Happy Hallowe'en

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the light shall have the harp of gold.

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.

When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.

Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod. 

 

 ~ Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series

I love this poem so much. I don't know exactly why, but from the very first time I read that opening line, I was hooked. Every Hallowe'en, it rises unbidden and I must seek it out and read it again. I'm certain I've shared it here before, but have it again. And if you haven't read the series it's from, go! Go now, and find Over Sea, Under Stone and read it. I know it's meant for children and it's mostly adults who read my book, but go read it now with your child eyes. I hope it stirs something in you like it did me.

 

It's the third book in the series, The Green Witch, that captivates me the most. The dream-like sequence with Jane under water with the witch. It haunts me. 

 

I love liminal things, being at the edges. I love to stand on the sand with the sea washing my toes, or dipping them into the stream beneath the trees, or to stand in the depths of a woodland, at the boundary between civilisation and wildness, between reality and possibility.

 

I've always felt a very liminal person. Today is the day of the dead, the day the veil thins and we can almost caress our dead loved ones. Death, being dead, has always frightened me. One part of my brain accepts that after death comes nothingness, a lack of existence, and that terrifies me more than I can bear. But I have other parts of me too, and I have learnt to let them talk, to let them soothe the fear so I can still breathe, still think. Parts of me that aren't afraid of death, but fascinated by it. Parts of me that wish they could be a Ferryman.

 

To try and help me deal with my fear of my own mortality, my Dad explained to me that one of the roles of the Hindu Goddess I was named for, my middle name, Kali, is death, is a psychopomp. The word appealed to me: a spirit or other divine being who guides a soul from one life, one state of being, to the next (that I, a white western woman, am named with Celtic and Hindu influences, is something I sometimes feel I need to address for concerns of cultural appropriation. I will leave it, for fear of overexplaining, with that a dear friend of my mother is Hindu).

 

I'd like to be both a doula and a death doula, someone who spends time with a person entering the world, and leaving it. I think it's why the Witches are my favourite Discworld characters: I immediately understood that was a role of theirs.

 

Hallowe'en is a day for reflecting on death, and Death, and other worlds. It's a day for considering who we are, and who we want to be. Death in Tarot doesn't necessarily mean the end of life, rather it represents change, the end of a stage. It is paired with the hope of rebirth, in some form.

 

Covid has shifted the world, and the world is trying to realise itself again. It could go in many directions. Some of the most hopeful have already been closed off, but at my core I'm an optimist.

 

I've always felt in a liminal state, torn between possibilities. I feel as though I may be starting to peel through them to find the balance point, the place where I'm meant to be.

I promise I am working on more material!

Life has just runaway with me a bit. Between work, fibromyalgia and Ziggy, I'm pretty exhausted all the time. But today's my day off work and Husbit and Ziggy are curled up on the sofa watching TV to give me a chance to do my own thing for once. 

 

Well, I say "for once", but I do get to go to circus once a week and play Mage once a month. It's not much, but it's something, and I'll be teaching private circus lessons soon, which I'm really excited about.

 

Blogger's changed a lot since I was last here. Wasn't expecting that.

 

I've got a Mage post in draft, and it's October so I want to write a spooky short story - espeically as I missed RPGaDAY for the first time this year. In the meantime, here's a photo of a cat that thinks it lives here even though it doesn't. 

 

We're staying safe here, but I've reached a point where I'm absolutely convinced that the horrid cold I had over Christmas/New Year was covid: I completely lost my sense of smell for about 8 weeks, and have realised that it's still absolutely terrible now. I'd assumed it was the masks at work meant I wasn't smelling bodily fluids and other excretia as strongly as expected, and that I'd just got used to Ziggy's nappies, but a few comments about smells in rooms from colleagues who haven't had covid or suspected covid made me realise I just don't smell any more, unless I deliberately sniff a thing. It's a bit sad, because I used to have a pretty good sense of smell. They say it wasn't in the country then, certainly not in this part of the country, but I'm sure that's what I had. Reinfection has been confirmed, though, so I'm still not taking chances.

 

I hope you're all well. Thank you for bearing with me. I promise I will get more RPG/fiction related stuff out again at some point!

Short post!

Very short post. New job started and I love it - tiring, though! Hence drop off in posts again, despite good intentions. The PPE makes me overheat and I can feel my face tingling from the pressure even on my days off, but I try to be grateful to have it. I feel sorry for the residents I'm working with: a lot of them rely on lip reading, and the masks can be a bit scary and intimidating, especially as the residents I work with all have some form of dementia, but I don't want to accidentally transmit anything to them - and I don't want to catch anything to bring home either.

As someone coming from software development, a career recognised as skilled, let me tell anyone who doubted it that caring is also a skilled profession, and one that requires great physical and emotional strength and compassion - truly not one just anyone could manage. It says a lot about our society how poorly paid carers are... But who will pay them more? (A rant for another day.) I would love to make it my career, but with cost of living rising faster than wages anyway, I'm not convinced we'll be able to afford it long term.

I set up a YouTube channel for circus videos, here. 

This is the same move as the photo I shared in my last post, so thought I'd use it to test!

Hope you're all well. I'm still trying to write up a bit more of our Mage game, and one day I'll get back to Exalted (which is a game that has completely stolen my heart so it's with great trepidation I face it, as I want to do the story justice.Not to imply I'm not also loving my other games; there's just something extra special about Exalted).

Still here!

Hello everyone!

I'm hoping to get some geeky posts going soon. Started writing up a bit more Mage, at least. Finding it hard because pretty much the only time I get to write is after Ziggy's gone to bed, and I'm so tired then! But I have to do e-learning for my new job, with several courses before I start on Monday (eep!), so he's having to learn to leave me to work when I'm on the laptop, and that I'll play with him again soon after. If we can get that embedded, I'm hoping to be able to do a bit more writing again - the stories I was working on in the background have also all fallen by the wayside and I'd love to get back to them, and I hate how much I've neglected this place.

Are there any topics anyone would be especially interested in a post on? Can't promise anything, especially anything soon, but it woud be good motivation for me.

My dad has bought himself a (steampunk) plague doctor mask... I'm not sure how that'll go down in the village where he lives, though it does attract retiring artists so hopefully they won't be too shocked...

 
Otherwise, we continue well here. Tired, sometimes bored, and desperately missing having visitors, but well. A very kind friend bought me a copy of Tabletop Simulator so I'll be able to join Husbit when they get together for Saturday night board games. Discord is proving an adequate host for Mage. (I've set up a Discord server for this blog, while I was trying to get my head round Discord. It isn't worth looking at yet, but if I get the time I'll make it shiny enough I'm comfortable offering a link.) I have my rig for when the weather's nice (Ziggy loves it as much as I do). 

I'm still anxious about a lot of things (family, friends and finances in particular), but I'm mostly feeling calm, peaceful and hopeful. It makes a nice change!

Hope you're all well. Let me know your topic suggestions.

Stay safe; stay sane; look after yourselves!

You can take away my freedom, but you'll never take my circus!

I'm loving having my own rig at home! It came with silks rather than hoop, but is too low to do most of the stuff I want to do on silks, so I've re-rigged the material as a hammock and am using YouTube and advice from a qualified friend to teach myself basic aerial yoga.

Because mermaids would definitely take selfies, right?

They're also great for getting Ziggy to sleep

Ok, so I don't have that many photos yet... I've got a bunch of videos I need to sort through and get onto YouTube so I can share here (can never get the videos to load correctly any other way, annoyingly. After mentioning to the other instructors that I'd discovered I miss teaching as much as practicing, one suggested doing some instruction videos, so I've had a go at that too - but haven't dared watch them back yet, for cringe factor!

We're doing our best to stay sane as well as safe. It's a strange kind of tiring, but there's also that almost holiday feeling, where I kinda don't want to go back to work because I've become used to this... at the same time, going into meaningful employment will be amazing. Haven't heard back with a confirmed start date, but they did say it could be a couple of weeks, especially as I need a DBS check.

I'm trying to post here more, but I don't get much chance while Ziggy's awake, and I'm too tired when he isn't!

Look after yourselves; stay safe and take care.

Life in Lockdown

Since my last post, the guidance has become even stricter, and the UK has finally followed other countries in declaring a lockdown. I believe our lockdown is less strict than other places, for which I'm very grateful as I think Ziggy and I, and likely Husbit too, would all be going mad if we couldn't get out for a daily walk - and we're lucky enough to have a garden!

The situation is surreal, to say the least. The first person I saw wearing a face mask was in the local bus station, in a crowd of other people, with his mask pulled down to his chin so he could smoke a cigarette. Today, someone in blue gloves ("two by two, hands of blue...") almost brushed her bare arm against mine, she passed by me so close (she really didn't need to. Super wide pavement, I was right up against the shops and there was no one else around). I'd just been coughing into my elbow (asthma triggered by hayfever, and I'd forgotten my inhaler, but still!) We're video chatting with people we've not seen in ages, which eases the feeling of being adrift, but doesn't stem it completely. 

Ziggy is finding it especially hard, as he's used to going for long walks to different places. He misses seeing other children, though chatting with his cousins seems to help - especially M, who sometimes steals my little sister's phone and calls us to make gibberish sounds to Ziggy (he's 3). Talking of niblings, my big sister produced me another nephew earlier this week, the second baby I know born during lockdown. But back to Ziggy's difficulties: we're trying to keep him occupied by trying lots of different activities. Water in the garden is especially good (today, he walked in circles around me while I sprayed a plant mister just ahead of him so he kept walking into the cloud), but we also picked up a cheap paddling pool and balls to use as a ballpit. The best for me is that, as my birthday coincided, we splashed out on a small aerial rig! We have to be careful where we walk, as Ziggy will have a complete meltdown if we go too near a playground and don't let him in, but between the rig and some garden furniture, we're starting to be able to compensate for swings and climbing frames. Still haven't figured out a safe slide, but we'll get there. 

His development seems to have accelerated, possibly from having extra focussed attention from both parents. He had a massive growth spurt in the first couple of days of lockdown, and since has doubled his vocabulary (adding "bubble", "ball", "bird", "down" and "stick" to "mum", "dad", "up" and "cat"). He can now walk up and down our stairs, as long as he has hands to hold - and he's starting to think about only holding one hand. He climbs everything, tries to read to me, can scribble with a pencil (he's going to be a leftie), and is very good at letting us know what he wants without needing many words; he's very expressive. He's also very curious, very confident and very careful, but most importantly I think he's going to be kind.

The rig, of course, is helping me, though I've realised I miss teaching as much as playing. I've applied for a health care assistant role at a local care home. Part time and badly paid, but meaningful work and something I think I'd be really good at - challenging, but rewarding. If Husbit can find something suitable, I think this is the job I'd like at least until Ziggy starts school. I've been accepted subject to checks, and their health survey was a lot more in depth than any I've taken before so I'm worried they'll pick up on fibromyalgia or anxiety as reasons not to hire me, though I know that's mostly the anxiety talking. As for gaming, Mage via Discord worked better than I'd expected, though we're going to try to figure out some kind of video service as we didn't have that before, we miss seeing each other, and apparently Discord's native video is a bit pants. My knitting is a bit neglected, as Ziggy loves sticks and that's all he sees my needles as so he tries to steal them. (He also enjoys playing with my yarn so much I sometimes wish we'd called him Theseus.) I'm also not writing as much as I'd like because Ziggy always wants to help, and is even better than Kitty was for finding annoying keyboard shortcuts. (He's currently having a rare nap, having fallen asleep in my arms when we went for our daily walk before lunch, which means he slept through lunch - but he naps so rarely and so often looks like he needs more sleep than when he does sleep we tend to let him.)

Husbit got really into a car race game called Gaslands last year or the year before, so he's been taking time to convert toy cars into suitable models for the game and is currently playing computer games with one of my uni friends (Civilization, though which edition I couldn't say). Our daily walk includes a trip round a couple of local Pokemon Go sites, including some he nominated, so that helps as well. He treated our decking this morning (so no circus for me until tomorrow or the day after) and is doing lots of cooking, which I'm very much enjoying (he doesn't bake, though, and has found a recipe he'd like me to have a go at, because I occasionally do, so I really must try and find time to do that to show how appreciative I am of all the housework and stuff he does).

Our street has a WhatsApp group to stay in touch and help each other out with shopping and prescriptions and keep an eye on each other's mental health. There's been lovely photos of people's pets being shared, and the renewed sense of community is something I hope will survive past the pandemic.

I've a lot to be grateful for. I'm in pretty good health. I'm not living alone, and I love the people I live with. We have a nice house with a nice garden, so we have some outdoor space. We have neighours we can rely on should we need to fully isolate, and friends and family just a call away if we need moral support. I've got the prospect of a new job which will make me feel useful. I'm still getting to enjoy my hobbies.

I hope you're all well and coping. I'm on Telegram as Fern Kali if anyone needs a chat - I can't promise to respond quickly, as Ziggy is demands a lot of my time and attention, but that's why messaging apps are so great. I've also created a Google photo album (it's here) and am inviting anyone who wants to to join and share things that make them smile.

 

Life and Plague and Stuff

Oh dear, how did it get so long between posts?

Oh yeah, I have a baby... or more accurately now, a toddler.

I also went back to full time work, had a bit of a breakdown, and am now trying to job hunt in other, less mentally taxing career fields. Which, with the whole covid virus thing, isn't that easy - though I might be able to work part time in a nearby care home, which I think would suit me, and the hours are much better than where I was. Shame it's so badly paid.

Basically, I was a software developer for a big company, who sold my department overseas. Not fancying a commute to Jo'burg, I came back off maternity straight into redundancy. Managed to find a new job straightaway, but unfortunately using the languages I like the least and doing web development, which I just don't find very interesting. The company had a very set way of doing things, so every time I completed a task, it would be reviewed and I'd be told I'd done it wrong, with no support on how to do it right the first way ("oh, just look at what's already there. Yeah, don't look at that bit, it's legacy." "Well which bit should I look at?" "Oh, figure it out.") The hours meant I barely saw Ziggy, and he became so distressed every time I left him that my heart was breaking - and he doesn't sleep through the night, so with the high level thinking I was exhausted. I'd stand in the kitchen crying before I had to leave, but it wasn't until a few weeks after I'd finished that I realised how ill I'd become. I'm on anti-anxiety meds, and have a panic attack whenever I try and code, even for fun. It's frustrating, because I used to truly love coding, and I think if I'd been able to go back to my old job it would have been fine (flexi-time and I was confident in what I was doing).

Message from Ziggy:   \ \bjnbbbbbbxxzgh\\ nnnnnnnnnnnv       j. 

And resuming. The saddest news is that Kitty died. She reached a point where we knew she had to be put down, but it was still the hardest decision we've ever made and really shook us both up. The vet was fantastic, very gentle with her and with us. He'd nursed her through the end few months and was fighting back tears himself.

I have a huge, feline shaped hole in my life and really want another rescue cat, but Husbit's not quite ready, and we'll need to be patient to get the right cat (friendly, short haired, ideally one I'm not allergic to, and most importantly one who's happy with small children). Ziggy loves all the neighbourhood cats, so he'll be thrilled but we'll have to make sure he's respectful. He is usually good with cats, at least - desperate to pet them but fairly gentle and I've only once had to stop him chasing one who'd walked away.

This is Biscuit, who haunts the local park and loves to play with the children.

We're currently covid free here. There's a few confirmed and more suspected cases in my general area, but only one of my friends has even a suspected case. We've had to close circus for now, which made me really sad - but on the plus side, I've got some of the equipment in my hall waiting for the owner to come by and collect so we'll still be able to play on the new rig she's ordered. In small, symptom-free groups, and assuming the advice doesn't get even stricter... (And if it does, I might be able to borrow a rig for my own garden...)

Like most people I've spoken to, I'm less worried about actually catching the virus (despite my asthma) than the economic impact of it. I am concerned about a few older friends and family members, and I'd be terrified if it was having a big impact on small children, but as it stands I'm fairly calm. The panic buying is frustrating, though: rice is about the only thing Ziggy will consistently eat, so we get through a lot and currently can't replenish our stash. The most annoying bit is hearing from friends who work in depots that there are no actual shortages: the problems are logistic in that people are buying too fast. If everyone slowed down, it would be fine, but instead we're in this stupid spiral.

Pathfinder is on hiatus, though this is partly down to a house move on the part of one player. We're finishing up the 'interlude' section where I play Jvala, and I'm very exciting at the thought of getting back to my beloved Svetlana. We will shortly be attempting our first remote Mage game via Discord - a medium I never got my head round, so this should be interesting. Wish me luck!

Best wishes and stay safe everyone!