Aquarianisms

The price of love is grief. We will never be free of it as long as we love anything at all. Our family, friends, our pets, even beloved media. Anything that connects that deeply to us that we love it will leave a gaping hole when it's gone.

But no one rejects loving to avoid grief. Every one of the characters holds on desperately to something they love, to levels that seem unhealthy to us. They want the perks without the cost.

John is holding on to a world and people that died 10k years ago.

The lyctors cling desperately to their cavaliers memories, to the point of being willing to end the 9 houses to honor them.

Cam held on to Pal, Pal held on to Dulcie. Harrow held on to Gideon so hard she disappeared her from her memory to avoid the grief she would pay for the privelege of caring for her.

But Nona loves indiscriminately. She loves the polluted sky, she loves the sad people, she loves the stray dogs and her friends and her teachers and Varun. She loves Pyrrhas lying ass, she loves Camilla and Palemedes, she loves crown and even cares about Judith. Nona isn't afraid of grief, because to her all that love balances it out. Nona is the only one in the end willing to pay the price for that 6 months of unconditional love. She knows from the beginning of the book that her own days are numbered, but she doesn't shy from it and avoid loving.

She loves all that much harder.

"If you could see your whole life, start to finish, would you change anything?" The movie Arrival (2016) approaches this same theme. If you knew what you'd lose, would you go back to avoid it? Would you keep away from the people and things you knew you'd lose? Would you shy away from experiencing love just because it hurts?

and i’ll hide everything in my head

and forget everyone that i’ve met

and i’ll never be open again

oh, how good it must feel

Together with The Women of Colour Hockey Collective, Sophie Jaques has introduced Sophie’s Sisters - a program that supports bringing young women of colour into the sport of hockey 💙

And it pisses you off because bruh how am I supposed to practice this shit if I can't even do this first couple of fucking lines to make a good cylinder.

And then you start drawing and it sucks and you keep doing it, and you learn new skills and tricks, and you even end up developing an art style naturally (which they told you you would do, and you didn't believe them, but it came free with the constantly drawing in a way that made you comfortable and learning the medium).