Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

(I feel like all of my posts should include, "Still not king auntie" until it no longer applies.)

My parents have sold their house in Omaha and will be up here looking for a house in the Cities area after today. (For those of you not keeping a scorecard of my extended family's activities, Dad had a job opportunity with his current company arise, but it required a relocation up here, so they're moving. So far it appears that my grands are staying in Nebraska -- where they moved from the Twin Cities area to be with my parents and me.)

One of the things this means is that my mom is cleaning things out, deciding what to move and what to leave with the grands (who are moving from their house into Mother and Dad's house, so actually it's the grands' house that's sold to an outside party) and what to get rid of entirely. A few weeks ago, Dad brought me a box of dragons and things left in the drawers of the built-in cabinet in my old bedroom. I still have to go through the dragons, but I went through the rest this morning: a good three-sided ruler, my grandpa's old compass and protractor set, mix-tapes from my adolescence, and two Amy Grant CDs.

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What would you do?

Right now what I am learning is to be quiet and trust the book. I pick up the next bit tentatively, and it comes, and it makes more sense than I knew it would, so I just breathe and remember to take regular breaks to roll my shoulders and flex my hands, and I hope for the best.

And as The Mark of the Sea Serpent grows slowly, I find that I know things without thinking of making them up: that frost giants don't like iron but aren't as averse to it as alfar. That they like alder wood much, much less than alfar or humans, so that even Hraesvelg of the Winds doesn't use any alder at all, not on his whole island. That wolf-brothers get seasick more than anyone else. That the time to deal with alfar is not summer, as you would think, but winter, because in winter they are focused on more of the things you are focused on, so you can come to some sorts of agreement without having to rely on force and bindings. (There are almost no alfar in this book, just one in a river. But I find myself knowing these things anyway, in the same matter-of-fact way Soldrun knows them.)

My energy is still well below my average; I'm still running out of steam sooner and more often than before this year, in the afternoons and evenings. My sense of smell is acting up again, and my sinuses are pretty clearly misbehaving, and I'm not sure where all this goes from here, except that I go to the ENT a week from tomorrow. But the book goes on, and I would much rather have all this stuff with a book that's going than with a book that's digging its heels in. I am trying to be content with doing what I can. We'll see.

(Still not king auntie.)