These are two journal entries I wrote at work today while I was bored. They fit into some hazy time in the past few months, and don’t really contain any important content. I just wanted to develop a bit of what Qing’s been doing in the background (besides changing diapers) 🙂
How does your garden grow
Mikey got his first trip to the garden today. He was very popular. So was I, weirdly. I guess it’s not so weird. I am, after all, a princess of grace and beauty who’s always right and never loses her cool.
(In some universe, I’m sure)
But seriously, I love how this place grows, and I’m surprised how much of a presence I have here.
I did kind of start it, but this little community is so much more than I had in mind. All I wanted at the beginning was for the ugly I could see from my windows to look nicer, so I went to clean it up as an oblation to the river. Other people started getting involved, like I was just the first drop in a spring rain.
(ohh, profound, ocean girl)
Now it’s this little oasis of hope and growth in the middle of most of this neighborhood’s quiet despair. And it’s growing. Business has picked up at the little cafe in the strip mall that Mrs. Kowalski runs. (And she stocks chai for me. She is a goddess) People come to hang out and talk to each other.
But what I can’t quite wrap my head around is how even though I’ve only been responsible for a small part of the effort, my influence far exceeds what I’ve actually done. Even though there are older and more established people there, I’m the one people ask to settle disputes, and I’m the community face of the garden. And the garden’s influence is growing. Mrs. Kowalski buys fresh chai so I can have some when I go to her cafe. Folks recognize me on the street and say hello.
(Well, maybe the fact I have five feet of white hair makes me a little memorable)
Whatever the reason, it’s a responsibility and a privilege. It’s been given to me to take care of, so I have to do something with it. I have to do what I can to make this neighborhood better.
Not exactly right.
I have to do what I can to help this neighborhood become better. I have to learn how to do that. I think I’m going to have to develop some new skills. The people here need someone who can advocate for them. We’ve got a bunch of illegals and people who are only a step or two above being homeless.
I know about as much about the law as a paralegal does. But the law is only part of it. There’s all this culture about the way things actually get done. I need to spend time talking to Anne. She knows how to deal with that stuff.
That’s the other thing that’s hard to get used to about this Tamer of Rivers gig – how little of it I actually do myself. Being a hunter is pretty straightforward. You go find a monster and beat it up. Being a Tamer is so much less direct. Direct objectives don’t work. I have to choose broad goals and just gradually shape the world to fit with them. And doing everything myself doesn’t work. What I have to do is inspire other people and nudge them up past their limits and outside their comfort zones.
But maybe the slow, subtle approach will let me make things really better.
Fighting a holding action where the most we can ever accomplish is to stop the bad guys after they’ve already destroyed people’s lives is killing me. I don’t want to raise my son in a world like that.
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She blinded me with Science!
Magic is all about dichotomies. Also about vast, cosmic power and esoteric knowledge. And sometimes funny hats. But a lot about dichotomies. Forces oppose or shape each other like yin and yang. For a Thrysus, the central one is the divide between the worlds of flesh and spirit. For a Tamer of Rivers: the worlds of matter and spirit and matter and life.
I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the complexities of life. Like a tree with infinite branches, or an onion with always another layer of skin. I’d been content to think of matter as mostly inert and unchanging in comparison, but it’s not. The whole earth seethes with its own life. And I find I need to learn something new. To really master the arcana of Matter, I need to understand Matter.
(It couldn’t hurt to know more about the nuts and bolts of life, either)
Theresa has been a big help, finding me books that a explain chemistry in terms for the stupid. And there’s so much to learn. The powers of Matter could be really useful with the right knowledge. The other day, Theresa was telling me about alkali metals that explode when they get wet. And thermite is awesome.
The other side of it is learning to shape matter: how things feel, how they go together. I’m getting practice with that because I’m a single mom with a low-paying job and an apartment to furnish. Crusing apartment complex dumpsters at the end of the month has been a major source of my furniture.
(And let me tell you, being able to banish vermin with magic has been SUCH a nice thing)
Another side of this that has taken my interest a little is Alchemy. Arthur Radu inspired me, really. That demon blood stuff was sick and wrong, but it was also interesting. Being able to suspend magic in a physical medium could be really handy. One of the tactical glitches we suffer from is that I can heal people faster than anyone else in the group can, usually. But I’m also one of the heavy hitters. Time I spend healing folks is time I don’t spend beating up other folks. A “health potion” could be so useful. And it’s a way I could hide a little magic from the Sleepers and still be able to help them with medical problems.
It turns out that my mom had some real Awakened magical texts that she’d picked up somewhere and never really touched. That’s always happening to pieces of old Atlantis, or Shangra-La. Sleepers just don’t interact with the stuff. There’s enough of it in the Mysterium libraries that the board of regents keeps signing off on their budget even though no students ever go into the building.
I’ve been getting into the books a little and gathering the kind of materials I’ll need. I don’t think I’ll really understand it until Delia can come back and spend a few days, or until I have time to go visit with her a while.