fog

A thick fog had settled into the valley by the time I arrived, so thick the sentries didn't even challenge me as I approached. At least the gates were closed. They finally let me in after I spent a few minutes knocking as loudly as I could--"Got to keep the bandits away," they hissed as they shut the gates after me--and then I was just another poor soul out braving the freezing mists. All the windows and signs, I noticed as I wandered that desolate little town, had little tendrils of rime growing on them. 

Everything seemed so oddly quiet as I walked the streets--slow, careful steps, keeping close to the buildings so they were more than just indistinct shapes in the distance--and my footsteps, careful as they were, seemed far too loud in my ears, like they were intruding on this town's peace. Maybe I was. Maybe the fog was for me, warning me away. But if so, I ignored it. I had better things to worry about.

I found the inn by looking for a building with a fire burning, but even if the cheerful glow cut through the fog like a beacon, inside both the patrons and the serving staff seemed defeated already. They looked up as I entered, registered who I was--a sword and a red sash was enough, I think--and then fell into an expectant silence. Some of them wore faces of hope, some of trepidation.

"Didn't expect any travelers with this fog," said the innkeeper. 

"I like to defy expectations." I offered them a smile that was probably more predatory than friendly. A little fear never hurt anyone. "I hear you've had problems with bandits. I'm for hire."

The room softened. "Could be the fog's just the thing we needed," said the innkeeper, with a wry smile. "You rest a minute, get something to eat. I'll send for the man you need to talk to."

***

The man in question looked like a merchant, though he identified himself as the seneschal. There was ambition and cunning in his eyes; he gave me an evaluating look and nodded. "I assume you're offering to train up a militia? We do have a master-at-arms already, unfortunately. The problem--"

"I had something more direct in mind. You know where their camp is?"

Those ambitious eyes lit up. "I do. Or rather--"

"Your scouts do, yes. Guide me there, and I'll end the threat. The fog will be enough confusion that they can't organize a defense, and it'll make them more likely to scatter."

"Well, pull this off and you'll have quite the bounty waiting for you--and I think I could use someone of the skill you claim to possess for some . . . future endeavors. If you're interested.

He didn't trust me, but he did send his scouts to guide me to the bandits' camp. And from that shrouded vantage I walked deeper into the mists, into a future free from wandering.

waxing crescent

The instant the sun went down, Drysi found us and dragged us to one of the hidden rooftop gardens--it had probably been properly tended once, but now it ran wild. What had once been a pair little elegantly manicured trees now stretched so high they nearly blocked our view of the sky; their roots had torn up the stone of the courtyard and rendered the classrooms underneath the garden unusable. (Well, almost. It was a nice quiet place to hide, and as students of the Academy we had ample reason to spend some time hiding.) It was--and here I use Drysi's words, not my own--a little pocket of the wild in the heart of the empire. I wouldn't fully understand what she meant until many years later.

It was one of those nights where there was a thin veil of clouds, but a thin crescent moon shone through eerily, lending the clouds a soft glow and casting strange shadows in our little hidden garden. It was a beautiful sight--enough that it took me several moments to notice that there was a little glowing wisp dancing among the flowers--and they were flowers, not weeds.

"I wanted to do this right," Drysi said, behind us, as we both knelt to examine this impossible spirit. "Because you're my friends. A waxing crescent, a wild place, a spirit." The wisp settled on my finger as she spoke. "Our strength comes from the promises we make." The moon flashed, and as I turned my head to look, it grew and grew in brightness until the whole world was a blinding white.

When the world returned I was on my back in an ancient forest, lit by a giant crescent moon. As I oriented myself--"We are stronger when we see with eyes unclouded," said Drysi's voice, seeming to come from all around me--the roots I was lying on gently lifted me to my feet. I was barefoot now, dressed in a thin grey robe rather than the white Academy uniform we'd all been wearing moments before. I was also alone, and all around me there was underbrush and deadfall, except before me, where a path of soft-looking leaves was laid out.

Of course I followed it. The giddy excitement of being invited to a secret rendezvous by the girl I loved--and we were still just girls then, young and foolish girls with no idea what the world had in store for us--had faded, but I felt no fear. I trusted her, but more than that, I could sense that this was important. I followed the path until I came upon a spring, the water of which glowed with the same soft light as the wisp.

In my memory, the woman who waited for me there looked like Drysi, but I knew instantly that this was simply a shape she wore. At first I thought she wore it to please me, then I realized--perhaps this was the only human she knew? She smiled at me, and welcomed me, and it's only in recollection that I realize that she never actually spoke any words.

"You're the wisp," I said. It wasn't a question, but she affirmed that she was regardless. But she was more than that: she was the forest and the spring; she was the little wild garden on the rooftop. She was ancient as the oldest trees and as young as a wildflower in the spring.

If I drank from the spring, I understood--or perhaps she really did explain it to me?--it would be sealing a pact between us: she would offer me her protection, and in return I would make a promise, in something deeper than words. (That promise I keep to myself. I understood then, though, that here where the spirit ruled, the act of making a promise changed us both.)

I drank from the spring, and the spirit seemed different somehow, more substantial, less like someone wearing another's face and more like she wore a shape of her own. It was no coincidence, I think, that the new shape reminded me of myself. "Remember me, on your travels," she said--and here she did use words--"as I shall remember you."

The world faded and I found myself back in the little hidden garden. My sister and I were lying against the trunks of the two trees, and Drysi knelt between us, holding each of our hands in hers. And behind her, seeming to dissipate into the moonlight, was a faint wisp of light that seemed to have taken on a human shape.

The moon set early that night, and we withdrew to the abandoned overgrown classroom beneath the garden, feeling both giddy and subdued. The world seemed different, somehow--which is to say, we were different. Neither my sister nor I realized it at the time, though Drysi surely did, that this promise had set us free. And every time that thin sliver of moon emerged from new, I'd always make a little offering to the nameless spirit that granted us that freedom.

dark clouds

The summer before the war was endlessly hot, and endlessly full of arguing. Arguments in the Council about how to rule, arguments in the inner circle about how to navigate the city's politics, or occasionally just about how irritating we found each other. I took to staring out the window at the sky, for all the good that did me. There was never a cloud in sight.

It was one of the latter arguments that first marked a change. Nevena was yelling at Drysi about something, which was only surprising because she usually waited to do her yelling until they were alone (but everyone could tell she wanted to anyway), and no, I couldn't be bothered to pay attention. It was unbearably hot--almost unimaginably hot, so hot even the Princess had abandoned proper court dress in favor of something light and loose-fitting. (I imagine the heat is why she also was irritable enough to yell instead of merely suggest that she felt yelling was desirable.) But there were clouds in the sky--small, fluffy ones at first, but moving and growing and darkening as I watched--and suddenly all the oppressive heat and humidity suddenly felt like it might be building to something.

"What are you smiling at?" This was directed at me--Drysi, who seldom rose to the Princess's bait but wasn't above ignoring her if she thought it would be funny, interrupted her serene highness in mid-sentence.

Was I smiling? I hadn't realized. I gestured at the window. "Dark clouds gathering, look. There's going to be a storm."

Everyone stopped to look at the clouds, and a strange silence settled over us as we watched them grow. The promise of the gathering clouds had, for a moment at least, stolen the heat from the argument, provided a moment of relief from the endless tyranny of summer.

stars

The first night after I left the Princess's service--too late, alas, to join my love in her wanderings--I had nothing except my sword and my convictions to keep me safe from the elements, and neither of those are much good for that. The snowmelt and an early spring storm had me soaked and shivering by midday, and I had no real recourse except to keep moving, hoping that in so doing I could keep myself warm enough that I wouldn't freeze to death. I think, more than anything, it was stubbornness that kept me alive: I hadn't survived such a bitter winter only to die of snowmelt when spring finally came.

I found a trader on the road, an intrepid soul who saw the spring as an opportunity to make a small fortune selling basic items to the army as luxuries. He practically beamed when he saw my colors--the Princess's blue and white--and that I was alone and bedraggled as a deserter, desperate to not be quite so obviously a dead woman walking. And he charged me a small fortune for some dry clothes and a backpack and some essentials, which I paid happily, and then I left the roads and cut across country because that was a man who would sell out my location to anyone who wanted it if he thought he might get a tarnished copper bit out of it.

The clouds cleared up by nightfall, leaving only a glittering canopy of stars behind, undimmed by the light and smoke of campfires and unconcerned with the petty affairs of we mortals walking the earth below. And what can you say to that? What can you do when, cold and sore and hungry and exhausted and utterly lost, you are confronted with the evidence that even now, at your very lowest, the universe is absolutely beautiful and absolutely indifferent to your plight?

I hadn't allowed myself to weep since the war started--or rather, I hadn't allowed myself to weep since I started questioning the Princess, the figure who had loomed largest in my life until that point. It had been years. I'd promised myself I wouldn't--at first, because I feared that it meant I had lost faith in her, and then, once I'd lost faith in her, because I refused to let myself be weak for her. (It was a foolish promise made by a foolish girl; I like to think I am wiser now, however much my folly has cost me.) Eventually it was stubborn pride: I'd made a promise to myself, and I would feel deeply ashamed if I broke it. I wept then. The stars, to their credit, did not care.

new moon

There's an old story that the moon was put in the night's sky to guide us during the long dark of the night; there are dozens of folk stories with various morals derived from that, of course, but it was always a beloved icon of the church, a reminder that the Creator was watching over us. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that as society began to shift its focus away from the works of the divine and onto the works of humankind, the night of the new moon took on a special significance: this is our night. The night when the protection of the divine has been withdrawn, and we poor citizens of the world are left to fend for ourselves--and look, we say, look at all we have done. And so the Festival of Night was born. The priests don't like it, especially the conservative ones, but for so much of the festival's existence, it was deeply religious, a night of thanks to the Creator for trusting their children to fend for themselves, for letting them live and think and reason and build great cities and mighty empires. In recent years, the tone has shifted, of course, as the works of the church and religion have come under scrutiny as the ranks of skeptics and nonbelievers swelled to numbers that would have been unfathomable a mere century ago. So the festival has taken on a defiant stance: look, we say, look at what we can do.

I write this now because it was the Festival of Night last night, and the Prince was assassinated in front of a crowd. And the festival, a time both sacred and profane--I can't help but wonder why it was chosen. Superstition, perhaps--perhaps the Divine won't punish regicide committed on the night where they have left creation to its own devices--or perhaps it was political, a message that the Prince's tame participation in his city's ancient festival would not be tolerated. (But if so, by whom? Have the priests ceded the ceremony to its enemies so soon?)

Nevena--the new Princess, I suppose--had the misfortune of having me as her companion on this night. Just hours ago she was talking about how she always felt hopeful on the eve of the new moon, that it represented so much unrealized potential, and now she is numbly staring out from her balcony at the moonless sky, while I sit at her desk and write my thoughts on her father's death. It feels important to chronicle these moments.

It also feels important to offer her a shoulder to cry on, to offer some words, to focus not on the historical magnitude of the moment but on the grief and horror she is feeling, right now. I did my best. I sat with her for a while, staring at the moonless sky, and though we didn't speak, she still turned to me with a thin smile and said thank you. Kind of her to let this poor historian feel like she had any use in situations like these.

And so I returned here, to this little desk, using her lamp and her pen and her paper. And while I will be called upon to answer all of the questions about the implications of this later, right now, while I try to make myself useful as a friend, I'm thinking about the new moon. I hope, for her sake, that she is still able to look at the empty sky and feel that there are bright days to come.

rainy day

My biggest concern, now that I've been free for so long, is that people will forget that she was, at heart, just a person. Sometimes I still think about the rainy days we'd spend together--stuck in the Academy, stuck in the palace, they all run together now. I'm imagining her in court dress running through the halls of the Academy, or in academic white in the halls of the palace. I don't know which part is accurate--maybe none of it is. Maybe it's made up, or maybe this one actually took place at my family's estate, or at the opera house, or . . .

What drew me to her is how passionate she was about whatever she had discovered recently. A book, an opera--it wasn't so much that she dreamed of being a philosopher-princess but that she was bound to become one. I can still see the glint in her eye, hear the barely contained enthusiasm in her voice, as she waxes poetic on the latest essays of her favorite philosopher, or describes the scene she loved most in the latest theatrical production. She spent so much of her life on guard, afraid that her enthusiasm might hold too much sway, but around me, at least, she let that guard down. And even after everything she's done--everything she did to me--I still miss those days. I'd never know where the conversation was going, and I'm not sure I ever really held my own, but I loved it.

Does this make her sound flighty? Perhaps she was. Perhaps after all these years, Princess Nevena IV, the dread figure that shattered the world, was just an excitable girl, who loved ideas and people too easily, who dreamed of a brighter future and couldn't settle on what that meant. I'm not sure anyone else got to see that side of her, but until the last time I saw her, that was who she was to me. Eager, enthusiastic, confident, and ever changing.

So, as scholars attempt to write a history of what happened, of her life, of what went wrong, I can't stop thinking of that time we sat on the rooftops of the Academy, huddled together in the rain, while she talked about all the dreams she had, what she wanted to do when the throne was hers, how she would make the world better with everything she had learned and studied. And I remember falling in love with that excitement, that energy, all over again.

wind

There used to be a kingdom here--or, no, they wouldn't have used that word. But there was something so much more than a handful of villages trading with each other. Someone built these roads, and maintained them; more than a few brave souls travelled them. And now it's just ruins, lost and overgrown; and I've always felt compelled to explore those lost places, to learn about the world we lost. Or maybe compelled isn't strong enough. Driven, perhaps? The echoes that linger in these old places call to me.

My companion tells me that where she's from, there's a coming of age ritual where a young person will take the surname Windtossed and go out into the world. Not everyone goes through the ritual--there are plenty who are happy to work on the family farm, or learn a trade, or otherwise stay with the clan--but any who feel so called are encouraged to go chase the wind. It's nice to imagine what it would have been like if my family and my hometown had encouraged my journeys rather than begging me to stay because they don't believe I can take care of myself.

Though we've been travelling together for a while now, my companion won't talk about her own wanderings; I'm left to imagine why she follows me, where she's from, who she really is. But she believes in me, and she has saved my life more times than I could count. And every morning when I wake up she's still there, standing watch, spear in hand, hair and cloak being tossed by the wind. A wanderer couldn't ask for a better companion.

dawn

When I received an invitation to one of the future Princess's salons, my first thought--after the obvious ones, I suppose--was that I was almost certainly there as decoration. Someone had seen one of my performances and liked my voice or just thought I was pretty enough that they wanted me there, and I had to stop myself from continuing down that line because along that road cynicism runs wild. Of course I accepted, and of course I dressed in the finest dress I had, and of course I was so nervous that for the first hour or so I could barely string a sentence together. It was a small gathering--half a dozen people or so, many of whom came and went as casually as if this were not the most prestigious gatherings in the city--and though the wine flowed freely that night I drank only water and still felt drunk on everything--the atmosphere, the ideas. 

At some point one of the city's eminent philosophers asked me a question--I couldn't even tell you what it was now, except that it was clear he had expected a demure "I don't know" in response. Instead, summoning what composure I could from my stage training, I answered honestly, and thoughtfully, and in my opinion insightfully. And then there was a stunned silence, someone laughed, and someone else said, "I told you she'd be interesting to have around."

I understood then. The allure wasn't the prestige, but the sense that here, status meant nothing. It didn't matter if I was just a singer; so long as I had something interesting to say, I would be accepted as an equal here. And what an allure it was, that a room full of the city's sharpest minds could continue planning their campaign against the darkness, the malaise that we all sensed settling over the city, and that eventually by wit and reason alone that darkness could be purged.

As the night wore on most of the guests retired, but a few of us stayed, talking, joking, arguing--none of it mattered, or perhaps more precisely, it all mattered. No matter how exhausted I got, I felt like everything we said or did there would somehow shape the world for the better.

We stopped, both of us who still remained, when dawn came. One of my companions walked me back home, and the sky was such a brilliant red when we finally reached the sad little tenement I called my lodgings. To my surprise I invited her in--"It seems rude to make you walk all the way back to the palace when the sun's already risen"--and to my even greater surprise she accepted. And though we were both too exhausted to do anything but sleep, at least, with dawn watching over us, I fell asleep feeling, for once, warm and hopeful.

quiet clouds

I don't know why I didn't go home once I'd severed my alliance with the Princess. We both could have gone, me and my constant companion, and enjoyed the safety and comfort of my estate; instead, once the thaw came, we wandered. It seemed that everywhere we went, the war had left chaos and instability in its wake: deserters who became bandits who became warlords here, a corrupt magistrate taking advantage of the chaos to line his pockets there. Sometimes they welcomed us, sometimes they drove us away. We helped where we could. When we couldn't find work, we foraged for food; when the imperial highways started to fill with soldiers we left the roads behind.

We were tired, we were hungry, and we were putting our lives at risk, and even when we were able to help, it felt so small. So often it felt like we were at best buying them time, that everything we did--driving off the warlords, exposing the magistrates--would simply lead to a temporary power vacuum. And we could hardly stay and prevent someone else from returning.

It became harder as we traveled to pay attention to anything but the road ahead of us. I knew that we were in a mountain valley and had even stopped to admire some of the views when my companion pointed them out, but my eyes remained fixed on the trail, and all the sounds of the wilds faded to nothing but the dull tread of my boots.

My companion had stopped, and I wearily asked what the problem was. She simply gestured upwards. A beautiful set of quiet clouds had formed above the mountains, drifting through the sky and along the slopes as I watched.

"I'll make camp," she told me.

I found a fallen log to sit on and just watched the clouds. Somewhere out there, the war was ravaging even more lands, but there were still quiet, beautiful moments out there, and for a moment I was able to convince myself that maybe the reason I was still wandering was so I could find them.

waning crescent

I always had an affinity with the moon, ever since I was little. I'd stay up late--later than I was supposed to, but even then none of my caretakers dared to stop me--and sneak out onto one of the palace balconies and just stare up at the moon, and felt elation as it waxed and sorrow as it waned. 

It's so easy to lose track of the moon's phases, though, when you're busy. And I was, of course I was, even when my father was alive. I had so much I needed to do before the city was mine. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that when I was coronated, I forgot to check the moon. It was a waning crescent, days before new. A moon in decline.

I told myself I'd grown out of superstition. I tried to convince myself that the phase of the moon meant nothing about the fate of the city, that I would not be ruling over the final days of a waning realm. I had so much to accomplish. I had so many dreams. The days ahead should have been our brightest; but as I saw that moon hanging over the ocean, my new crown already too heavy on my head, I had the conviction that each passing night would only be darker.

That night, when the crowds of disingenuous well-wishers had dispersed, I stayed up late like I used to and stared at the moon and tried to understand, or at least to recapture that sense of wonder I'd had as a child. But it remained impenetrable as ever, and eventually wine and exhaustion forced me to retire.

I drifted through the next day too distracted to think of anything else. Eventually one of my friends--or perhaps she was an adviser now?--finally realized this wasn't just a hangover, and pulled me aside. "You seem worried."

I tried to assure her I was fine, but at that moment I lost control and started to cry, silently. She held me, awkwardly, as I struggled to compose myself once again.

"Tell me what's wrong?" she said, once I had regained my composure.

And I tried. I tried to explain about the moon, and how despite everything, I still worried about symbols and omens. "No," I said, as a revelation occurred. "it's not worry. It's a certainty. I will be the last Princess of this city."

She watched me for a while--I never did learn to read her face, even after growing up with her, and she was always one to keep her thoughts to herself--then said, "Someone had to be. You may as well pretend you're wrong, though." I frowned at her, and she cracked a thin smile. "Rule well, and either you make the last days of a waning empire better, or you lay the groundwork for a brighter future. Worry and despair doesn't help anyone."

I glanced up at the afternoon sky then and saw the thin sliver of moon there, barely visible against the pale blue sky, and I wondered, if it was an omen, what kind it was meant to be.

a prelude for october

October at last. Autumn has truly started here--the leaves have turned, there's a chill in the air, the rains have already started falling . . . sometimes I get a little emotional the first time a real autumn storm happens. I love this season, and I love this month.

This is the month of Halloween, a holiday whose aesthetic I've always loved. I still remember going all out decorating and dressing up as a kid, wanting the season to never end. Part of that, of course, is just fall--the colors, the leaves, the smell of fallen leaves, the chill in the air--but the holiday itself, and by extension the month it occupies, also has a special place in my heart. Jack-o-lanterns and spooky ghosts and skeletons and little cartoony gravestones that say RIP on them. (Though I know at least one person who hates when people say this, I'm not actually that into horror as a genre; I'm mostly here for the fun and whimsy. But horror fans getting excited for their favorite movies makes me happy, so I'm not complaining either.)

There's an A Softer World which describes Halloween as the only time of year you can really dress for the job you want, and Jason Webley has been known to introduce some of his seasonal songs by saying that it is the one night of year when we can take off our masks and reveal who we really are (I'm sure there's a recording of this somewhere but I'm too lazy to search; sorry). There's something about that, I think: the way we celebrate it, Halloween is ostensibly a night of masquerade, but there's an element of masquerade that allows us to be a little more honest about who we are. That is, wearing a real mask makes it a little easier to drop the metaphorical ones.

I don't really have a point here, or even a good way to segue into this next bit: I'm going to try once again to write a little something every day this month, because it's a fun challenge. I'm planning on using this set of prompts, which given my endless fascination with the sky and weather probably shouldn't require explanation, though I think I'll try to reshuffle the moon days around so they correspond with this year's phases rather than with, I presume, those of 2019.

Normally I'd try to mix in some observations on news and the world, and maybe some personal anecdotes to tie it all together, but this month I have nothing much to say. I'm glad fall is here; I'm still tired, society is still on edge from the pandemic, hope still feels firmly grounded in folly. The year is drawing rapidly to a close and things still feel both stagnant and precarious.

Regardless, I hope the season is treating you well. I hope that it is exactly as spooky as you'd like it to be. I hope you are pleasantly surprised by a gust of wind, that you can watch the leaves dancing against a stormy sky. I hope, even if it's only for one night, you can take off your mask and be who you truly are.

dragonsbane

I have a new short story. It's here.

Normally I don't like putting up qualifiers for things I've written because I'd rather the text stand for itself, but the short stories I've been working on recently, including the most recent one (which I may not have even put up here, what the hell?) are part of a bigger story I've been working on for . . . years, now. Sometimes it just lives in my brain, sometimes I put some words on paper, building up the world and the events. It's changed a lot since I started, but it's solidifying, slowly. The characters, at least, have taken on their own forms.

This isn't really new here; I've written a number of things taking place in this world and posted them on this blog. But increasingly as I build the world, they become events that are part of something bigger. This is the story of the time a character earned the epithet "Dragonsbane"; it's also a small but significant event in a grander story.

Previously I've been happy to file off the characteristics that tie an individual story to the broader narrative; it's harder to do the closer the stories get to being part of those events. The problem is that I worry that it will feel incomplete, or at the very least that treating these as isolated and separate stories is not the ideal way to present these.

So here we are. I still want to tinker with this forever but eventually you have to hit publish. 

a prelude for september

And so August draws to a close. It was a strange one, as weather goes: the endless sun and heat that is typical of a Seattle August was, with few exceptions, nowhere to be seen; instead we got the cool clouds that feel more like June, or even May. As I write this it hasn't even breached 70 yet today; it's cold enough in the house that I'm wearing hoodies and blankets, which is usually reserved for spring and fall.

I . . . so usually this is the part where I say that nothing remarkable has happened, but then I think about it and, no, it's just become normal. The antivaxxers have started chugging ivermectin horse dewormer because some snake oil salesmen have told them it will help with coronavirus; ivermectin poisoning has spiked dramatically, especially in antivax strongholds like Texas. A judge in Ohio ordered a doctor to provide it to a COVID patient after the hospital rightly refused. This, to me, is more emblematic of how broken our society is than pretty much any other example I can think of. It seems like something that should be the part of a fringe, but it's alarmingly common, and there's nothing to be done about it.

And then there's America's withdrawal from the disastrous war in Afghanistan, which has led to chaos and death as the Taliban rushed in to fill the power vacuum left behind. This was always going to be the outcome, of course: American intervention invariably leads to disaster. Warhawks, of course, always say that it wouldn't lead to disaster if we'd simply "stay the course" or commit to winning or whatever, but it's always telling that they're more concerned with adding a win to the collection than in making the world a better place for anyone besides themselves. Perhaps there is a world where America actually left Afghanistan stable and peaceful, rather than simply occupying it forever or withdrawing and leaving chaos in its wake; but given how every other instance of American intervention has only destabilized, it's hard to imagine that being the case. And strategic questions aside, there is always the moral question: does a dying superpower have the right to impose its version of peace and stability on the rest of the world? If it has the right, does it have the obligation?

There is so much that is broken about this world. This, I think, is why lately I've been drawn to studying history, and the history of ideas: the hope that somewhere in there is the key to understand the nightmare we find ourselves in.

But September is here. It's a month I've always associated with hope and new beginnings--if it is summer's last hurrah, it's often a pleasant one, where the heat of the day is tempered by the nights as they slowly get longer. Yet it's also the end of fire season, when the winds of fall can stir up fires and create more destruction. That this September won't even be a reprieve from the summer certainly does feel odd. It's probably as unreasonable as my old dislike of Augusts was, but simply seeing the calendar change to September is still comforting in its own way. So here's hoping that the winds of fall bring some much-needed change.

a prelude for august

When I was younger, I had a few very bad Augusts, and for a while that rather spoiled the month for me. It doesn't help, I suppose, that August is high summer, that time of year when the heat of the sun seems interminable, when everything is too hot, when the promise of autumn seems an eternity away. Except, well, this year--as last year, as I'm looking back on what I'd written then--August started with clouds. July was fairly cool, too, which was a sharp relief from the overwhelming heat that brought June to a close.

As fond as I am of trying to find an analogy, to describe the state of the world with the state of the weather, it's poetry rather than mysticism that drives me to this. There are weather events that seem all too fitting--I'll always remember the bitter cold at my uncle's funeral--but there are also beautiful days full of disasters, terrible storms that coincide with wonderful news. And perhaps there is some poetic resonance in an oddly temperate month following a disastrous heat wave--surely many of us have convinced ourselves that the pandemic is over, that we're in that temperate month now, that the disastrous waves of COVID-19 are done and gone.

One of the things that consistently frustrates me is how, consistently through this pandemic, we've let up as soon as things start showing signs of improvement. Lockdown restrictions eased not when numbers were controllable but when the numbers were improving. I very much doubt that epidemiologists suggested this; this seems like it was engineered to give the illusion that our public officials are constantly acting to protect us.

The thing is, you don't let up when it looks like you're about to win; you keep the pressure on. We could have held out until new cases were effectively gone, then we could have put infrastructure in place to locate and isolate new cases, to do contact tracing . . . the potential was there. Now numbers are spiking again--this post-vaccination wave is already our third highest peak--and the governor is suggesting that maybe people consider wearing masks if they feel like it. It's frustrating, and all the more frustrating because of how expected it all is.

Still, August may be high summer, but it's also the last real month of summer. One more month of heat to weather before September comes in with rain and cool air, ready to once again breathe life into the world. Something, at least, to look forward to. August deserves some credit for that, I think. One last chance for summer, and then, at long last, relief.

a prelude for july

As I write this, we're recovering from a heatwave that is worse than anything the Pacific Northwest has ever seen on record, with all-time record high temperatures being posted across the entire bioregion, often for several consecutive days, or more. It would have been bad for any time of year, but this was still June, when the temperatures are still usually fairly manageable. It was staggeringly hot, a kind of heat much of the region is woefully unprepared for. Summer, it seems, wants to make its presence felt this year. The temperatures are still well above normal for the time of year, and will be for some time yet; it's cool enough that the heat wave feels "over" but warm enough that it could still be causing problems, drying up plants that could become fuel for wildfires, interfering with crops as they grow . . . the initial heat was catastrophic enough, but the subtle lingering warmth could cause still more damage.

And this is the Fourth of July weekend, the first one "after the pandemic", the weekend after all this heat, when so many fireworks will be set off, when the conditions are ripe for fire . . . usually the worst of wildfire season for Seattle is later in the summer, but already things are pretty bad. That means that we have more time when conditions are optimal for wildfires, which would be bad even if Americans weren't so deeply and reliably foolish.

Also as I write this, King County has lifted its mask mandate, because our vaccination numbers hit a particular arbitrary total, ignoring the WHO's recommendation to maintain mask requirements and the worrying increase of the so-called delta variant of the virus, which appears to spread much more quickly. America has decided that we have done enough to declare the pandemic over, so we're acting as if it is. So now we're relying on the feverish hope that the vaccines are good enough that they can prevent variants from taking root and mutating to the point that we need new vaccines.

It is well and truly summer, then: brutal, unrelenting, interminable, inexorable. It's hard to feel hopeful when the heat is so bad that all you can do is lie on the floor with some wet towels and hope that it cools down enough at night that you can get a few hours of sleep. It's hard to feel like the pandemic is over when the health organizations that aren't compromised by capitalist interests are begging us to keep restrictions in place, warning that nowhere is safe until everywhere is safe.

I hope my fears are unfounded, that these filters I've been collecting over the past few fire seasons will go unused, that the numbers will actually continue their slow decline. But summer, I've found, is seldom merciful.

a prelude for june

 And just like that, June is upon us. These first two days of June in Seattle have been full of summer's promise, the endless sun, the heat--far from oppressive but still a stark contrast from spring's warmth. But as I write this the sun is setting and we're settling into the more familiar pattern which locals call the June Gloom, where there are always clouds in the sky and we have the audacity to call these sixty degree days "cool." It's not spring, but it's not quite summer; sometimes it feels like a lie to suggest we have four seasons. There are so many shapes the seasons take throughout the year.

People are starting to say the pandemic is over, or nearly over. Restrictions are easing, with promises of even more relaxations coming soon, as soon as we hit certain vaccination thresholds. It feels like that classic American blunder of declaring MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as soon as victory is in sight, then just bailing out before crossing the finish line and letting things fester once again. We are so desperate to return to normal we're willing to sabotage ourselves to get there. Or perhaps it doesn't matter; perhaps we fucked up so badly that there never could have been a clean end to this. That, too, would be very American. Or maybe, despite everything, things really will get better. Maybe it's over. Stranger things have certainly happened.

Regardless, "normal" is coming back. People are returning to work in their offices; office buildings are relaxing their restrictions and removing some of the seldom-used distancing measures. Soon we'll get to see if we see any lasting behavioral changes when we've collectively agreed that the pandemic is over; soon all of those few, both blessed and cursed, who actually stayed home all this time, will reemerge and have to remember what it's like to interact with people again.

And soon these little monthly preludes following life in a pandemic and apocalypse will be . . . superfluous isn't quite the word; they were never necessary. But certainly whatever uniqueness my perspective had is fast fading, and soon, for good or ill, life will be back to some grotesque facsimile of normalcy for everyone.

a prelude for may

 Ah, May. This is the month where winter is finally just a memory and everything is green and alive again, finally--it's a shame it comes so close to the start of summer, that so often you can still feel the touch of winter in March and April and then by the time May rolls around it's almost over. Perhaps that's the nature of spring, though, to be ephemeral; perhaps if it really lasted it would cease to be spring, and I would instead be saying this about April or March. What is summer but spring once the novelty has worn off That's cynical, of course. But spring is new life, and summer is life ongoing, life unchanging.

We stand at a precarious point where something like an end to the pandemic seems to be in sight. The population of vaccinated individuals is increasing, and there's a promise of returning to normal, at least here. It's hard to trust it. There are disastrous spikes elsewhere, in places like India; there are large segments of the US population who still don't believe this is real; there is so much we don't know. But part of me wonders if I'm having a hard time trusting it because it's just been so damn long, it's hard to imagine normal happening again.

I was able to get my first shot recently and the second one is imminent. (The shot itself was painless, but by the evening my arm was very sore. I felt vaguely unwell the following day but if I hadn't gotten a shot the day before I'd have just assumed I was tired.) I am constantly told that the second shot makes you feel quite badly indeed the next day, and that's . . . odd. Being able to just write on your calendar that you're going to be unwell that day is odd. But there is a sense of relief, that at least for a while it will be safe to just be a person again.

These days it's hard for me not to think of what I was doing a year ago, since I started making the effort to chronicle life in a pandemic. Everything seemed so different back then. In some ways I almost miss it: at least a year ago, the city felt like it was taking it seriously. Now, it's this ghoulish half-life of people pretending things are normal and going through the motions of precautions, but . . . we're all so tired. And even if everything goes perfectly with the vaccines, we still have to clean up.

I hope spring is going well for you, wherever you are.

elegy for a pigeon in traffic

Someone killed a pigeon downtown

its blood shining bright

against the dull asphalt

and the city just

went about its business

as if we hadn't

bred them to be pretty

and turned them loose

and treated them like vermin

with iridescent wings

and fed them our garbage

and made them rely on us

even though we don't want them.

By the time the colors have faded

the bright blood and

the shine of the wings dulled

no one will think much about it

least of all

I assume

the driver who hit them and moved on

just another dead bird

but it is important

I think

to remember even these

unimportant things.

a prelude for april

 So far, the spring this year has been . . . fitful, at best. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that a winter that only found its strength at the very end is reluctant to give up its grasp on the year. But the flowers are starting to bloom in earnest now, rather than a few stray optimists. The sakura trees are in full bloom, the tulips are on their way, even if there's a chill in the air carried by a wind that feels more like early winter than early spring. I'm told things will finally warm up next week. Like so many things about this year, it's hard to even imagine that winter may finally end, even if it seems all but imminent now.

There's not much interesting to be said about life as an essential worker now. I've long since lost a sense of what is normal, and while things seem to be getting livelier downtown, it's happening at such a glacial pace that it's almost imperceptible. I still remember the desolation of the early days, though. Everything downtown was so quiet, so still, and everyone seemed so bleak. Everything seemed so uncertain. It still does, of course, in different ways. The past year has caused so much damage that we aren't even beginning to see the effects of, yet, and when the ruling class steps in to heal that damage, they'll do so in ways which make society that much worse for it.

But it's springtime, for now. April is still early, yet--perhaps it will be beautiful and warm by the time May comes around, and everything will feel alive and the city will be bright with color. Spring is a season of promise, and sometimes the promises are so beautiful we forget how often they end up broken.

a prelude for march

It's hard to believe it's been a year since last March, when the pandemic began. What a surreal year that was, to top off a surreal set of years before that. Even more surreal is just how normal it's all become: the masks, the "haha we're alive in a hell-time and there's nothing we can do about it", everything. Can you imagine how strange it would have been a year ago to see someone walking down the street wearing a mask on their chin? Now it's just a thing that happens.

So, March. Spring is trying its best to happen, after one astonishingly snowy day in February followed by a week of rain and warm weather to melt it all off immediately. But the temperatures are creeping upwards slowly, the days are getting longer--can you believe the Spring equinox is so close?--and the sun is shining a little more. Sometimes going outside in my usual winter gear feels too warm.

It's oddly appropriate, isn't it? Such a sad, fitful spring as the end of our pandemic is in sight but just out of reach? Perhaps we will get the bright riot of colors that made me fall in love with the springtime in Seattle, but not just yet. Old man winter isn't giving up that easily; it seems he's saved most of his fight for the end.