I will be home then, I will be home then...

[nansekam.livejournal.com]

Monday, noon, the abbey training yard

It's a milder day, but it's raining lightly. Still, I've been training for enough years that I don't mind the cold and wet, though it does make bare feet a bit treacherous. Still, I'm trying to keep my mind clear and calm, and exercise helps. I trained the novices this morning as usual, and now I've got a bit of time to myself to run through some tai chi chuan movements. I've been trying to perfect the 49 form for a long time now. I'm good at all the punching business, but the delicate stuff like the Needle at Sea Bottom, that's not as graceful as I'd like. I make a mistake at the Single Whip, and I sigh and go back to the beginning. So bloody close that time.

It's hard to do this if you're not concentrating, and I'm trying. Keep coming back to the conversation I had with Rashida yesterday before I came back to the abbey. I stayed the rest of Saturday, even after Mum got her memory back, just to make sure she was alright, but come Sunday morning I knew people'd be worrying about me, and besides - my life is at the abbey now. Rashida got this tight look when I said I was going.

"I got an idea," she said, once I lost my temper and asked her what her problem was, she knows I don't live on the farm now and I haven't in a decade, "of what it'll be like when Mum and Dad are really old. They're already getting that way, and it'll just be me looking out for them. Cos you - you'll only be here if you forget about your bloody goddess, and it took some damn magic spell to make that happen."

I try, I told her. I try to be here and to help - I help with the harvest, I visit a couple of times a month. But I made a vow, and my first duty now is to Nanshe and her people.

"I'd think," said Rashida, "that a goddess of widows and orphans would want you to look out for your family." And there wasn't much I could say to that. Then Rashida told me she'd written to Taslim to say that she'll marry him. He'll come over when the weather's cleared up and he'll move onto the farm. And that'll be that. My sister, marrying my stupid cousin who she sees twice a year at most. What could I say that hadn't already been said? So I just said I hoped they'd be happy. I suppose they've got as much of a chance of it as a lot of couples. Still, it makes me sad. And disappointed with myself, somehow, even though I know I've got the life I was meant to.

Having spent a couple of days thinking I was still in love with Concetta didn't help, either.

I wobble on the Golden Rooster move. Bloody stupid thing to imitate anyway, a cockerel. Stupid birds.

[OPEN to Isidore and visitors to the abbey more generally]

I will be home then, I will be home then...

[nansekam.livejournal.com]

Monday, noon, the abbey training yard

It's a milder day, but it's raining lightly. Still, I've been training for enough years that I don't mind the cold and wet, though it does make bare feet a bit treacherous. Still, I'm trying to keep my mind clear and calm, and exercise helps. I trained the novices this morning as usual, and now I've got a bit of time to myself to run through some tai chi chuan movements. I've been trying to perfect the 49 form for a long time now. I'm good at all the punching business, but the delicate stuff like the Needle at Sea Bottom, that's not as graceful as I'd like. I make a mistake at the Single Whip, and I sigh and go back to the beginning. So bloody close that time.

It's hard to do this if you're not concentrating, and I'm trying. Keep coming back to the conversation I had with Rashida yesterday before I came back to the abbey. I stayed the rest of Saturday, even after Mum got her memory back, just to make sure she was alright, but come Sunday morning I knew people'd be worrying about me, and besides - my life is at the abbey now. Rashida got this tight look when I said I was going.

"I got an idea," she said, once I lost my temper and asked her what her problem was, she knows I don't live on the farm now and I haven't in a decade, "of what it'll be like when Mum and Dad are really old. They're already getting that way, and it'll just be me looking out for them. Cos you - you'll only be here if you forget about your bloody goddess, and it took some damn magic spell to make that happen."

I try, I told her. I try to be here and to help - I help with the harvest, I visit a couple of times a month. But I made a vow, and my first duty now is to Nanshe and her people.

"I'd think," said Rashida, "that a goddess of widows and orphans would want you to look out for your family." And there wasn't much I could say to that. Then Rashida told me she'd written to Taslim to say that she'll marry him. He'll come over when the weather's cleared up and he'll move onto the farm. And that'll be that. My sister, marrying my stupid cousin who she sees twice a year at most. What could I say that hadn't already been said? So I just said I hoped they'd be happy. I suppose they've got as much of a chance of it as a lot of couples. Still, it makes me sad. And disappointed with myself, somehow, even though I know I've got the life I was meant to.

Having spent a couple of days thinking I was still in love with Concetta didn't help, either.

I wobble on the Golden Rooster move. Bloody stupid thing to imitate anyway, a cockerel. Stupid birds.

[OPEN to Isidore and visitors to the abbey more generally]