Day 736,

Hard to believe it’s been over two years now.  I know I just said all that a week ago on the actual anniversary of my arrival, but with the merging of celebrating that with the solstice get-togethers we’re doing this evening and tomorrow it’s on my mind all over again.  And it’s still true.

Even harder to believe that this time last year I was, well, I still don’t know.  But what I do believe is that my friends gathering on this day a year ago was the start of my finding my way back.

I shouldn’t go on too long with this though.  Not with three different family gatherings I’ve somehow managed to commit myself to at least making an appearance at.  Not that I’m complaining.  Being part of multiple families beats not being a part of any.

Hmmm… wonder if I should pop in at Carmen’s and drop off those notes on the crystal growth experiments I meant to get her yesterday?  No, best just leave it for another day or two.  Sounds like she’s made her switch from shepherd to crystal collector permanent enough that she’ll still be around for the dry season.  To think that I might have let that whole line of inquiry fall by the wayside if Vernon hadn’t introduced us last equinox…  As always, he’s good like that.

Ran into the nature sprite for the first time since the eclipse, and the first time I’ve seen it while lucid since it brought me back from wherever I went last year.  I’d say I was surprised at how happy I was to see it again, but that would be a lie.  It was no surprise at all, really.  Complicated as things are with it, maybe I shouldn’t have been so happy, but when I saw it there watching me from the side of the road it felt for all the world like a reunion with an old friend.

I spent a long while leaning against a tree and talking with it.  Well, talking to it.  My sprite remains as enigmatically nonverbal as ever.  But it did truly seem to listen as I told it of all that it missed this past year.

I told it of my days spent recovering, physically and mentally, from my disappearance.  Of days spent thanking everyone that looked for me while I was gone.  Of the strange stares and whispered rumors incited by my return to the Village and the library and of how those soon faded into acceptance of the whole ordeal being simply another case of outsider weirdness.  

I told it of plans drawn up with friends.  Of interviews with the Village’s woodcutters on how they select trees and - more importantly - how they pay their respects to the ecosystem and the nature sprites when they do their cutting.  Of a week spent camping on the northern half of the island with Maiko as a guide.  Of finding and felling a great tree.  Of mimicking customs that few other than the Village’s woodcutters know.  Of noting surprisingly few rings for the tree’s size.  Of days spent splitting and carving  and hollowing the log with metal and flame.  Of paddling our new boat around the coast back down to the cove near the house.  Of another trip up and down the coast and out to the island of fruit and lizards, this time with additional passengers to test the boat’s capacity.

I told it of changes.  Of Cass’s gradual transferral of apprenticeship to Lin.  Of Lin coming to spend as many nights in the lighthouse as in her father’s home.  Of Maiko finding a dry season balance between odd jobs around the Village and periods of seclusion in the woods.  Of an equinox that saw Cass’s reunion with her now-once-again best friend Xia and Vernon’s deepened relationship with his coworker Tiaho.  Of Maiko’s spending the rainy season helping teach the Village’s children.  Of the strange new forms that my mist night dreams have taken.  Of missing not being haunted.

I told it of joys.  Of returning to the lake of stars, this time with Maiko in tow.  Of stormy eyed dances in the rain.  Of birthday party tellings.  Of recommending books to youths who had been my students a year ago but now had moved full time from the outskirts into the Village proper for apprenticeships and found the archive comfortingly familiar.  Of making a conscious effort to regularly carve out time in my week for walks, tea, and stories with Pat.  Of tellings performed at birthdays, at the crowded inn on stormy nights, and at the dinner tables of friends and their families.  Of sweet fruits and savory fish.  Of rides in the back of the family wagon.  Of finally being fully present for the last class of a rainy season.  Of once again working with Vernon to find archival precedent for a tricky mediation case.  Of other mediators being sent my way.  Of evenings spent with Maiko constructing a board game and writing down rules based on her memories of the game her mother played with her.  Of making a cloak out of the mantle of fur I woke up in upon my return.  Of new islands visited on the way to check up on Iole.  Of loud equinoxes and quiet solstices, both joyous in their own way.  Of the night of the lunar eclipse and the morning after.

I told it of sorrows and fears.  Of yet another rainy season with an elder fading away.  Of a rainy season without one but which  in these past weeks has been marred by the tragic accidental death of a young man I knew only passing but now know all too well.  Of the ill-conceived plan to see what sort of waking visions I would get from staying up through a mist night now that my dreams have changed.  Of the gnawing worries of how Vernon’s new relationship might crowd out our friendship despite Lin and Maiko’s relationship not having done the same.  Of the intrusive thoughts about having been an inadequate role model and mentor for Cass being the reason for her change in apprenticeship.  Of blinking myself out of a daze after slipping on that white-furred mantle and finding myself standing barefoot on the shore with the sunrise at my back while I stare out to where I know that island with its sirensong and dark forest lies.  Of the secondhand pain upon learning the circumstances of Maiko’s parentage within Cloud Tower.  Of wishing it were with me.

I told it of new adventures.  Of the mind-numbing vastness of Cloud tower when seen up close and the alien strangeness inside.  Of an island whose surrounding waters are full of curious eels that will harmlessly coil around one’s limbs.  Of another whose trees are full of beetles the size of my hand rather than birds.  Of attempts to use waking dreams to translate the chants that fill the ruined cathedral when it rains.  Of Lin and I making a daytime retracing of last year’s spontaneous nocturnal expedition to the gates of the old castle.  Of talks about making a lengthier expedition next dry season.  Of a long evening spent on a whim going back through Priscilla's notes and charts of floating island patterns.  Of not-entirely-hypothetical discussions and research into what it might take to renovate her old house on the floating island into a home that can keep shades out on mist nights.  Of writing new stories for equinox tellings.  Of Vernon introducing me to Carmen as an old childhood friend of his who had grown tired of the shepherd’s life and was looking for something new.  Of long talks on philosophy, both natural and metaphysical.  Of comparing my microscope examinations of crystals to Carmen’s attempts to grow her own to the glowing liquid circuits that light the inside of Cloud Tower.  Of a rain-and-mud-filled trek through the jungle to examine the crystal cave and collect some small samples without the official crystal collectors around.  Of the carefully-monitored, water-filled tank in the archive’s hidden nook that has just begun to sprout its first growths.

I told it of my happiness at seeing it again.  Of how I never got to properly thank it for taking care of me when I was at my lowest point.  Of how I hope to continue seeing it once more.

Of course, telling it all this meant that I wound up terribly late to my other commitments for the day.

When I finally made to leave, I felt the urge to embrace the nature sprite as I would any other old friend at meeting and parting, but could not quite bring myself to.  Perhaps it sensed this, for it embraced me.  An embrace that was just shy of painful.  An embrace that lifted me until my toes just brushed the ground.  An embrace that went on just long enough for me to fear I was about to be abducted before the wooden-ball-in-a-hollow purr-that-isn’t-a-purr calmed me.  And then it unceremoniously dropped me and vanished into a flurry of laughter and blown leaves.

If you’re reading this unseen over my shoulder once again, then thank you.  It was good to see you again.

But as I said, this left me late to the three other solstice gatherings I had committed myself to attending.  I suddenly found myself less disappointed that it wasn’t four, as fascinating as a night of remembrance spent with Pat and Theo sounds.  At this point I think I’ve mostly settled on being happy the old man isn’t routinely alone for solstice like I feared rather than hurt at my offer to spend it with him being politely declined.

But yet again, I digress.  I blame the lateness of the hour.

The first, of course, was with Cass’s family.  Good natured ribbing about the gall of me to skip out on a goodly portion of the meal preparations when I knew they were already going to be shorthanded with Norman and Marva at her family’s this solstice quickly gave way to concern when I explained my tardiness as being sprite-induced.  Concerns that I allayed well enough to be promptly set to work with the remaining cooking and table-setting.  Between the comfortable sense of belonging and twinge of guilt over being late, I wound up staying later than I planned; far past the initial tasting of stew and into the settling down for tale telling.  Somehow I suspect that any disappointment Cass might have felt over my excusing myself just before it was her turn to tell was outweighed by the knowledge that she’s going to be able to hold this one over me for weeks.

And thus was a basket containing a small, blanket-covered pot of stew and a bag of tea herbs shoved into my hands on the way out the door and down the road.

The sun had set and the meal had already begun when I knocked on the door of Vernon’s house where his parents were visiting him for once rather than the other way around.  I sheepishly offered up my pot of stew in apology for my late arrival, although I know I would have been nearly equally welcome without it.

Tiaho was there as well.  A mild surprise, given that unlike me she has her own family to spend solstice with.  I’ll confess to having felt a twinge of something that I’ll deny is jealously at the implication of closeness.  That twinge was softened by how happy and at ease the two of them seemed together.  Apparently, for all the gossip that I’ve heard about Vernon’s reputation for flirtatiousness, he’s never had a partner long enough to invite to family solstice dinner without it being scandalous.  So goes the least embarrassing thing his parents decided to share about him.  I like to think watching him squirm under the weight of one less-than-flattering childhood anecdote after the other was a bonding experience for Tiaho and I.  It’s an entertaining divergence from his usual demeanor to see him so flustered, especially when the ones causing the flustering are doing so from a place of love.

Of course, not all the talk was embarrassing.  They are, of course, proud of him and his work as a mediator.  Not to mention they’re just as stimulating conversationalists as he is.  It was as pleasant a meal as any I’ve had in that house, and I lost track of time until Vernon himself pointed out the late hour while retrieving the confections he and his mother had made from the fruit Maiko and I gifted him after our recent visit to the lizard island.

And thus was a pot of stew swapped for a tray of confections as I bid my farewells for the night and set off toward my final gathering of the solstice.

Thankfully, it was Lin who answered the door rather than her father.  I’m not sure why, but it seems that I’ll never be on that man’s good side, and showing up when the evening was just winding down did little to improve his view of me, even with my explanation of being waylaid by the nature sprite and offering of dessert.  Some people just aren’t compatible I suppose, and that’s fine.  Civility and politeness we can still manage.

Lin and Maiko were happy enough to see me though, and I them.  I’ve come to gather that solstice is a more somber time in that household than most.  Later, after dishes had been washed, her father had retired for the night, and the gift of Antigone’s tea had been boiled and steeped, Lin called my arrival a much needed breath of fresh air.

Not once while I was present this evening did anyone comment on the extra place set in front of an empty seat at the table.

Once we’d all thoroughly dosed ourselves on the tea, we made the thoroughly untraditional move of relocating from that house to Maiko’s tiny room at the top of the lighthouse where we made a second dinner (or perhaps fourth for me) out of snacks and desserts while we chatted into the small hours of the night.  Chatted… and perhaps had an arguably irresponsible amount of fun with rapidly swapping out crystals of different colors in the lighthouse’s focusing mirror dish.  We tried to time it as best we could with Lin’s singing, but I doubt anyone who happened to be looking outside could have identified the song by the clumsy rhythm of the color-shifting beacon.  The fun and games lasted until Lin and Maiko began giving one another dreamy looks that I took as my cue to wish them well and give them their privacy for the night.

I truly am glad they’ve found what they have in eachother.

And thus I found myself crossing paths with Theo upon a starlit street, with only wordless nods exchanged by way of acknowledgment.

And thus I now find myself within my little archive nook, pleasantly exhausted as the last effects of the tea wear off.  There’s a temptation to go upstairs and stay awake a while longer to watch the sunrise, but no, not with the plans for tomorrow (today really, if I’m being honest with myself) and the day-after-solstice tradition our little family of friends has made.  The best thing to do right now is go to bed and be thankful that the sun can’t reach me down here among my the books.

And so turns another season marked by the gathering of loved ones.

I found myself picking up an old journal volume and flipping through it instead of going to bed like I should have.  On its last written page, I found myself revisiting the message I left to my future self after my return from my disappearance a year ago.  It got me thinking.  Crying a little bit too, but mostly thinking.

I want to believe that the optimism held by my past self in that moment was well founded.  Despite the handful of travails this past year has held, I feel I’ve largely lived up to those aspirations.  I hope that the future me can continue to do so.  

Moreover, it got me thinking about these journals.  So often I’ve called them the proof of my existence, but lately, I’ve started to wonder if I still need that proof in order to believe in my own being.  The compulsion to write is more and more simply a strong habit these days, so perhaps that is some evidence as well.  Do I still need to write to make sense of myself and the world?  I’m not sure that I do.  Or at least, not on a daily basis.

But then again, I’ve made these journal entries every day of my life for literally as long as I can remember.  They are a part of me and who I am.  And yet… our past selves and histories are part of us for all that they remain firmly in the past.

Or maybe I’m once again grown maudlin with the late (early) hour.  Time will tell, I suppose, and we shall see if I once again set ink to paper on the morrow.  Or on the day after.  Or the day after that.  And should I stop for a time, there is nothing to say I won’t resume once again one day.

There is ever tomorrow.

All the same, I feel inspired to write a little something commemorative, on this wonderful solstice, halfway between the anniversaries of my arrival and my return.  Call it a reminder of how I feel in this moment and why I may have begun to outgrow the need for these journals that I so dearly love and define myself by.

For at last I know…

I exist.

I am me.

I am loved.

I am home.