Daughterverse thingy part two
Nov. 26th, 2010 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffeI'm working on a SB 'verse thingy-- besides Intake Counselor I mean-- and polishing the next couple chapters of The Mother, but it felt right to put this up before the next chapters. Read this first.
Thank you so much for all your kind comments and good wishes. It means a lot.
I’d like to say a few things at this juncture. Before Michael’s next-- installment, of the story. As it were.
I always liked Michael. You and I were much closer to his age than Viviane was, of course, so we-- I-- may have seen him more clearly than Viviane did. Or less so. That may be. Being closer, it certainly gives a different perspective. But I didn’t disapprove of her taking him in. I suppose I was-- amused, more than anything. Viviane had always seemed so wise and level-headed, she was my, she was like a mother to me, and to you too, of course, and of course it’s a little odd to see one’s mother-figure taking up with a boy not even as old as oneself. But I didn’t disapprove, I didn’t worry. Michael seemed like a nice boy. Attractive, certainly, but not spoiled or manipulative in the way so many attractive young men are. He didn’t trade on his beauty. Impulsive, more than anything. But he adored Viviane, and I wasn’t worried.
I’ve said that several times now, I believe.
And I didn’t worry, either, about the other one-- I don’t know if you ever knew his name. Jonathan. He didn’t strike me as a-- threat. Well, wouldn’t I have found that a ridiculously melodramatic concept, at the time? That a boy of nineteen or so could be a threat to Viviane’s wellbeing? But I didn’t, I thought he was a nice enough boy. I didn’t like him particularly, I suppose. He had this-- this affable kind of-- of impermeability. He never quite seemed to be paying attention to you. To me. Or to Viviane. But there are certainly worse dispositions, in men.
I didn’t know either him or Michael well enough to know what they saw in each other, or what drove Michael to risk everything he had with Viviane, for Jonathan’s sake. That isn’t to say that I find it too difficult to believe. Love, I believe, flourishes best between equals. And women don’t have the monopoly on that. I do believe men are capable of love-- not the same kind of love women feel for each other, perhaps-- but a love for their own kind, just as we feel love for our own kind. What we feel for men is different. And what they feel for us. Is different.
But if women love women, why shouldn’t Michael have loved Jonathan, in his way? And why shouldn’t Jonathan have loved him back?
Michael loved Viviane-- I’m getting sick of that word, love. Other languages have more precision. Classical Greek had several words that we could translate as love. One is the love one feels for one’s own kind. What one might call an affinity. Then there’s the word for adoration, the upward gaze. And for a romantic passion. And for close-bonded friendship. And the love of a mother for a child, the feeling we have when the baby-- But we only have the one word. Love. So, Michael loved Viviane, I believe that. He loved her the way his mother never let him love her, and he loved her beauty, I believe he saw her as beautiful, even with the scars. And he was grateful. He loved her. But none of it stopped him from betraying her with Jonathan. So he loved Jonathan in another way, a more immediate, demanding way.
I’m trying to explain this to myself as well as you, because I don’t want you to hate him and I don’t want to hate him either. I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s what the goddess would have me do. Hate Michael, or take my vengeance on him. It’s not the right lesson for either of us to learn from this. And there must be a right lesson. I believe that. Things don’t happen without a reason. We can learn from everything. I am learning from what has happened to Viviane, and although you may not learn the same things, I want you to be open to what the goddess has to teach you. I think you will be. I think you understand this.
In any case.
I hope you won’t think it’s cruel of me to ask this of Michael. The account. I thought it was only right that we hear, from him, what happened. The next part will be the most painful, and I’m trying not to anticipate it too much. It was-- in a way-- it was lovely, this first part, wasn’t it? I believe it really was lovely, between them, at first. For a long time. That counts, too, we need to hear it, we need to take that part in. I’m not doing this to punish him, not even in part. He’s been punished enough, for whatever needed punishment, by what happened. He lost Jonathan and then he lost Viviane. All he has left is me. And I’m going to look after him as best I can, but there’s so little I can do. Protection is all. I don’t-- I can’t-- love him. So no one loves him now. No woman and no man. It’s a terrible thing. For anyone who’s known love, to lose that, that sense that you light up someone’s eyes when you walk into a room. For men-- even more than women, I think, because we feel the goddess’ love in a way that they don’t. We know we are blessed. They don’t. Not unless we show them.
So I will care for him, and if I ever can’t, I want you to give him the same care. And to do that, you-- one-- must understand what happened, and not only to our sister, but to him. What he once had and what he is left with, and why. That’s why I’ve asked him to do this, as hard as it may be on him, and why I’m making a record of it, to share with you.
I think that’s all I had to say. I’ll let him tell the rest. Tomorrow, as he asked.
Thank you so much for all your kind comments and good wishes. It means a lot.
I’d like to say a few things at this juncture. Before Michael’s next-- installment, of the story. As it were.
I always liked Michael. You and I were much closer to his age than Viviane was, of course, so we-- I-- may have seen him more clearly than Viviane did. Or less so. That may be. Being closer, it certainly gives a different perspective. But I didn’t disapprove of her taking him in. I suppose I was-- amused, more than anything. Viviane had always seemed so wise and level-headed, she was my, she was like a mother to me, and to you too, of course, and of course it’s a little odd to see one’s mother-figure taking up with a boy not even as old as oneself. But I didn’t disapprove, I didn’t worry. Michael seemed like a nice boy. Attractive, certainly, but not spoiled or manipulative in the way so many attractive young men are. He didn’t trade on his beauty. Impulsive, more than anything. But he adored Viviane, and I wasn’t worried.
I’ve said that several times now, I believe.
And I didn’t worry, either, about the other one-- I don’t know if you ever knew his name. Jonathan. He didn’t strike me as a-- threat. Well, wouldn’t I have found that a ridiculously melodramatic concept, at the time? That a boy of nineteen or so could be a threat to Viviane’s wellbeing? But I didn’t, I thought he was a nice enough boy. I didn’t like him particularly, I suppose. He had this-- this affable kind of-- of impermeability. He never quite seemed to be paying attention to you. To me. Or to Viviane. But there are certainly worse dispositions, in men.
I didn’t know either him or Michael well enough to know what they saw in each other, or what drove Michael to risk everything he had with Viviane, for Jonathan’s sake. That isn’t to say that I find it too difficult to believe. Love, I believe, flourishes best between equals. And women don’t have the monopoly on that. I do believe men are capable of love-- not the same kind of love women feel for each other, perhaps-- but a love for their own kind, just as we feel love for our own kind. What we feel for men is different. And what they feel for us. Is different.
But if women love women, why shouldn’t Michael have loved Jonathan, in his way? And why shouldn’t Jonathan have loved him back?
Michael loved Viviane-- I’m getting sick of that word, love. Other languages have more precision. Classical Greek had several words that we could translate as love. One is the love one feels for one’s own kind. What one might call an affinity. Then there’s the word for adoration, the upward gaze. And for a romantic passion. And for close-bonded friendship. And the love of a mother for a child, the feeling we have when the baby-- But we only have the one word. Love. So, Michael loved Viviane, I believe that. He loved her the way his mother never let him love her, and he loved her beauty, I believe he saw her as beautiful, even with the scars. And he was grateful. He loved her. But none of it stopped him from betraying her with Jonathan. So he loved Jonathan in another way, a more immediate, demanding way.
I’m trying to explain this to myself as well as you, because I don’t want you to hate him and I don’t want to hate him either. I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s what the goddess would have me do. Hate Michael, or take my vengeance on him. It’s not the right lesson for either of us to learn from this. And there must be a right lesson. I believe that. Things don’t happen without a reason. We can learn from everything. I am learning from what has happened to Viviane, and although you may not learn the same things, I want you to be open to what the goddess has to teach you. I think you will be. I think you understand this.
In any case.
I hope you won’t think it’s cruel of me to ask this of Michael. The account. I thought it was only right that we hear, from him, what happened. The next part will be the most painful, and I’m trying not to anticipate it too much. It was-- in a way-- it was lovely, this first part, wasn’t it? I believe it really was lovely, between them, at first. For a long time. That counts, too, we need to hear it, we need to take that part in. I’m not doing this to punish him, not even in part. He’s been punished enough, for whatever needed punishment, by what happened. He lost Jonathan and then he lost Viviane. All he has left is me. And I’m going to look after him as best I can, but there’s so little I can do. Protection is all. I don’t-- I can’t-- love him. So no one loves him now. No woman and no man. It’s a terrible thing. For anyone who’s known love, to lose that, that sense that you light up someone’s eyes when you walk into a room. For men-- even more than women, I think, because we feel the goddess’ love in a way that they don’t. We know we are blessed. They don’t. Not unless we show them.
So I will care for him, and if I ever can’t, I want you to give him the same care. And to do that, you-- one-- must understand what happened, and not only to our sister, but to him. What he once had and what he is left with, and why. That’s why I’ve asked him to do this, as hard as it may be on him, and why I’m making a record of it, to share with you.
I think that’s all I had to say. I’ll let him tell the rest. Tomorrow, as he asked.
