The Queen’s Companion is that kind of gentle and romantic read that always makes me sigh contentedly and say, "yeah, right!" at the same time. There is lots of angst and impressive reality checks (that aren't always present in other historical fiction with gay characters) in Maggi A. Petton's historical lesbian romance which only add to the novel's appeal.

There is a scene where she goes to church to pray away her feelings is so sad and all too easy to relate to:

No matter how hard she tried to extinguish them, her thoughts returned again and again to Bella…The more she tried to shake her feelings loose, the more intense they became and the more she was afraid…

She prays and prays to God until her heart aches and still she has strong feelings for Bella. THIS is why I need lesfic in my life…because it speaks to me in a way nothing (or no one) else does. Everything Catherine feels and prays to leave her body and soul…THAT is how it’s been with me whenever I've had feelings for someone I shouldn't.

Though we can't help what's in our hearts, we can help what we do those feelings. I remember reading another novel a while back that truly spoke to me. In After Mrs. Hamilton by Clare Ashton, the main character realizes her unrequited love for someone is nothing but "futile."

The passage is wonderfully written and made me think of things in more general terms that be applied to some kind of  "how to" for getting someone."Futile" is more than right because (obviously) in such situations the feelings are never going to be returned and also, to some extent in the novel but more so in a real life situation I'm all too familiar with, because since you're not a direct part of that person's life you don't really even have the right to care for them.

 

In the 1980s I discovered a book called The Star People at my local Walden bookstore. This book spoke shamelessly to people like the person I was at that time: lonely, confused and searching.

Within it were some of the most ridiculous things ever written and yet I ate every part of it up because I figured possibly being someone from another planet was more exotic and (for me) an easier-to-live-with explanation than the simple fact I wasn't good at socializing with other kids.

That book was absurd, of course, but at the time it didn't strike me so. It would be the first of many books (though, thankfully, the only one about being from anywhere besides Earth) that would help me feel less alone in this world. :)

Yesterday I pulled out my copy of Prince's Around The World In A Day and listened to it for the first time in a while, instantly remembering why I loved it so much in 1985 and still do now.

One of his most underrated and somewhat 1960s psychedelic at times, the album contains some Beatlesque tracks ("Paisley Park"), some oddly compelling bass lines ("Pop Life") and some quirky sweet fashion statements ("Raspberry Beret.")

"Paisley Park" is so clear in my mind whenever I hear it...I picture it cartoon-style and love the finger cymbals and the message about people finding their own Utopia despite the chaos of things all around them. It's almost inspirational for me:


1, 2, 1, 2, 3

There is a park that is known
4 the face it attracts
Colorful people whose hair
On 1 side is swept back
The smile on their faces
It speaks of profound inner peace
Ask where they're going
They'll tell U nowhere
They've taken a lifetime lease
On Paisley Park

The girl on the seesaw is laughing
4 love is the color
This place imparts (Paisley Park)
Admission is easy, just say U
Believe and come 2 this
Place in your heart
Paisley Park is in your heart

There is a woman who sits
All alone by the pier
Her husband was naughty
And caused his wife so many tears
He died without knowing forgiveness
And now she is sad, so sad
Maybe she'll come 2 the park
And forgive him
And life won't be so bad
In Paisley Park

The girl on the seesaw is laughing
4 love is the color
This place imparts (Paisley Park)
Admission is easy, just say U
Believe and come 2 this
Place in your heart
Paisley Park is in your heart

See the man cry as the city
Condemns where he lives
Memories die but taxes
He'll still have 2 give
(who) Whoever said that elephants
Were stronger than mules?
Come 2 the park
And play with us
There aren't any rules
In Paisley Park

The girl on the seesaw is laughing
4 love is the color
This place imparts (Paisley Park)
Admission is easy, just say U
Believe and come 2 this
Place in your heart
Paisley Park is in your heart

The girl on the seesaw is laughing
4 love is the color
This place imparts (Paisley Park)
Admission is easy, just say U
Believe and come 2 this
Place in your heart
Paisley Park is in your heart

Your heart, your heart
Paisley Park
Your heart, your heart, your heart (sing, sing it)
Paisley Park
Paisley Park
Paisley Park

Having a very vivid dream life can be both a blessing and a curse.

Oddly enough (or maybe not so if you can understand that false beauty is more cruel than true horror), my beautiful dreams bother me the most. Over the past few months I've dreamt of having picnics or going to dinner or just hanging out with someone I really like who doesn't feel the same at all in real life.

Immediately upon waking, I feel guilty then sad (that the dream is over) then guilty again because I feel sad. I guess my subconscious hasn't gotten the memo because I certainly would prefer not to have these dreams if I had any say in it. Sometimes when I see this person in real life (someone I have to see almost daily) I actually flinch inside.

St. Augustine once asked himself, "Can I be immoral in my dreams?" In his Confessions, he writes:

These things rush into my thoughts with no power when I am awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give pleasure, but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the deed itself. Indeed, the illusion of the image prevails to such an extent, in both my soul and my flesh, that the illusion persuades me when sleeping to what the reality cannot do when I am awake.

 Am I not myself at such a time, O Lord my God? And is there so much of a difference between myself awake and myself in the moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking?

Where, then, is the power of reason which resists such suggestions when I am awake -- for even if the things themselves be forced upon it I remain unmoved? Does reason cease when the eyes close? Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses? But in that case how does it come to pass that even in slumber we often resist, and with our conscious purposes in mind, continue most chastely in them, and yield no assent to such allurements? Yet there is at least this much difference: that when it happens otherwise in dreams, when we wake up, we return to peace of conscience. And it is by this difference between sleeping and waking that we discover that it was not we who did it, while we still feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.


I've been reading up a lot on dreams lately, mostly because I wish to control them, especially when it comes to this set. St. Augustine's Confessions is one of the few works I've ever read that's mentioned anything connecting morals and dreams, though there is this book which I've put on hold through an outside-our-network at the local library:

read about more here: 

There's nothing like reading a sad book while listening to Beck's Sea Change (one of the most desolate break-up albums ever) to get you out of a bad funk. That probably sounds sarcastic, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. There's something amazingly comforting in reading about someone who finds love as troubling as you do.

In Broken Faith main character Marika is so emotionally scarred and lonely she'll readily take up again with someone who has never shown her anything but abuse. Right from the start sadness tinges the novel as Marika leaves behind her devoted cat and a quiet, safe home for a horrible alternative to companionship.

Miraka first appears as a secondary character in Lois Cloarec Hart's Going Home as someone can't accept that the girl she likes doesn't feel the same. In the beginning you get a sense she's not the most emotionally centered person, but as the novel progresses and Terry (the girl she likes so much) has clearly moved on, Marika slowly begins to accept it and even helps Terry out (no strings attached nor with any expectations) when she sinks to some depths of her own and winds up too drunk to drive home one night. Mariska ends up taking care of her and discovering she is stronger than she thinks.

Now morely fleshed out in Broken Faith, with some strong back story thrown in for good measure, Marika becomes likable and easy to relate to with compassion, even empathy. It's easy to judge things from the outside, especially if you've never had a crush so strong it made you temporarily lose sight of everything important in your life.

I'm just settling in with this novel and since it's over 400 pages, it'll probably take me a while to get a sense of where it's going, but so far I like it and hope for the best for Marika. She may be fictional, but she has a good heart and only wants to find someone who wants what she has to give and (most importantly) love her back.

That's something a lot of us can probably relate to with relative ease.