compersion & limerence

Reticent Sonnet

A pronoun is a kind of withdrawal from naming.
Because naming is heavy, naming may be slightly shaming.
We live much more lightly than this,
we address ourselves allusively in our minds –
as “I” or “we” or “one” – part of a system that argues with shadow, like Venetian blinds.
Speaking of Venice, called “the Shakespeare of cities” by a friend of mine,
reminds me of how often the Sonnets misprint their for thine:

beware the fog in Venice.
Beware those footsteps that stop in a hush.
I used to think I would grow up to be a person whose reasoning was deep,
instead I became a kind of brush.
I brush words against words. So do we follow ourselves out of youth,
brushing, brushing, brushing wild grapes onto truth.

ANNE CARSON (2006)

I've had this open for a week and a half and I read it probably 3-4 times a day, and it's just. Anne Carson is really good, you guys.

3. This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go of and becomes the future;
the place of caught breath, the door
of a vanished house left ajar.

Taking hands like children
lost in a six-dimensional
forest, we step across.
The walls of the house fold themselves down,
and the house turns
itself inside out, as a tulip does
in its last full-blown moment, and our candle
flares up and goes out, and the only common
sense that remains to us is touch,

as it will be, later, some other
century, when we will seem to each other
even less what we were.
But that trick is just to hold on
through all appearances; and so we do,
and yes, I know it’s you;
and that is what we will come to, sooner
or later, when it’s even darker
than It is now, when the snow is colder,
when it’s darkest and coldest
and candles are no longer any use to us
and the visibility is zero: Yes.
It’s still you. It’s still you.

-Margaret Atwood, "Shapechangers in Winter" from Morning in the Burned House

First off, merry christmas & happy holidays, wherever you are, from Eastern Standard Time! An excerpt of this poem crossed my path today, and while I am not particularly invested in astrology or god or christ, I did think it was lovely. "and the house turns/itself inside out, as a tulip does/in its last full-blown moment, and our candle/flares up and goes out, and the only common/sense that remains to us is touch," I find a particularly lovely section, and it feels like Christmas to me: lovely, and heavy, and a still moment on the cusp. This year feels particularly weighty. (also, wow, I get so painfully sincere around the holidays)


( some notable personal 2018 changes )

( and it's one year in fandom! )

Really, I am just overwhelmed by change, both in my own personal life and (it would be remiss to ignore) the fucking disaster on the national/global scale. A year ago me could not have begun to imagine what was coming down the pipeline. Today me feels better equipped to handle shit than any other me. (@ the good place)

Finally: I used tumblr as both personal & media record, but basically just for me. That seems to be less the case here, which is so cool and so intimidating, and also, weird: because I find quasi-public emotions really productive for me! But since it is interactive...I would love love love to hear about y'alls entrance into fandom. What made it tick for you? Was it all at once? Was it a distraction from something else and suddenly you've been here for twenty years, or was it a thing you'd been looking for and recognized immediately?

<3 merry christmas, happy yuletide(!!!!), please enjoy whatever celebrations (or not) you are participating in today