This is where all pathways lead me

[sovay]

Thanks to n1jdu, a panel I was on at Arisia—"Non-Genre Films That Fans Love," with ericmvan, yendi, and Julia Tenney—is now online in RealPlayer, sound-only as mp3. The first ten minutes are also available on YouTube, which is the only format in which I have been able to view the footage. I am never used to my face or my voice at third-person remove. Boy, do I talk a lot about Powell and Pressburger.

I do not ordinarily post e-mail correspondences, but teenybuffalo wrote this to me last night about "The Salt House" (Sirenia Digest #22) and it may be the best thing anyone has said about a story of mine, ever:

I LOVED IT. I would have read it sooner, but home computer has been being wonky, and when I was on the school computer I didn't want to have someone glance over my shoulder and see the illustration of hot mutant girl-on-boy action from the first Sirenia Digest story.

Well, it was worth waiting for. It was soul-crushingly sad, for one thing [. . .] You hit the high points of just about every single sea-people story, song or archetype I've ever loved, so it set off a big emotional reaction for me.

And I don't mean "sad" just as in "tragic", though that's a big part of it. I mean that it hit me right in my yearning. It helped crystallize the feeling of desire that sneaks up on me whenever I see rivers or the sea. You may have had the same feeling as I did when I looked at Bill in Dead Man's Chest—part of me just felt bad for him but the other part wanted to go where he'd gone all those years and be like him, a part of the ocean. Even being overgrown with kelp and barnacles is appealing when seen in that light. I guess I talked about this when I posted those lines from "Death By Water". Oh, well, it makes sense inside my own head, but when I try to write about it...! So I'll just say it was a lovely, lovely story.

I do not know if I can adequately explain what this means to me. But that sense of yearning is what I never feel I can communicate, how much the sea makes me hungry, desiring and desolate at the same time, because the world fades off forever into the horizon and I cannot shrug into another skin and swim away, I cannot breathe salt water undrowned; I braided kelp into my hair as a child, but it never took root. That rich and strangeness in the songs of other singers, in other writers' words. I put so many things I loved into "The Salt House." To know that it touched someone else amazes me.

"I did not expect anyone to love my own private autumn," nineweaving says, "but there, the sea and the seasons are elemental: they possess us to be handed on."

I can think of worse honors than to be possessed by the sea.

We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!
—Rudyard Kipling, "The Song of the Dead" (1896)

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking to the panel discussion.

And the list on that page is interesting, though I feel that some on there are genre and also feel that no one should ever like Kevin Smith's films...

[sovay]

Thanks for linking to the panel discussion.

You're welcome. I hope the rest of it came out as well as the first ten minutes . . .

though I feel that some on there are genre and also feel that no one should ever like Kevin Smith's films...

Is that on the grounds of genre or the grounds of Kevin Smith?

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

Kevin Smith should be grounded.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

"how much the sea makes me hungry, desiring and desolate at the same time,"

That's it. You summed up the feeling for me right there.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love that this happened for the two of you.

[sovay]

That's it. You summed up the feeling for me right there.

Thank you. Seriously; thank you.

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

But that sense of yearning is what I never feel I can communicate, how much the sea makes me hungry, desiring and desolate at the same time

Oh, Sonya, you communicate it so well! You make me feel it when I never have before. You've made it into a mythology I never knew, you make me yearn for something I don't know and didn't want just one page earlier than your stories or poems.

I have to read "The Salt House." I'll have to find it.

[sovay]

You've made it into a mythology I never knew, you make me yearn for something I don't know and didn't want just one page earlier than your stories or poems.

That is no mean compliment either! Truly, thank you.

I have to read "The Salt House." I'll have to find it.

It was published last September in greygirlbeast's Sirenia Digest; I think humglum would be the person to contact about back issues. Otherwise, I shall simply send a copy to you.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Do I need to read this story? :)

You know, I haven't seen the ocean since I was married. I wonder if I'm doing it on purpose.

[sovay]

Do I need to read this story?

Hee. Yeah, probably.

You know, I haven't seen the ocean since I was married. I wonder if I'm doing it on purpose.

I think it would be safe . . .

(Come up and see the ocean in New England!)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'll have to go check out the panel discussion.

I don't think anyone's very used to the sound of their own voice outside their head. I hate mine, which makes transcribing interviews I've made very difficult.

[sovay]

I don't think anyone's very used to the sound of their own voice outside their head. I hate mine, which makes transcribing interviews I've made very difficult.

I am used to—and I like—the sound of my singing voice. It's my speaking voice I can never figure out what the hell went wrong.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, beautiful. I'm really, really glad that that you guys came together in this--glad you wrote it, glad she read it, glad you both know the same feeling--glad you were able to share in it. That's surely one of the best parts of being human--sharing like that.

[sovay]

That's surely one of the best parts of being human--sharing like that.

I don't know what else storytelling is for.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

So, do you want a viking funeral, when the time (hopefully not for some decades!) comes? ;)

And yeah, clearly I need to read this. Wow. Is it/will it be published elsewhere?

I do not have any suitable yearning for the sea music on my iTunes. Problem.

[sovay]

So, do you want a viking funeral, when the time (hopefully not for some decades!) comes?

Years from now? Dude.

Is it/will it be published elsewhere?

Not so far as I know, but if you cannot obtain a copy of #22 from humglum, I shall send you the PDF.

I do not have any suitable yearning for the sea music on my iTunes. Problem.

See newest post. Solution?