#guilin

Thousand Year-Old Banyan Tree, Yangshuo, Guilin - Francis Hamel ,  2024.

British , b. 1963 -

Yangshuo 阳朔县, Guangxi province, China.

Located in South China’s Guangxi region, it’s surrounded by karst peaks and bordered by the Li river.

From Atop Xianggong Mountain 相公山

Thanks to @kylobith @ffigwit and @hobbitwrangler for various WIP update tags! ♥️ The ficlets I’ve been playing with lately are often too short to excerpt, but I am also still (slowly) working on my piece about how the uncertainty of Gwindor’s fate after the Nirnaeth ruins his parents’ marriage when they have very different reactions to it. (Cheerful!)

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In the end, it always boils down to this, the knot of opposing hopes and fears that is now snarled at the heart of their marriage. Lindis has made a fragile bargain with herself, accepting the unthinkable for the solace of finality, and Guilin’s insistent optimism constantly threatens to rupture that bargain. But there is no anguish in the world that Guilin would not stomach for the chance to reclaim his boy — his last boy — again. To wish their child dead feels like a betrayal of the very idea of fatherhood, one so profound that his mind can barely stand to even consider it. He does not want their son to suffer, but neither would he add to Gwindor’s suffering the knowledge that his own father did not hope until the end of time to somehow get him back. He will not allow that. He cannot.

And so the knot grows ever tighter as each one pulls tirelessly from their own loose end. Grief is about learning to balance the need to hold on with the need to let go, they’ve been told. But when they cannot manage both, the only option left is unyielding struggle.

In the early days all the fighting is about Gwindor, or proves to be once the brittle veneer of other concerns is pierced. But the discord soaks ever deeper into the bond between them, and soon they find that they can fight about nothing at all, needing no provocation to find fault with one another’s words, actions, expressions, thoughts. He is a willfully naive fool, she is cold and uncaring. It makes little difference when they try to draw back, to lessen or avoid a confrontation that they can both feel coming. Somehow it always happens anyway, almost against their will. They can feel the cliff’s edge nearing but cannot stop their feet from carrying them right off. After all, what is one more grief at this point?

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The Painted Veil (2006, John Curran)