Make hay while the sun shines
Mar. 17th, 2012 12:58 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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estdeus_innobisMid-afternoon of Tuesday, 29th June
The Abbey
It's a bright warm day, and the church, my church, rings with the sound of a community in song. Every pew is filled, and there are even people standing at the back of the church and spilling onto the porch, leaning into the doorway to hear Ash's words, and singing out familiar hymns of summer and farmwork through the stone of the church and out into the bright air. Some of our farmers - I know them all by name, John Hale, Jasper Thornton, Lucille Cliff, Alex Brown, their dreams familiar to me as neighbours - bring a bale of new hay to the altar in offering, and my throat is tight.
Please, I pray. Please let their prayers be granted. May I still be able to do some good.
It's strange, to be able to feel such joy and such grief at once. I have such pride in my people, and such helpless frustration at what I have become.
The service ends, and everyone goes into the fresh air. Tonight they will dance together at the new hall, kick up tired heels and shake out aching muscles into new, pleasanter aches of dancing and socialising and celebrating after hard labour. For now, our community here has moved tables out from the dining hall into the yard, and the congregation has brought pies and cider to share. Children run giggling between the tables, hay in their hair, and I laugh looking at them, and feel a terrible tender pain in my heart, wanting them to be as safe as this always.
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The Abbey
It's a bright warm day, and the church, my church, rings with the sound of a community in song. Every pew is filled, and there are even people standing at the back of the church and spilling onto the porch, leaning into the doorway to hear Ash's words, and singing out familiar hymns of summer and farmwork through the stone of the church and out into the bright air. Some of our farmers - I know them all by name, John Hale, Jasper Thornton, Lucille Cliff, Alex Brown, their dreams familiar to me as neighbours - bring a bale of new hay to the altar in offering, and my throat is tight.
Please, I pray. Please let their prayers be granted. May I still be able to do some good.
It's strange, to be able to feel such joy and such grief at once. I have such pride in my people, and such helpless frustration at what I have become.
The service ends, and everyone goes into the fresh air. Tonight they will dance together at the new hall, kick up tired heels and shake out aching muscles into new, pleasanter aches of dancing and socialising and celebrating after hard labour. For now, our community here has moved tables out from the dining hall into the yard, and the congregation has brought pies and cider to share. Children run giggling between the tables, hay in their hair, and I laugh looking at them, and feel a terrible tender pain in my heart, wanting them to be as safe as this always.
[open]
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:32 am (UTC)"I'm sorry, ma'am," I say softly. "I can't..." Well, I can't imagine, can I? There's that feeling when someone dies, but it ain't the same, I can tell it ain't the same just from how other people take it. Nothing even close ta the same. "I'm very sorry," I say again. "Hope you were happy."
"Sometimes people need to learn to be human, it seems to me. And then there are people who aren't human who have a great deal more humanity than the average man," an' she touches my arm and I look at her, an' I imagine I am seeing her very clearly, somehow. Not sure exactly what that means, but....
Smile at her, and shrug a little. "I guess some people who aren't human have an easier time of it. Bein' human. They... maybe don't take it for granted, you know? But people--real people, ya know?--get ground down, I guess, and sometimes it's hard for them ta remember what's important." Not saying it's not their fault. What they do's on them, and sometimes it breaks my heart, but people getting ground down... It has ta be hard, sometimes. Mostly I just get glad they come back to their senses.
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Date: 2012-03-29 11:19 am (UTC)"They made me happy," I say, "and I can always remember that. And now I have new duties, and I'm glad to do them." I smile a little.
"I guess some people who aren't human have an easier time of it. Bein' human. They... maybe don't take it for granted, you know? But people--real people, ya know?--get ground down, I guess, and sometimes it's hard for them ta remember what's important."
I don't know that Jack knows I meant him, but his words confirm my good opinion of him.
"I'm glad, then, that the town has you here, to help remind them." Rose wriggles a little in my arms, and perhaps I should take her back to Wanda. "And I'm glad to know you too, Jack," I say. "Enjoy the rest of your day," and I carry the baby away.