Warning- super geeky conversation to follow.

There’s a TON of stuff you can do in Valheim.. like build your own little fortress, grow gardens, make armor, keep pigs.. fun stuff. Some of it isn’t exactly optional- the only weapons and armor you get are the ones you make. And keeping livestock definitely helps build up resources to help make all that possible.

This is why we spent a few hours this week herding boars into our pen in the fortress.. and then doing it again after trolls and dwarves attacked and destroyed the pen and the pigs in it. The bastards.

To be fair (to be faaaaaaaaaair), sometimes the pigs get out of their pen and wander around the compound on their own. We’ve made a rule that escapees are the first to be slaughtered. Seemed fair to us.

Rick’s been working on the Mead Hall… the troll attacks have continued, and it’s kind of where some of our favorite stuff is, so he wanted to expand and build on rock instead of wood. Makes sense to me, so I’ve been kind of puttering around and trying to stay out of his way.

I was exiting the gate and saw this-

For just a moment, it looked like a boar head trophy mounted on the outside wall.

Me- What the fuck…?

Rick- What?

Me- Oh, it’s a rock.. it looked like you’d hung a boar trophy head outside the walls and I couldn’t figure out why.

Rick- It’s a warning to the other pigs… escape and YOU DIE! Keep them lil bastards in line.

This is so unRicklike that I snortlaughed.. and came to share.

What would I do without this man?

Yes, we have gotten sucked into the wonder that is Valheim, it is true. I am in fact a badass berry picking Viking.

I have some theories as to why the game is so stinkin popular… and it has a lot to do with the fact that it gives people the ability to just go out and explore. You build things with your hands, without limits or boundaries beyond whatever you can mine and your imagination. It’s deeply satisfying.

And see if somehow, some way you can figure out how to put pants on the MFing nasty trolls. Crack kills, guys.

And it’s really pretty guys.. I mean really.

One of the key things about the game is that you need to play with sound. Playing with the sound on alerts you to important things… like there’s a deer nearby to shoot. Or a boar that has spotted you. Or there’s a troll headed in your general direction with the goal of smashing you with an uprooted tree. Important things.

So I can’t hear Rick as well as normal, cause I’ve got my sound on. And he’s picked up the really bad habit of muttering.

Rick- Mutter mutter noise something mutter.

Me- That is a habit genuinely unbecoming a gentleman of your station and we must train you out of it.

Rick- What? I was saying there were animal noises!

Me- You were muttering! ENUNCIATE.

Rick- I don’t mutter.

Me- You DO mutter, and I find it so frustrating that it makes me want to actually go out, smelt iron, make a mace, and smash you upside the head with it!

Rick- Mutter.

I go back to smelting in game… maybe I’ll learn something about how to smith weapons.

Troll crack, super not okay. Be glad this was a night shot.

Isn’t it funny how the little dreams that you work for and worry over and wait.. and wait… and wait for… well, they suddenly pop up as being real overnight?

That’s what happened last night with my first audiobook. To the point that I’m actually kind of just stunned that this is a thing out in the world. That people can go and listen to the amazing performance Meredith Bennie gave as Nessa.. and Cliche.. and omg it’s real!

So what does that mean? Well, if you’re already a member of audible, you can go search Ari Wellman (or use the link below) and my book pops right up. If you’re not a member, you can sign up for a trial and get my book for free… and to be completely transparent, I get a bonus to the sale if you do, so you know, if you wanted to do a girl a solid..

I do want to give my heartfelt thanks to the folks who supported me as I went through all the ups and downs… Meredith, of course, for being a fantastic Nessa. Jessica Jones for being our first listener. Angela Hajicek for telling me I’m not crazy (about this anyway) too many times to count.

I hope so many things for this book.. most of all, I hope that this new format with all the amazing word Meredith put into it touches someone. If I’m being honest, a LOT of someones would be nice too, but hey, I’m not gonna be greedy about it.

https://www.audible.com/pd/B08XK1YPTX/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-241082&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_241082_rh_us

Alright, buckle up buttercups, I got some rip roarin ones today.

1. Teachers owe parents nothing. I’m serious, guys, they don’t owe society their lives to do the job in person during a pandemic. They are 100% justified in not wanting to teach until they are vaccinated, and those of us that aren’t teachers need to STFU unless we’re willing to do it. Oh wait, you don’t want to hop into a small area with no airflow with 30 germ vectors for shit pay cause you might get sick? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Also, education is education.. and that’s a teacher’s job. Not childcare… that’s a parental job. One does not equate to the other, even if your kid’s teachers are nice enough to make sure they don’t maim themselves or others while on school property. As far as I’m concerned, deciding to become a teacher is just this side of holy calling, and adding any extra weight for those saints to carry is a douche move.
2. All that said- I honestly believe that it’s time to change our educational approach. My work life is entirely virtual, and while there are many ways in which I’ve spent most of my adult (baHA) life preparing for this type of role, it still takes a certain mindset to be effective. We need to revamp the educational system so it prepares kids for how to be successful no matter what the venue may be. All the complaints I hear about ‘it’s hard to keep the kids on track’.. you realize right now kids are building the skills and work ethics that are going to stick with them for a lifetime. When I think about what a waste of time my school life was (due to kids being bullying little monsters back in my day, classes that went at the wrong pace, an overemphasis on sports, etc) and I think of how the whole system could be carefully structured to let kids learn at their own pace and pursue the topics that move them… there’s a world of information out there, and a lot of passionate, dedicated teachers to help kids explore them. In my most cynical of hearts, I believe the reason kids are ‘safer’ with schools open has more to do with keeping an eye on abusive households and making sure they are being fed than educating them. If you empower and reward kids for going after education rather than chasing and threatening them with it, you might be surprised at how eager they really are.
3. To the Catholic school mom all up in arms about her kids getting expelled after her OnlyFans account was found- cry me a river, lady. I read your story from a few different sources, and I am utterly unimpressed. They say it takes a village… and you were so unimpressed by the public school community that you chose to pay for an extremely restrictive Catholic education (seriously, I went and read the guidelines). That’s supporting a restrictive community AND agreeing to live within a certain set of boundaries. That’s your choice, you do you, my chica. Where you lost me was in deciding to live by a different set of boundaries and then be all butthurt when that life brings consequences. I mean, seriously, your restrictive woman hating community expelled you with vigor when you chose to appreciate and explore your sexuality in a way they didn’t like. I think you’d find that the public school community would have been far more accepting, and all that energy you spent supporting the incredibly restrictive environment (seriously, over 30 hours of volunteer time a year on top of 15k tuition? Get outta here with that noise!) could have gone to making your public school a better place.
4. #letusplay in New Mexico (student athletes are protesting not being permitted to play sports). On the topic of get outta here with that noise- it’s called a pandemic. Meaning we don’t need to be going out and spreading the damn virus… meaning we only go out for things that are necessary. Athletics don’t qualify. Yes, I played softball, volleyball, and basketball when I was in school, and I can confidently say they did not add value to my life. They cost me grades, sleep, and energy I should have been putting into the work instead of worrying about practices, uniforms, and what position I was playing. The worst displays of poor sportsmanship I have ever seen were on those fields, including a parent choking out a coach, and a coach who decided it was the best thing for my personal development to tell me I was a wimp. And what happens when there are games? Why the parents, friends, and family congregate- and spread the damn virus. It’s almost like there’s logic to NOT HAVING THEM.

Now look, yall, I understand that socialization is a thing, I do. I also think that as much as we don’t want to think so, there’s a before and after covid happening here. The sooner we accept that and find new ways to work within the structures that keep us all healthier in general, the better off we’re going to be. We’re usually a fairly intelligent species, we can adapt if we’re willing to try.

Meanwhile, could yall turn down the pissing and moaning? You are harshing my chill with your entitled nonsense.

Y’all… this is gonna be a ride, and I don’t blame you if you decide to give this one a skip. Before you go though, I’m going to give you the punchline right up front… then you can say, yup, that’s great, thanks so much and close on out when it gets too heavy.

The secret to being making the most out of this trip around the wild, wacky carnival called life is to be flexible and open to what each day brings.

That’s it. You can go now.

For those that want to walk a little further with me, have a drink. Or strap in, metaphorically. Do whatever it is you do to prepare for shit getting real. Cause it’s very real in here just now.

When last year started winding down, sucking the way it did for pretty much everyone, I got one of my brilliant ideas. I got myself a Hero’s Journal and set out on a quest- with the eventual goal of being a better person. Don’t misunderstand, I’ve come a long way over the years, to the point that I admit I can have a good moment now and again, and I’m not a complete shitheel. That seemed like a good starting point… but I wanted to be kinder to myself and those closest to my heart, and I wanted to share more of those good moments with a broader scope of the world. Random acts of kindness ramped up to where I could make them happen with greater regularity and put a little spark of my own magic out into the world more often.

And Eris laughed… as I think she frequently does when I do things like ‘make plans’. (This really isn’t germane to the rest of this conversation, but might fill in some blanks for folk… while I am religious and spiritual, I am not a Christian. In the simplest terms so I can get back to what I was talking about, my beliefs are tied into the divinity of creativity.)

Keep that mental image for the moment, a person who crawled through the muck of 2020, but somehow beat off the beasties and shoved them behind the door, hosed off, and looking towards a mental fresh start with a deep breath and a raised chin.

Now let’s talk about my mother.

Oh the field day Freud would have here.

I want to start by saying this- I don’t think my mother is a bad person. I think she is good to closing her eyes and turning her face away from the things that displease her or generally don’t fit into her carefully curated world. Color, her artistic pursuits, coffee, sometimes a book or tv show (the few that meet her exacting, ever morphing criteria), and a video game or two (again with the criteria) make up that world. It’s a quiet one, and things that are emotional or messy don’t have a place there. She’s adamant that she doesn’t care for people, doesn’t want to deal with them or any system of bureaucracy as though she’s a veteran of a war of red tape shenanigans.

Nothing could be further from the truth- my mother gave up working (in a library, where the books kept watch over the silence) when she moved across the country to be with my stepfather, and seldom left their apartment at all. From the time I had my license, I did the grocery shopping until I left home at twenty. What she did in those in between years, I can’t imagine- though I do know that without the soothing buffer of my presence while I slept (because heavens knows I was home as little as I could manage it the rest of the time) she and my father managed to drive each other up the walls and to the lawyer’s office for a divorce.

Off she went across the country to my stepfather, where she cloistered herself accordingly. Phone calls were accepted when she felt like it- mine less and less frequently as I encouraged her to get a job, make some friends, all those pieces that most people think of when it comes to making a life in a new place. Relocated a thousand miles from home and recently divorced myself, it was advice I was steadfastly putting into practice and reaping the uneven rewards. She refused, and also refused to visit- I think I went for two to three years without a phone call, and five or six years without seeing her at all.

Eventually, she and my stepfather moved to my city, because they needed more of a support structure, the low cost of living, and family. My stepfather and I were fairly close (trust me, that’s another story for another day, just take it on faith for the moment), and it wasn’t long before we started talking in a strange shorthand about what to do with mom. She was clearly unhappy, and I was told that this is basically what life was these days- good days and bad days, with long periods of sullen silence for no known reason.

Jobs were out. People were out. Since she quit driving, her going anywhere on her own was out. From time to time, I’d pick her up and take her shopping, and she’d act like she was released from a prison. The apartment was too small, too dark, too cluttered. My stepfather didn’t understand that she just couldn’t deal with those people from his dialysis clinic or the Social Security office.

And somehow, Fox News had made it into the meagre repertoire of viewing options. That and Oak Island- while I objected to hearing the current news flash from either source, it was incredibly disconcerting to hear Tucker Carlson’s opinions fueling my mother’s general disdain for humanity at ever increasing rates of speed. It went from people being obnoxious overall to brown people, gay people, and anyone who thought brown or gay people may have a point.

It may seem like I’m taking a lot of time and words to lay this out, but I want to be sure we both understand the way the scene was set. Maybe, in our own way, you and I are engaged on investigating the motives behind a crime. I don’t want you to think there was some massive overnight change that occurred only when my stepfather passed. I’ve heard too many well meaning people make the ‘ahhh’ sound of understanding when they know that’s a factor in the current situation, and it makes me grind my teeth in frustration.

Moving along then… yes, we lost my stepfather, undoubtedly the most patient and kind man I’ve yet met, back in June. It was surprising and yet not- for a long time, his health situation could best be summed up in non clinical terms by the Facebook relationship status, ‘It’s complicated’. At the very end though, he made the choice to discontinue life saving treatment after it was clear that his quality of life had seen a marked negative change that was unlikely to improve.

All of us that loved him accepted and understood this. None of us spoke against his decision in any way, and one of the things I’m most grateful for in this life was the chance to say the things that needed to be said and to hear his truth.

And that’s when my watch over my mother began, which I was fine with, honestly. Finding her a new place to live, making sure finances were taken care of, keeping the fridge stocked, all fine, no problem.

So where did the problem start? Well, that would be when I started pushing harder on the ‘you need an income’ issue. Even though she was well past filing age for Social Security and Medicare, she absolutely point blank refused to finish the process of having it set up. Without having an income, we couldn’t really get far with getting her an apartment. In the boundless optimism and energy of the Before Times, we moved her into our spare bedroom while we got it sorted out.

And then, friends and neighbors, it’s 2020, and without medical insurance, what do you think happened?

Mom got sick. Well, let me be plainer about it. Mom was already sick, she’d just ignored the symptoms for like.. you know.. a year. But living in the house with us was not really conducive to hiding a major illness.

Remember what I said about dealing with red tape being a massive No? Well, that list was hardly exhaustive… my mother also refused to deal with any but the most cursory doctor’s visits or needles or regular medication refills for minor things like depression and diabetes. My suggesting a quick run to the urgent care clinic to have the situation checked out met with a tantrum and the silent treatment. I suddenly fully understood conversations with my stepfather about what he’d been living with all these years.

I swear, if it wasn’t for that flash of insight and everything that happened next, it’d almost be funny to think about my sixty seven year old mother giving me the silent treatment, bottom lip outthrust like any thwarted toddler.

Matters came to a head one morning when I found her laying unresponsive in the spare room and I called the ambulance.

I think that’s when I became The Enemy.

We went through a couple of months with mom in and out of the hospital, always resentful and angry, sometimes actually abusive. There were pointed questions from the hospital staff for me regarding my mother’s general care and financial situation- in other words, was I responsible for my mother’s neglect of her health and was I shaking money out of her piggy bank. (The answer is emphatically no- my only crime was letting her do as she had always done and not stepping in until she couldn’t make decisions for herself anymore, then stepping right back out again.) For my part, there were a lot of deep breaths and talk about how all this was temporary, just a thing happening at this moment in time, and life would go on. I talked about in law quarter add ons, vegetable garden beds we were building at waist height, improvements to the courtyard to make it more comfortable and enjoyable.

I am SUCH an optimist.

Without getting into the gory medical bits, mom’s situation demanded that she care for herself differently, and she very much would not be able to ignore or neglect herself. She refused and begged me to do it- not because she was incapable, but because she didn’t want to face that thing.

And that’s when I refused. I could give you a thousand reasons and excuses, but I’m not going to do that. I refused because if I said yes, again, there’d never be a line again.

So mom entered a rehab facility- just until she got the hang of caring for herself. Covid restrictions being what they are, no visits allowed. She had her cell phone and her kindle and any want or need under the sun delivered as fast as it could be managed.

Then she fell and broke her hip. The hospital was in touch to let me know there were signs of severe neglect. I reported it, and tried to get her transferred elsewhere. As soon as she was oriented, she had the complaint dismissed and insisted on going back to the same rehab center.

And stopped talking to me. And then she stopped talking to everyone else, too.

Now the rehab center has called to tell me she’s refusing medication and therapy and has requested to go to hospice.

Well.. we’ve come a long way, and I’m going to get to the point. Points… there are really two of them to knit together here. My mother isn’t a bad person, she never kicked puppies or went out of her way to hurt anyone. But unless she has some kind of epiphany fairly soon and decides she wants to live like Burt Reynolds swimming out to sea (it’s a movie called The End.. wasn’t very popular, but it was interesting), my mother is going to die because she doesn’t want a life in which she will have to change and deal with people and situations that aren’t to her liking. She doesn’t want to be open to the possibility of a life with other people in it. I’m willing to bet that if she hadn’t gotten sick, if we’d put her in law quarters in or found an apartment where everything could be delivered to her door without interaction, she would keep on going for another ten, twenty years. Complaining bitterly about how dark, cramped, and awful her situation was, when fact is, she chose it.

This isn’t anything new under the sun- this is just where the road leads when you keep saying no and slamming the door on things you don’t want to see. And it’s heartbreaking and hard and cold and horrible. But it’s clearly what she wants, and fighting her feels really pointless.

As for me? Well. I’d like to pretend that I’m all evolved and ethereal and say that I honor her choice. But I’m not. Sometimes I’m angry and sometimes I feel worthless. Sometimes I wish I could do it all over, but honestly, when I look down that path, I know there’s no different choices to make that I could live with. When I think about how hard I’ve struggled with depression and suicidal impulses, particularly when I was getting to grow up feeling so different and utterly alone, and how I always told myself to give it another day, give life a chance… and then I sit in the middle of this tangle… well, it doesn’t make it any easier that I identify with my mom. And I’m not blind- I’m aware that nature and nurture are what helped create those feelings of isolation. I’m also aware that I have Rick and an amazing family of choice that has been checking in on me, letting me know how loved, valued, and wanted I am. I have stories to hear and to tell, and Rick and I have created ourselves a warm, beautiful, comfortable home to enjoy together. As heartsore and angry as I can be over the way my mother wants her story to go, as disappointed as I am, I’m not at all prepared to say no to all the wonder life has to offer if I just keep an open mind.

How am I doing with all this, you ask? Coping.

I’m going to start off by kind of apologizing for going dark ish. I’ve been going through a particularly difficult phase of the fun that is life. How fun, you ask? Well, you know about shingles, right? How they are a horrible remnant of chicken pox blah blah blah you get older and sometimes stress will cause your skin to break out and excruciating pain wherever you get that break out?

I’ve got shingles on my face.

I don’t talk about this hardly at all- I’ve had extensive plastic surgery on my face due to a birth defect. So the nerves don’t exactly all work the way they are supposed to. Which means I don’t have constant pain.. I just have weird scabs and random jolts.

On. My. Face.

So with all the stress/depress going on, I’m pretty much done taking on anything extra I find stressing or hurtful. You could say my tolerance levels for shrugging off bullshit are pretty low.

Enter random person I know tangentially. We do some gaming together, so I added them on Facebook and enjoyed their occasional pithy comments.

This week has been especially not great as I wait for phone calls about hospice care possibilities that don’t seem to come. So when I got an invite for something that looked kinda cool and D&D geeky, I was pretty jazzed.

And then, I found it was a cover for Mary Kay sales.

I have this theory that one of the reasons I’m so stressed out is that I bottle up the things that hurt my feelings and let them give me ulcers. Well, this time, I didn’t bottle.

Now, let me be clear. The person that invited me has spent time with me in person. And while I ain’t so jacked up as to be all Quasimodo, I’ve got facial scars. They are pretty evident, as is the fact that I don’t wear any kind of makeup to cover (or to irritate, to be frank) them up. What I’m saying is, it’s hard to miss that I ain’t the Cover Girl in the room, if you get my drift.

So I said my piece, removed myself from the group, blocked the individual, and had a two minute pity party before getting on with another episode of In Plain Sight (it’s been my thing lately and I’m not really sure why).

The next day, I found that the individual had found my professional Facebook profile and sent a little note-

So… yeah. Cool story… a non apology apology while cribbing from the note cards for Overcoming Objections by Mary Kay and still trying to sell me shit.

I’m not even kidding, check it out-

So shocking that this isn’t a person I want to talk to about my feelings. I mean, they managed not to notice all the times I post about hating MLMs, or my facial scars that mean no makeup kplzthx, or even like READ the POST and have an ounce of empathy.

Conclusion? MLMs create toxic sociopaths where normal human beings used to be. I really can’t believe the number of folks that get sucked in. I get that folks are hurting for money and motivation or what the hell ever they are looking for when they join this nonsense, I do. But man, what a great way to lose money, people in your circle, and belittle the people who truly do have their own small businesses with their own creativity they are trying to promote rather than goop in a jar or plasticrap from who knows where. I can’t even count the number of old school acquaintances, gaming friends, and co workers that have gotten into this stuff.

I just know I’m tired, and I’m tired of hiding the hurt when folks are just hitting me up to sell me their misery because they got themselves into the hype of it all.

I wasn’t going to write this. I was going to have my little private rant with my friends and fret over the fate of Patty Jenkins touching the Star Wars universe and go on with my day.

Then, today happened. I’m not going to get into the long drawn out melodrama of it, I’m just going to say it’s not a great day, and when I sat myself down on the couch, I was stream surfing in a bit of a mood.

I needed to laugh. And, though I wouldn’t typically admit it, I also needed to cry.

Somehow the fates (and Amazon recommendations) aligned and gave me Alice Fraser- Savage. It was hysterically funny and sad and raw and enlightening and transcendent and fearless.

(I know, I’m going the long way around here, hang in there, I’ll get there, I promise.)

I finished drying my face when it was all over, and watched Turia Pitt’s Ted Talk that was discussed and felt the power of what Alice had said all over again.

And when I thought about how honest and full of heart and how those two women had fed my soul in half the time it took Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins to utterly destroy a comic book character… well, it was time to write about it. Especially since the first one had done just a little tiny piece of feeding the soul, too.

Spoilers, duh.

It’s a shampoo commercial, guys. The bold and brave Diana who left her entire home thinking she could do some good has become an aloof coward who connects with no one and no thing. She spends her days preserving art, then callously destroys art when it suits an action beat. The flick spends so much time focusing on physical beauty and grace that it turns the main character into a disgusting caricature- an empty shell of a person who believes in nothing and has nothing to give back to the world anymore.

And as a viewer, you can’t invest yourself in someone that empty. So she flies now? Sure, whatever. Golden armor? OK, yeah, oooooh shiny.

The plot device doesn’t take itself seriously.. it makes up rules as it goes. And forget supporting characters.. they are all flat and one dimensional and ultimately pointless. A woman is pretty and on camera or utterly unimportant. Men exist to hit on Diana and whatever the Kristen Wiig’s character name was when she’s hot, and ignore her when she’s not.

It’s shallow, bankrupt, silly, narratively messy, and boring as hell.

The worst part? There’s going to be another one.

I managed to keep myself so busy this morning that I badly needed a nap by one… and I got one. Baking cookies and brownies and making a double batch of warshonka kept me from worrying about what happens tomorrow… mostly.

I also started my yearly reading of my favorite book- A Prayer For Owen Meany. It is the only book I have ever read that still has the power to make me laugh and cry. From the scattered narrative of a perpetual witness to the coming of ageness of it, to the deeper themes of magic and faith… it never gets old to me.

Because, of course, the other thoughts on my mind have to do with my own little tale, being set adrift come midnight.

Will it make people laugh? Or cry? Will people see the characters as I meant to draw them, filled with love and as real as they are to me?

Please don’t let them read it and shrug and toss it aside.

And when they come to the end, oh please let there be the reaction that there should be.

And then, please let them pass it on, and on, and on. I’m not John Irving; I don’t deserve to be read each year, but please let someone see in the story something real and something they want to share.

That’s what I want for this book, for all my books. I don’t care if I’m a bestseller, I don’t want to be sold.

I want to be read.

On the couch after a long day of work and errands, during which, somehow, Rick managed to pull something in his foot.

Me, watching Rick try to get comfortable on the couch and failing- What can I do? Want me to grab you a pillow?

Rick- Well, the problem is I’m not short like you, my feet hang off the end of the foot-

Full stop as he feels the side of his head getting warmer from where I’m glaring at him.

Me, a little too sweetly- We could go into the office and you could prop your foot up there, where there’s room and all.

Rick- Uh yeah… that’s why I go in there to sleep sometimes, so the blanket doesn’t hang off-

Me- Nuh uh. Go ahead, and you said it before, say it again.

Rick- Because I’m just too tall-

Me- Nope, that’s not how you said it! You know what you said!

Rick, dropping his head to my shoulder and giving me puppy dog eyes- I’m hurt!

Cue uncontrollable laughter, during which Rick knows he’s off the hook cause I can’t be mad and laughing that hard.

Rick- I gotta get something out of this stupid foot.

Just so’s you know, that title, in my head, is being screamed out by Kermit the Frog introduction style… I’m so happy to be able to say it, and at times, I absolutely was NOT sure I was going to be.

So I’m keeping my promises- the new book is done, and I will be ready to sign, seal, and deliver it by December 20th.

This one was a long time coming, and it took some core realizations about how women define themselves to get to. I always thought it would be cool to do a whole cycle, Maiden, Mother, Crone, but I never felt tuned in enough to the state of motherhood to be able to clearly speak to it as Nessa.

Well, life’s a funny, funny thing. Sometimes there’s a thousand little pieces laying around that don’t snap into focus until it’s time for them to… and this year, with all of the chaos and crazy- they did.

If I’ve committed to a Mother cycle, does that mean there will be a Crone cycle? Yeah, probably. The time jump will be extreme, that’s for sure, but I can’t see why it’s undoable.

Here’s the other good news- I give a pretty decent recap of books 1 through 3, so if you want to dive in here, it was written for that. As always, if this isn’t quite your kind of read, but you know someone who would enjoy it, please pass it on.

And hey, if you’re not sure if it’s your thing, let’s go ahead and give you the first chapter and see what you think.

“Who Am I?”

 There’s things that I wish I had been told about the once mystical, unimaginable state of being a grown up. 

Some of them are fairly prosaic, about always reading all the fine print. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Vampires are charming, but that’s because, like everyone else, they need to eat. Never make a significant purchase at a county fair. If the service is free, then you’re the product. If someone is telling you everything you want to hear, they want something. If there’s a week in April that feels like June, you’ll be back to February in no time. There’s no such thing as a free lunch (though, come to think of it, that’s kind of going back to the vampires again.)

And if  an extremely powerful entity makes a deal with you, they ain’t doing it for the warm fuzzies.

Now, at the time, I desperately needed the assistance and protection of someone much more powerful than the adversaries I was up against, and they needed me. But you see, I missed that fine print part of things- my cooperation extended far beyond the crisis.

How far beyond?

It’s been more than ten years since I agreed to serve as the manifestation of the Maiden, Goddess of Spring, Youth, et cetera et cetera on this plane of existence. To be fair, ninety nine days out of a hundred, I go about my own business, living my own life in my own little corner of the world. The youngest aspect of the goddess, to give her full credit. definitely pulls her weight around here. As I’ve run into my counterparts, as one does from time to time while out on business, they have expressed a certain wistfulness for life before (or after) their duties have run their course. Or maybe the world we live in already does a solid enough job of worshipping youth, so that the Mother and Crone aspects need a little extra oomph to be appreciated.

And let me be super clear about this- I’m no more or less pretty to look at than the next hundred girls you’ll see passing you on the street. If I have learned anything through my years of service, it’s that all of the glamours of the Maiden- the exuberance, tenderness, innocence, passion, hope, and joy- every woman I’ve ever met and will never meet can embody each face of them at will. As easily as she remembers a first love, or just how it feels to be young and alive on a spring day, the Maiden’s blessing is upon them all.

In case you missed it- that was literally me saying that every woman is beautiful, it’s all in how she uses her power to see herself. And then to project it.

That’s been a piece of who I am.

Another piece, a far larger one, is harder to understand from a standing start. But that’s very much where I find myself. I had two sets of running journals, as most of my kind does. One’s a book of shadows, all about magickal theory, things I’ve learned and accepted as true. The other is a personal recollection of my thoughts, for myself. It helps me see patterns in events from my impressions. And, frankly, bring a little bit of order to my extremely chaotic thoughts and vivid imagination.

Did you happen to take note of the use of the word ‘had’?  

It seems that someone planned themselves a little heist and helped themselves to ten years worth of my work.

I’m sitting back down staring at a blank sheet of paper all over again, and for the first time in quite a while. It’s strange how simple it is to keep a daily running narration of life, and yet, so difficult to start over and try to rethink all the thoughts. How am I supposed to know which of those events I recorded so carefully are important versus just plain trivia?

And yet, here I am, playing retrospective. 

I am Nessa Ysbelle, daughter of Robert, goddaughter of Cliche, Aspect of the Maiden, empath, partnered to a fallen angel, teacher to any that ask that I think will play by the rules. My hair and eyes are still dark, and I can just barely ride the really good roller coasters. I brought down a centuries old order intent on stamping out magic in the world and made more of an impression on supernatural society than I think I deserve. I’m 29, and have been given to understand that in terms of longevity, I’ve just started walking. I am a member in good standing of the Coven, friend of both Winter and Summer Fae Courts, and if I lack popularity among werewolves, they at least don’t try to start any shit.

I have no idea who would want to steal my journals or why, and the idea of all my thoughts being a literal open book makes me feel both violated and deeply afraid. 

Let’s face it, I haven’t been over here thinking up new ways to cure warts.