Author Archives: lydias

Photo by Sir Gawain

Just tuning in? Start here.

Daphne sat on the bench next to the fire and looked around the small, crowded living space. Paige snored in the rocking chair at the corner of the room. No matter how often Daphne tried to get the older woman to move in closer to the fire she always drifted back to what must be the coldest corner of the main room.

“He’ll see me,” Paige muttered the last time Daphne woke her up to try yet again. “Best to stay out of his way.” Daphne sighed and tucked another blanket around Paige’s feet before going to check on the children. They were still recovering from a summer of disease and near-starvation, and both of them were far too skinny and listless for their ages. They were actually curled up on Mariposa’s bed sleeping now, although soon they’d need to be woken up for dinner.

Hopefully a good harvest would change that. Mariposa had spent a good part of the day tilling the garden and preparing it for the upcoming planting season, and Daphne could hear tiny splashes coming from the bedroom. They normally didn’t waste much water this time of year, but the poor girl had been caked with dust when she walked in the front door a little while ago. Even Daphne’s inherent thriftiness couldn’t begrudge the idea of having a clean face and hands at dinner after a long, sweaty day of work.

Lemon climbed up on the bench to rest his head and paws on her lap. Apple and Ambrosia still glared at him every time he wandered too close to the wooden crates that Isaac installed in a rectangular formation on the east side of the room. They still weren’t pleased with their exuberant new roommate, but having a place to hide from the dog made him less of a threat. If only Daphne could convince Lemon to stop sitting in the centre of the room and staring at them as he wagged his tail. He was content to cuddle her for now, but she knew that he’d go back to old habits as soon as she stood up to set the table.

“They might learn to like you if you didn’t try so hard to make them part of your pack,” she said out loud. The dog whined and looked up at her.

“Well, you could at least give it a try!” It had been a long time since she’d carried on both halves of a conversation. As nice as it was to have her sons living with her again, Daphne missed the solitude of her old life. There was something to be said for quietly stewing in your own thoughts sometimes, and that was hard to do while looking after two small children and an old, forgetful woman in someone else’s house.

Daphne patted Lemon’s head absentmindedly as she stirred the beans and watched the tea pot. It should start boiling soon, and she wanted to have hot tea ready for everyone as soon as they were ready to eat. Normally she would have checked the tablet again for new messages, but whatever was powering it had slowly faded away. Now she couldn’t get it to turn on no matter what part of it she touched. The device had been tucked away in the bedroom for safekeeping until they met someone who knew what went wrong.

She heard the sound of boots stomping. Ephraim and Isaac must be finished with their chores by now. Maybe they’d even found something to add to the small pot of beans bubbling over the fire. In better days it would have fed half their number, but Daphne was grateful that they had anything at all. With autumn in full swing things were bound to get better soon.

Mariposa’s house wasn’t exactly home, but it would do for now.

…To be continued in January 2014!

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Snobs Kill Books via matthaig1. I’ve never understood the concept of hating something because it’s too mainstream. When I recommend a book at On the Other Hand it’s because I loved it. Genre and the level of popularity has nothing to do with it except with how I found out it existed. Some of the people who recommend books to me are into very mainstream authors. Others aren’t. Both groups are highly appreciated.

Chanukah, Feminism, and the Heroism of Yehudit. This is a really interesting story.

Ma’am, Miss, Lady… what do I say? The comment section isn’t anything to write home about, but the blog post itself is full of smart observations about the types of titles society does and does not give to women.  Sometimes the concept of micro-aggressions is taken too seriously. This is not one of them.

Choose to Make Christmas Merry via JesusNeedsNewPR. My husband and I have set similar boundaries. It’s glorious.

Why Can’t We Just Talk About Sex? I think it boils down to judgment. Talking about your sex life opens the door to other people’s opinions on who you’re sleeping with, what kinds of sex you’re having, what type of birth control you are or are not using (assuming you’re doing the sorts of things that could potentially lead to pregnancy), and a whole host of other issues that can be quite controversial in certain circles. There are some damn good reasons why sex, religion, politics, and money have traditionally been considered off-limits for polite conversation. I completely support the idea of other people feeling comfortable talking about this stuff, but this is still a fairly private topic for me.

News Is Bad For You – And Giving Up Reading It Will Make You Happier via TammySchoch. My life is much calmer and happier since I stopped following the news. I still hear the really important stuff through Twitter or conversations with friends, but I no longer have to filter through all of those alarming stories that make the world seem like a much scarier place than it actually is.

Punctuation Social Personalities. To this list I’d add:

)( Continues to drag controversial topics back into the fray in the faint hope of changing your mind.

% Loves playing devil’s advocate to keep the conversation “balanced.”

~ More interested in knowing why you believe than what you believe.

<) Would rather eat an ice-cream cone than debate.

**** Curses for the shock value of it, but would never use the same language in front of his or her grandparents.

:O Loves to gossip. Terrible at keeping secrets.

:1 Has nothing useful to say, so says nothing.

 

How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow makes a lot of sense.

I’m not Buddhist, but their teachings about living in the moment and not becoming too attached to the way things are resonates with me. This book is written for those of us who appreciate Buddhist wisdom without necessarily believing everything it teaches. I don’t think you need to agree with everything in order to glean some good stuff out of Buddhist thought, and this is a great place to start.

What have you been reading?

This is the perfect short film to watch if you’re starting to get annoyed with all of the Christmas music playing everywhere.

If the video doesn’t play, click here.

Photo by Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho.

Just tuning in? Start here.

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

What is it about walking in the dark alone after dark that made long-forgotten pieces of childhood bubble to the surface?

The moon was full and bright, and as much as Daphne was looking forward to going back into her warm house she savoured these moments of quiet solitude.

“I wonder where Paul was going?” she said to no one in particular. She’d only ever heard bits and pieces of his odyssey, and much of what she knew seemed nonsensical. Who had ever heard of floating on water for days and days without drowning? There was a time when she hadn’t believed that anyone would run away from invaders either, although these days that decision was beginning to make more sense.

“Oma, what’s an arse?” The small boy sitting at the table should be sleeping by now. And how on earth did he figure out how to turn the tablet on? It was slowly becoming more and more difficult to rouse even for those who’d once found it easy to use.

“It’s another word for donkey.”

“Oh. Why wouldn’t you want to sit on one?” The corner of Daphne’s mouth twitched.

“Well, would you like it if someone else sat on you?”

“Oh.”

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I’m not sleepy anymore.  I got scared when I woke up and you weren’t here.”

“I’m here now. Go lie down and I’ll tell you one more story.” The child was getting attached to her. Daphne wasn’t entirely convinced this was a good thing. She’d raised her family and never would have thought she’d start over almost from the beginning of it. A year ago she was thrilled to be finished cooking, cleaning, and sewing for two small people as well as herself, and yet there was a small corner of her heart that tugged every time Felix called her Oma.

This time, at least, she wouldn’t be doing it alone. They still had their actual great-grandmother, and at nearly 15 her sons were old enough to take over much of the physical labour of running a farm. If the boy and his sister stayed longterm at least the responsibility of raising them would be pooled among several adults. She didn’t regret keeping her sons, but Daphne understood now why so many people thought the job of raising them shouldn’t belong to her alone. It wasn’t that she was incapable of doing a good job. They simply thought – and she agreed – that no one should be forced to work around the clock.

Having siblings and parents around to help out mitigated the pressure in most families. Daphne’s situation had been an unique one.

Isaac and Ephraim returned half an hour later barehanded. There would be no last-minute dinner tonight. As soon as they’d taken off their coats she explained the troubling conversation she’d just had with Sean and Raquel. She still didn’t know if Mariposa was willing to help them, but from what she’d observed about the younger woman she wouldn’t be surprised if the answer was yes.

“It’s not safe here,” she said, motioning to the bedroom where the boy slept. “I hope the fervour blows over soon, but in the meantime I don’t know if we can keep Felix safe as long as we’re living in Mingus.”

“Does Peoria want us, though?” Ephraim asked. It was a a fair question.

“They’re larger but less well organized,” she replied. Due to a quirk in the geography of the land Peoria was less likely to run into water shortages. Several of the creeks in surrounding communities poured into larger bodies of water that ran through their land. The soil was no better or worse than could be found anywhere else, but the relative lack of competition over water supplies made their court system much quieter. Mariposa and the other ombudsmen spent most of their time fielding inheritance and custody cases. Even those were rare.

“I think we’re less likely to run into trouble if Mariposa is on our side,” Isaac said. “If I take the mule I can be there and back before sunrise. Stay here, and don’t answer the door for anyone but me.”

It was a long, tense night until his return. Daphne and Ephraim took turns keeping watch and packing the bare minimum of supplies while the rest of the family slept. He insisted on taking the first watch, so when Daphne woke up and replaced him she purposefully kept working until nearly sunrise. It didn’t feel right to expect her own child to protect her, and with as little physical labour as she’d been physically able to do over the past few months Daphne thought she could finally pull her own weight by allowing her son to have the lion’s share of the rest.

When the sun began peeking up over the foothills Daphne started boiling water for the morning breakfast tea. If nothing else they needed to be well hydrated for the journey ahead. Two small children and two adult who had trouble walking long distances would certain stretch this trip out over the course of two days. Perhaps even longer.

Just as the water began boiling over she heard a knock at the door. Lemon barked a friendly hello as Daphne hurried over to see who was there.

Isaac.

“I have good news,” He said as soon as she opened the door. “Mariposa wants us to stay with her, and she borrowed a mule from a neighbour so you don’t have to walk the whole way there alone.”

A dark brown creature stood in the centre of the yard flicking his ears. Daphne had never seen a content mule before, but if such a creature existed she had no doubt he’d look just like this one. After removing the water from the fire and spooning herbs and hot water into each mug she walked into the yard to greet him.

Lemon snuck out of the house before Daphne could grab him, but to her surprise the new mule leaned over and sniffed the dog. Lemon responded with a friendly lick before walking over to offer the same treatment to Daphne’s mule.

She was still incredibly wary of his drooling affection, but at least she didn’t run away quite as quickly as she had last time. Isaac cursed under his breath before grabbing her halter and leading her into the storage shed. It was better to keep them apart until the trek truly began.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

SaritaAgerman is looking for Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanist perspectives on Christmas. Please contact her through Twitter if you’re willing to answer some questions.

Being My Friend Does Not Make You A Hero.  What a great post.

From You’ll Have to Kill a Child but at Least You’ll Look Good Doing It:

The Capitol is actually a source of pain, oppression, and fear for Katniss, her family, her friends, and the people of Panem. The Capitol are the enemy: its citizens are vapid, selfish, exploitative, narcissistic and worst of all apathetic; they don’t care about where their new dress comes from or who is making their dinner or how many children died making their new emerald necklace; they live in such excess that they purge between meals at parties while the people who sourced that food are starving in the fields; they literally place bets on the deaths of children! We really feel like we can’t drive that one home enough. Like, they just make kids kill each other on live TV and then the kids who survive grow up to be sold into sex slavery or to abuse alcohol as a coping mechanism or to be so PTSD-stricken that they can’t even talk anymore.

Inside the Safe House via jdubqca. I love J. Matthew Waters poems. If you don’t follow his blog already, go dig into it! This poem in particular catapulted me back to the endless afternoons of childhood play.

See You Later, Brother. I cried. Did you?

Why the Stupid Think They’re Smart via TBilich. Here’s another example of how the Dunning-Kruger effect works. If you haven’t heard of that phrase before, don’t worry. It is explained in the post.

Thanksgiving Candles via Jacqueline_Czel. Yes, this is a week late, but it’s still a great poem.

The Light. This photograph reminds me of the Emily Dickinson poem that starts with this stanza:

“ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all -“

I sympathize with everything in No Kids: 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Kids, but I ultimately made the decision to never become a mother due to my profound lack of desire to do so. Choosing to bring another person into the world is one of the most important decisions you can make as an adult, and I don’t think it should done unless you’re 100% committed to either spending the next 18 years of your life taking care of them or finding someone else who will take on that role.

People who discover that you’re childfree tend to ask the same questions over and over again. What I like about this book is that it answers them in short, quippy passages that are as funny as they are brutally honest. Now if we could only get versions of this book for LGBT-ers, people who aren’t religious, and other commonly misunderstood groups!

What have you been reading?

Photo by Zzubnik.

Old is thinking you know all of the questions and writing out the answers to them in advance.

Old is refusing to change your answers even if they have nothing to do with the actual questions that present themselves.

Old is being afraid to learn something new, or thinking that you’ll never master it because it’s been so long since you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone. So rather than trying you give up before it even begins.

Old is worrying about getting old.

Old is judging other people by their age. Or gender. Or race. Or sexual orientation. Or class.

Old is shoving yourself and others into boxes based on these things.

Old is parroting what someone else said without ever stopping to consider whether you truly agree with them.

All of us will age. Not all of us will grow old.

If the video above doesn’t play, click here.

I find Sally Kohn’s point of view really interesting. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she says, but I’d love to sit down over dinner with her one day and hash out our differences.

If you have five minutes, give this video a try.

Photo by Crashsystems.

Just tuning in? Start here.

“Daphne, it’s me,” a deep baritone whispered from the other side of the door. Neither Isaac nor Ephraim’s voices had changed that much since they slowly began transitioning into adulthood, but it’s familiarity eased the drums beating in her chest. The sound of boots grinding into the pebbles outside her front door temporarily distorted what Sean said after that.

Daphne opened the door a crack and peered out into a yard that was rapidly growing dark. A short, young woman with long, dark brown hair stood at the doorstep nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the next.

Raquel flashed a weak smile, her husband standing behind her with a grim expression on his face.

“Come in,” Daphne said. “Is this about my boys?” If her sons had been injured out there it was unlikely anyone would have found them this soon, but Daphne was having trouble imagining what else might have prompted Sean and his newest wife to make such an impromptu visit.

“No, we haven’t heard from them,” the younger woman said with a frown. “What are they doing out there alone?” Daphne explained the state of her cupboards as she invited Sean and Raquel in for some tea. Now that there was nothing left to hoard it was the least she could do.

“There have been a lot of deaths this summer,” Sean said, “and people want to know why they happened.” It was such an obvious statement Daphne wasn’t quite sure why he brought it up. Now that the pace of their daily lives had slowed down to a crawl thanks to the lack of food and the sudden disappearance of the military it was impossible to ignore everything they had lost.

“You know how the old folks are,” he began again.

“Well, not all of them,” Raquel said before he could continue. “But the Harris’ and the Grabers’ think the gods are angry with us.” A thin, white jolt of fear slid down Daphne’s spine. Both extended families included at least one member who had been marked by the gods in some way. The Harris family had a teenage son who had always found it very difficult to learn new things. Jakob spent most of his time repeating the same set of simple chores. The Grabers had a young granddaughter who, like Felix, had been born with heterochromia. Unlike Daphne the Grabers saw it as a warning sign, and with the sickness earlier in the summer and the influx of strangers they had grown even more suspicious.

“Haven’t you tried to speak to them?” Sean was so young that Daphne wasn’t sure if even his in-laws would listen to him, but the fact that he was an ombudsmen was bound to help.

“We wouldn’t be here if they’d listened.”

It had begun then. While the idea that the gods could be appeased with sacrifices was slowly dying out, interest in it sometimes flared up again when nothing else worked.  There were no reliable methods of communicating with the spirits that sometimes guided the affairs of humanity, after all, and one person’s guess was as good as anyone else’s. Doing something felt better than sitting back and hoping things would improve.

“Nevada is with Jakob and the children,” Raquel said, nodding her head toward the hills. It was much easier for two adults to move silently through the foothills than to bring the entire family out into the open with them.”We’re making a run for Peoria, but Sean thought you should know what was happening. They could come for Felix next, especially now that he’s alone.”

Daphne bristled. She’d taken the boy and his family in when no one else would and shared everything she owned with them. He might have been an orphan, but he was hardly alone.

“You know what she means, Daphne,” Sean said. The opinion of a kindly – if also eccentric and rather asocial – neighbour held much less weight in these matters than what his parents would have said if they were still alive.

“You could come with us.” Daphne couldn’t quite tell if he was asking a question or issuing an invitation, but she couldn’t leave without her sons. Even if they returned right away Daphne doubted the mule could carry Paige and herself. Neither of them were able to walk such a long distance alone.

Raquel and Sean nodded understandingly before telling Daphne they were headed as deeply into Peoria as they could travel by sunrise.

“I’ll leave word with Mariposa. Maybe she can send help.”

With that Daphne wished her visitors luck and carefully shut the door behind them. The strange stone was beeping again, although she’d noticed that its screen had slowly begun to dim. She hesitated for a moment, and then decided to bring another bucket of water to the mule before reading the newest letters. The last round had including nothing but a series of depraved jokes that made her roll her eyes before tucking the strange device back into the pantry.

The shed her sons had cleared out for their unexpected visitor was by far the oldest building on Daphne’s land. A hole patched earlier in the year was already beginning to show signs of peeling away, but the creature had so little room to move in the shed that Daphne thought the extra fresh air might be good for her. To be honest Daphne wasn’t entirely sure if mules needed to sleep indoors at all. She had such little experience with them that all she could assume was that they needed the same things people did.

Including a name.

The creature was quiet, peaceful, and dusty brown in colour. She was either still quite shy around her new humans or would always blend into the background so effortlessly.

Dusty?

Effortless?

Lucky?

Eventually Daphne would uncover her name. It just might take a while. She patted the mule’s head and slowly walked back into the house. There was still no sign of her sons, but she had left a little pot of water boiling. If nothing else Daphne would enjoy a strong cup of mint tea as she read a second batch of dirty jokes.

What she wasn’t expecting was that someone else had gotten to them first.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Life is a Picture, but You Live in a Pixel. Why material possessions and having more money are not the key to longterm happiness. The only thing I would add to this is that it is important to have enough money to cover your basic needs. Sometimes I think that cartoons like that assume everyone in the world is comfortably middle class, and that is clearly not the case.

Dirds. Dog heads photoshopped onto bird bodies are the cutest damn thing I’ve seen in ages. When my husband first showed them to me I squealed.

The Case Against “Fluff” Pieces on WordPress via dlmchale. A sobering reminder for those of us lucky enough to have Internet access. This sort of thing is a giant, flashing red mark in the “god doesn’t exist” and/or “even if there is a god, s/he is anything but benevolent” columns in my book. I can’t fathom how any being with a shred of compassion could overlook so much suffering.

Cowboy Scholars. If I was physically strong enough to keep up with the physical labour I’d give this career a try in a heartbeat.

I Love My Family But Loathe Their Politics. What a powerful essay! Knowing how to carry a conversation without wandering into hot-button issues is an extremely important skill that unfortunately seems least likely to be mastered by those who need it the most. 😛

Texas’ Other Death Penalty. This is absolutely Dicksonian. I wish Canada would welcome all of these patients with open arms. We’re not a perfect country by any means, but at least we don’t allow our own citizens to die from treatable diseases in droves because they’re too poor to afford medication, surgery, or other treatments.

How Feminism Hurts Men. Everything I want to say about this link is spoiler-y. Go read it anyway.

How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick is one of the most useful books I’ve read so far this year. It’s really difficult to know what to say to someone facing a life-threatening or terminal illness, but Ms. Pogrebin explains what she preferred to hear quite clearly. I found it even more interesting to see how opinions varied among all of the other people she surveyed. Some folks loved certain phrases, other despised them. People with serious illnesses aren’t a monolith after all.

What have you been reading?