#wryness

There's a wry smile, tucked in there somewhere. I'm not sure what it's about; but then, I do know on some level as well.

Smiling, I suppose, because the grief continues. How could it not? But so, too, does the tenderness. Tonight is about tenderness, I think, spread a few ways. Let me count them:

The first is that a somewhat younger friend has started a tumblr account, and they're wearing Nyiss's name. It's lovely and endearing, and it's sweet; and it's not being seen, not quite, but there's a gladness that comes in others feeling for him or feeling seen through him too. The light within me is also within you. There's a warmth and a tenderness in the way that those things are reflected back at me, like so much stained glass or refracted light. That's the first.

The second is that I read through some old draft posts that I never published - some because they were never finished, some because they touched too deep. Some of them were quite beautiful, actually, and struck me still. Two of them were musings on an old mentor and what I learned from them, and I think that dream - the one with Nyiss - maybe makes more sense now. That's two.

The third is that, without anything else to watch, Hearthsnail and I have been rolling episodes of DS9 at random. Tonight's was the one where Garak reunites with Enabrin Tain, and... the rest speaks for itself. For all that there are a myriad of other reasons Garak resonates - the half-truths, the constant lying, the exile, the wit and concealed layers - so too, does he resonate in that way. There is a kind of loyalty that cuts deep - to the point where even betrayal can be forgiven - and I recognize it, because it's alive and well in me too. As is the sniping and snipping upon feeling seen - I love watching the layers of Garak get peeled up over and over again over the course of those couple of episodes, and the way he gets shitty and aggressive and snippy in response - and, once again, I know him because he's me. I too am prone to lashing out when someone strikes just a little too close to home, because of course.

The tenderness in the third one comes mostly from the intersection of the first two. The fourth tenderness comes in the same songs that have been wheeling through the last couple months - my July and August - because those are tender too, like pressed bruises.

The fifth is in watching myself, and seeing the sweetness in that too. I am here, incense burning and candle flickering in the half-dark, tagged with the lingering smell of black pepper perfume; and sometimes, in and amidst it, we do touch the tenderness and not just the grief.

It's not more concrete for much the same reasons that I haven't published those other posts. There are some things that strike too deep. There are names for all of these things - names, dates, memories, values, beliefs - but they're not to be spoken of. Not here. Much as I wish I could. Much as it is still the background music underlying large portions of my life, despite and perhaps because I find myself more and more often these days chanting not my monkeys, not my circus as if it is a prayer to the heavens and it's going to save me from the edge of madness. Perhaps I should write it anyway, even if only to myself. It might help.

I would like to end this somewhere more concrete. Perhaps it's in the music. Last year, I noticed that the songs I gathered for the end of the year - end of the summer, for those who do not count their years the way that I do - were about grief, and love, and loss, and letting go. This year, they are still about grief and love and loss; but this year is about tenderness rather than death. This one is about love that remains, and that chooses to hold on. And I think that's a good thing. For what it's worth, I'm looking forward to the upcoming year - feeling more ready to meet it than I have many of the last years.

I think I'll post a poem. It's not one that I wrote, quite - it's one that Nyiss wrote, after he returned to Syenon. It's also the first poem I have written in half a decade; I wrote it in the winter, perhaps January or February. So it's something I cherish in that sense. I'm hoping to write more, be it through him or elsewise - and I'm glad that something, finally, returned after all these years.

...You have to find something to love, is the advice I got. From a source far removed from this all. You have to find something to love and to invest yourself in; be it tea, be it watercolor paints, be it picking up trash in the park, be it painting stones and leaving them silly places. You have to find a way to fall in love with this world, or it will leech away your sanity. You have to find something to cherish, because that is the best way to cherish the little patch of world that you have. For my part, I've started to gravitate towards perfumes and scents - I ordered a couple of scents, and strongly-scented soaps, and more - both the wearing of them, and the understanding how they work. I've also started a sketchbook, not for art purposes so much as it is a little diary of things I've seen and things I'm thinking - and so far, it's beautiful and freeing both. There are other things, here and there, but this one is a long while coming. Something to love.

Nos, akkor a bulisorozat zárásaként: hétfőn CONDOMINIUM (USA/SUB POP) - DISKOBRA - WRYNESS a trafikban. 

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