golden apples of the sun, silver apples of the moon

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

- Henry David Thoreau

Tuesday, February 2nd, early afternoon

A bright day it is, sun gleaming in a wintry sky. It's hard not to be optimistic on a day like today, especially when I set out in the morning on the road to town. I have always felt great comfort in travel - at least, travel I have done alone, for the travelling to Excolo was exhausting and depressing. But when I have only my feet or my horse to worry about, my own agenda to pursue, then I am as content as can be. I have felt some guilt in the past over the pleasure I feel in being on my own on the road - it seems a selfish sort of thing - but I console myself that I do my work for my community. Once for my town, now for my new Temple.

It is a good town, this Excolo. I like it well, the two clean busy main streets and the tidy houses. There are some derelict spots, and a rather sad looking carnival (and there might be a good place to look for new members of our family! I have seen that many of the folk look tired and thin), but there is no filth, no polluted water, no sign of widespread disease or poverty. The people in general are slimmer than in Ladon, and it surprises me when it's such an apparently prosperous place, but they do not appear sick with it. And there are two churches - both sites of misguided follies, of course, but it gives me hope for the open mindedness of the population.

I take a walk through the town again, memorising the geography. I'm good at this; I now have a map in my mind of the location of every store and of the layout of the streets. I buy a cup of coffee at the cafe - such a luxury, and yet it seems an everyday thing here - and then I walk to the park. It isn't warm, but I like sitting in the sun when I can, and so I find a bench and tilt my head back and smile.

[OPEN]

Comments

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

"People, we like patterns, we're good with finding them and making them. It gives us a place to start from, knowing something familiar, you know?"

"I think you have the right of it, Zann," I say, smiling.

When I mention the services Zann says:

"I think I'd like that, sometime. When are they?"

"Every day, but I think the service the public is most likely to come to is the one on Saturday morning. We'd be glad to see you."

When I ask about worship at the carnival her smile slips down, and there is a story there.

"No, I mean, not really, no. There's-- one of my old friends, she's gotten-- she's started worshipping a god, and she's kind of getting lost in it. Worse than a girl with a new crush. But she's the only one who ever gets way wrapped up in it, and there's nothing organized or anything, you know?"

I wonder if the way she says old friend means someone she lay down with. No matter, though.

"It can be like that, when one finds a god," I say gently. "It can be like falling in love. Usually things level out, and one can balance life and devotion." I wonder if this girl left Zann for her god.

"Uhm. Would you like a smoke? Mind if I do?"

I shake my head.

"I do not smoke. But go ahead," I say. "Though tobacco is poison, you know." Not everybody does know. "A slow but steady sort of poison."

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

"It can be like that, when one finds a god," she says, and I kind of smile, a ragged little thing, because yeah, I guess it can, but usually the god isn't around trying to make sure you stay hooked. "It can be like falling in love. Usually things level out, and one can balance life and devotion."

"Yeah," I say, sighing, "but it's not... I don't know if it's going to go that way. Still waiting to see if she'll balance out, but..." I run my hand through my hair and shrug, and oh, Genny. Even before you had all those years slapped out of you, it was bad, I said it was gonna be bad.

Polyhymnia shakes her head at the offer of a smoke, but doesn't mind. "Though tobacco is poison, you know," she adds. "A slow but steady sort of poison."

"I know," I say, and it's not said guiltily, exactly, but with a kind of what can you do shrug in the voice. "I didn't smoke for the longest time, but... it helps in the lean patches, you know? Keeps you from feeling hungry, and then it just came to be a habit." I'm suddenly a bit proud of Mom and Da, that none of us ever needed to smoke for that before--well, before we weren't kids, I guess, although the exact when of it is a bit fuzzy. It was never a big deal or anything, just nights where we'd come in and they'd say they'd already eaten, go ahead, little things like that.

Guess the when was when we noticed it and started saying we'd had something already, go ahead.

"It's awfully pretty though," I say, lighting the smoke and watching the ember on the end creep up, the threads of smoke going skyward. "Which doesn't make it better, I know, but..." Well, if it's going to be as bad as it is, it's at least worth stopping and taking a look, I guess.

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but it's not... I don't know if it's going to go that way. Still waiting to see if she'll balance out, but..."

Zann's smile is like crumpled paper, and I can't help patting the back of her hand. Once a Mother...

"I hope for her sake and yours that she does. Our lives are sacred - so my Temple believes - and we must respect our bodies, our minds, not give them over to excess. Even love can be a kind of death."

"I didn't smoke for the longest time, but... it helps in the lean patches, you know? Keeps you from feeling hungry, and then it just came to be a habit."

I feel sorry for her, then, but I don't wish to show pity. No one wants that from a stranger. So I nod, and let it pass.

"It's awfully pretty though. Which doesn't make it better, I know, but..."

I look at he smoke rising.

"There's a beauty in fire," I say, "of creation and ending, life and death. It let Woman walk out of the cave, and it fed wars." I smile, because it is a fanciful train of thought for conversation with a stranger. But I have found, in my travels, that my most philosophical conversations have sometimes come out of chance meetings. "Do you have family, in the carnival?"

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

"I hope for her sake and yours that she does," Polly says, patting my hand, and I don't mind at all, 'cause it feels honest. "Our lives are sacred - so my Temple believes - and we must respect our bodies, our minds, not give them over to excess. Even love can be a kind of death."

"Yeah," I say sadly, and I'm thinking of Genny, sure, but Daiyu too. "Maybe it'll get better in spring, I guess." Maybe not, but... if she's all messed up with Tez, and he does that dying-and-rebirth crap, maybe she'll pick up a bit come spring.

"There's a beauty in fire," she says as I'm watching the ember at the end of my cigarette, "of creation and ending, life and death. It let Woman walk out of the cave, and it fed wars."

"Like a crucible," I agree, "or a forge. You know that if you heat up metal, you can keep it stronger, limber, keep it from breaking?" I laugh a little, because this kind of reminds me of that pie-in-the-sky conversation I had with Johnny, once, about cages and growing out of them and understanding them. "Of course, too much of it'll get the metal bent outta shape. So... I guess it's potential, right? Energy, change, something waiting to be." I think of Kent, then, the heat and shine hammered into the world like the shout of a star. I wish he could have heard the Heterodyne sing.

"Do you have family, in the carnival?"

"All of them," I say smiling, because that's true, "and blood-family, too, my Mom and Dad and Essa and Sabela and Xay..." I laugh a little. "The names all come from my dad's side," I explain. "We've been flyers for generations, see," and my hands are trying to sketch it all out, the sweeps and tosses and catches, and the way they're handed down, generation to generation, hands catching hands on a leap through the air, "and Mom was a flyer too before she married in, from the Phantasia. Usually she sees her folks again in the winter, when we make it down to Gibtown, but like I said, we're staying here this year."

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

"Maybe it'll get better in spring, I guess."

"Spring is a time of renewal," I say. I like this Zann, her kind heart shown in her love for her friend and bright curiosity running through her. It would be well to win her to Ladon. This impression is strengthened as she continues.

"Like a crucible, or a forge. You know that if you heat up metal, you can keep it stronger, limber, keep it from breaking? Of course, too much of it'll get the metal bent outta shape. So... I guess it's potential, right? Energy, change, something waiting to be."

"We are each of us a crucible of creation," I agree, "sum of all potentials and none within us, or so I believe. There is so very much we can become."

She talks about her family, and I smile.

"You say you are flyers, and if you swing as well as your words fly then I wager you are as fine an acrobat as any I have ever seen. I should like to see more of the carnival, I think. For if people there make their bodies fly, or dance, or bend to different shapes, then so to might their minds, and it is pleasing to me to meet women and men of flexible thoughts."