Now, if I could just get my internal editor to knock off doing that quite so thoroughly…
Archives for June 2018
One step forward, two faceplants
24 June 2018 by 2 Comments
June has not been particularly kind to us. The move took a lot out of me physically, and a fair amount out of the Beloved Other. Until a few days ago I was having severe asthma attacks from all the heavily pollinated dust that had been dislodged from under furniture and behind bookcases, not to mention the depths of a ruinous old carpet that could not be properly hoovered because of its tendency to spit up its own fibres and strangle the machine with long threads of carpety stuff. At one point I had a coughing fit whilst driving, so intense that I nearly blacked out, swerved off the road, and would have driven into an open pit on a construction site if I had not banged against a friendly K-rail and bounced back into the stream of traffic.
Just about the time I got topsides on the asthma, my right knee gave out and I can no longer finish the work of moving. Unpacking is a wild Technicolor dream. I have been hobbling about the new flat on crutches, since my leg won’t bear my weight properly. The quadriceps tendon, you see, passes over the head of the thighbone on its way to the kneecap, and I (so my doctor told me years ago, when I had a similar injury) have an odd sort of rough patch or abrasion on the cartilage there. Ordinarily it does no harm, but if the tendon becomes inflamed, it catches on the rough spot and won’t slide over it. If I am sitting down, I can lift up my left foot straight in front of me like a Christian, but my right foot remains planted on the ground like a megalithic temple. The muscle simply won’t move until the inflammation subsides. It is also quite deliciously painful if I don’t keep my leg extended in just the right position with the right degree of support, and I cannot sleep in that position, so I have been waking up every morning in a fine taking.
Needless to say, my working files are still packed away, though the Beloved Other has done yeoman work to re-shelve a lot of my books; for which I am boundlessly grateful. The Impendices therefore remain impending for the moment. My apologies to all.
Impendix II: The Isles of Light and the Keepers
8 June 2018 by 2 Comments
I had intended to put up a new Impendix every week; but I have been otherwise occupied. Quite suddenly, without much premeditation, the Beloved Other and I have found a new flat that is larger and more congenial to us than the place where I have been living these last seven years. Nearly all of my books and papers are packed in boxes now, some in the new place, some waiting for the movers’ van. Today is the first day that I have had much leisure to give to the promised project, and accordingly I spent some time jotting these notes from memory.
In Färinor, as mentioned previously, apart from starlight, the only important source of light was in the Isles of Light in the midst of the central ocean. It was there that the Maker installed his bright children, the Díoni (the word actually means ‘bright children’ or ‘bright scions’ in the Fair Tongue), to tend his creation, to keep the Light, and to complete the world to its finest details – as the architect of a cathedral will employ carvers of stone and workers in stained glass.
The habitations of the Díoni were scattered widely among the Isles, but they settled most thickly on the islands nearest to Alenna, the midmost, where grew Ynd Urenn, the Tree of the World. It was said that the roots of Ynd Urenn grew all through the deep places of the earth, keeping the lands in their hold, protecting the rock that sustained them. It was also said, though more doubtfully, that the Tree sent unseen tendrils into the upper airs, where they touched the dome of the sky and mingled their life with the light of the turning stars. The especial task of tending Ynd Urenn was given to one of the Díoni, Lysana, who was called the White Queen. None of the Díoni made any lasting dwelling upon Alenna, but the house of the Queen was on the isle nearest to its shores, and she came there more often than any of her people. [Read more…]
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