Connections

I've not needed these words for months now. Life's been too full: home and building and the Culture Reclamation group taking off. And now I feel I should record some of what happened so it's here to come back to and remember.

In October Jonny brought his mother to Paiho. Jeannette Damordred. He smuggled her out of Placid despite the wars. I don't believe his father knew about it.

She's much like I expected, I guess. Teaches foreign affairs. Professor. Lives with strong-willed men and calmly does what she chooses.

It was good to meet my daughter's other grandmother. I think I could respect her. Maybe like her. I have a secure comm link for her, for talk and baby pictures.

Jeannette arrived during a discussion about a place for me at Paiho. I've been staying at Waimaru when I'm home, but it's not an easy place to have Jonny stay. An irony about Gallente: they're supposed to be the exhibitionists of the galaxy, but they're not comfortable in full-on communal living.

Ulf and I had talked about building a place for me, and for Jonny as well. Ulf seemed almost keen to find a way to bind Jonny to Paiho: for us to marry or Jonny to be adopted. I'm ... less sure. Not unsure that I want to be with Jonny, just...

Acacia suggested to me that I'm too serious about marriage. I want it to mean something. I expect it to be an alliance, involving 'Politics' and 'Duty'. And I want this -- this thing with Jonny -- to be... joyous, somehow, rather than dutiful. To be something we're in because we want to be; something we're moving towards rather than something we're struggling to get away from.

It seems I'm not alone in that: Jonny didn't want to be part of a bid for a couples unit, with all that that would entail. I requested a unit for myself. Not a normal request. Not usually a needed one. But I traded a little more of what the clan owes me for the right to try to raise support to build. And I got that: Ulf and Auntie Mara, and then talking to Waimaru and getting the house support, and then the rest.

And Jonny. Jonny at Paiho, working alongside Enki and Angel and Taine and all the rest. Jonny stripped to the waist building.

Oh, he is fine, and he is mine.

Is that strange to say, given what I said before? Ashar says I've joined the club of people who put up with freecaptains. I'm making a life which works for me, where he's welcome when he passes through, but it won't be the end of things if he wanders off.

He needs to be needed, but all I can give him is that he's wanted, and welcome. And maybe the chance that he could belong.

What else will I need to write about, to catch up? About the site we chose and this small place that's mine. About Elsebeth Rhiannon and tea. About Gerrard DuNord, and how our stories cross even though we've still not met. Of wars and the re-awakening of Re-Awakened: of feeding towers and jamming enemies and being the dodgy ones. And about the dispersion of EM for a time to meet some specific aims in factional war.

But now the workers are coming in and I'll stir myself and greet them.