Greetings and Updates

I can easily imagine that the synopsis of the Jana story is not up to my reader's standards of excitement, but believe me when I say that it was probably the most action-filled story I have ever managed to write!  I love the character of the tempestuous Inanna; I only regret that I can't remember the name I had given her originally.  It was much more mellifluous than "Inanna".

This sort of detail doesn't come through in a very brief synopsis, but I had portrayed Inanna and her parents as people of limited means, but enormous dignity and pride.  Despite the young woman's unconfessed infatuation with the young Rider Captain, she tries her hardest to keep their relationship formal.  In the inn of the village at which they anticipate a midnight raid, they occupy separate rooms, and the girl is on the brink of hysteria, wanting to maintain her respectability before the Captain, of whom she is in awe, but also afraid to spend the night alone, for fear that if there is a disturbance in the night, that she would be left behind while "he" runs into the fight.

The plan that she has hatched is to pose as a prostitute across the river, in order to gather information.  Having been raped, she figures, she no longer needs to protect her virtue, and wants to sort of burn herself out in service to the Horse People.  Jana keeps insisting that it isn't necessary, but she finally gets the Rider Captain (Jana) to agree to sleep with her, so that at least one time she can have sex with someone she respects, before she submits to rape.  It is then that she discovers that Jana is a woman, and both Jana and she lie in the darkness, utterly shocked and embarrassed, and uncertain.  I simply have to discover the original manuscript, so that I can give you this chapter, and the few succeeding ones, with which I remember being very pleased at the time.

Let's change the subject.

This is one of the most satisfying times of my life, in no little part because of the pets of one of my friends, with whose family I spend many weekends.  I described earlier my interaction with one of the youngest of them, the little kitten who visits me early in the mornings, and marches up and down my chest!  There are a couple more of them, about whom I will say no more, except that if you have not experienced the affection of pets, you are in for a very pleasant surprise.

At work, and with my few friends, and with my widely scattered family, I am becoming very aware of how fortunate I have been, even if someone else in my circumstances might feel resentful.  I am not a particularly religious person, but at times like this I begin to understand why people are so certain that some higher power is watching over them.  I almost know there is no such higher power, but perhaps my own attitudes and values work together to keep me in this blessed state.  There is so much to deplore: the uncertain state of the electoral process this year, the silliness of so many of our fellow-countrymen whose foolishness had remained hidden thus far, but has now burst out into the open, various men both in uniform and civilians, who have given themselves new license to act on their prejudices and their fear; so many educated people, well off and well established, who have cast off the pretense of public-spiritedness, and have begun to act in a blatantly anti-social way; all these things should conspire to depress me utterly.

But I find inspiration in the kindness I observe in unexpected places, the sweetness of pets who have no axes to grind, the smiles on the faces of students who are simply in a good mood, for a change!  The humor of colleagues; the unexpected rediscovery of a forgotten, excellent activity for the classroom.  I often smirked skeptically when I read of some individuals who experienced what they called inner peace in the storm, but that's exactly what this feels like.  I don't think I need to believe in a supernatural power to explain this; I think the thought-habits of a mostly happy childhood, and the example of mostly well-adjusted parents, all work together to bring this feeling about.  I try not to be heavy-handed in whatever moral values I may put in my writing, but I think it is important to remind ourselves of the goodness of people, even if our experience for a time seems to indicate that good people might be the exception than the rule.  Remember that good people don't often make a big noise.  If you go on noise level alone, you will be misled.

Kay