long walk on a wooded trail, then spent nearly twenty minutes on the swings, because we’re adults.  I was quite worn out by the time we were done, mostly because I am horrendously out of shape.  It’s a good feeling, though, one that I’ve missed without realizing that I missed it.

So much of my life these days has been stationary.  My job is fairly physical, true, but the moment I get home I sit down in front of my computer, and for hours the only parts of me that will move are my hands.  Sometimes not even them, if I’m being particularly lazy and just scrolling through Facebook or Pinterest.  Books take up much of the rest of my time, and physical activity isn’t a priority for me.

As a kid, though, I was a mover and shaker.  I did gymnastics and soccer for years, and I was always climbing trees and running across the fields.  In high school I did marching band, and anyone who doesn’t believe that to be a sport has never held up a three-pound weight for eight minutes straight whilst playing fortissimo and running the equivalent of the hundred-yard dash in step. 

I’ve become more introspective over the years, I suppose.  Able to find privacy and inspiration in my own head, I didn’t spend as much time looking for it outdoors.  But when I gave up these activities, I also gave up the thrill of a racing pulse, the pleasant almost-ache of warm muscles, the sweet rush of quickened breath.  Tonight’s excursion, however brief, reminded me that sometimes it’s just as nice to exist inside this body as away from it.  And this world, with its cloudy moons, soft breezes, cool raindrops, and yes, swingsets, is just as wonderful—if not more so—as any I could create.