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Lebo Grand

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“When I first met you, you seemed easily categorized, Lux. Like one of my herbs. 'Nettles: a remedy for night sweats, fatigue, and releasing excess mucus.' I like things to be defined. It calms me, brings order to my life. So on your first visit, I thought, 'Lux Lysander: flighty, scared, we'll never see her again.' On your second visit, I thought, 'Sweet, a bit of a dreamer.' And now, on your third visit, it's clear I have to recalibrate once again." She nodded briskly. "Intuitive, honest, clear-thinking, and loyal." I looked at her openmouthed, letting the praise sink in. Each adjective was like a little firework burst, spreading its fingers of heat over the surface of my skin. "I'm not done," she said. "Compassionate, resourceful, intelligent." My eyes welled up. "Worthy," she finished. I swallowed the lump in my throat. "I thought I'd lost those parts of me." "Nothing is ever lost," said Martha. "Only forgotten. All that's needed is one person who remembers, one person who realizes it is still there." The door to a long-abandoned room inside me that I hadn't even known existed until this minute began to open. Sweet, fresh air poured in.”

DefinedFirst ImpressionPersonality TraitsLux
Book:Valley of the Moon
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“Lux. I bolted up and then didn't dare move. It didn't seem possible that he was here; the prince I had dreamt about, actually real. The husband I had betrayed, actually rescued. The ghostly prisoner, actually whole. Yet here he lay, half-curled on his side, his chest moving softly with each breath. I felt like he would vanish if I moved. So I sat still and stared at him. He had the same slender, lovely face that I remembered seeing on both men. His skin was shockingly pale, but it was a human pallor, not the ghostly milk-white of Shade. His hair was black, but lanky and tangled as I had never seen Ignifex's. The line of his jaw was exactly the same as I remembered kissing. But I had never kissed him, not in this life. And he was not exactly the same man. Since I had remembered him last night, I hadn't had time to think of anything except what I had done and the terrible need to set it right. I hadn't even wondered what he would be like reunited. Now I could think of nothing else. I had loved Ignifex, and after a fashion, I had loved Shade. They had both more or less loved me in return. But Marcus Valerius Lux? What were we to each other? His eyes flickered open and focused on me. They were bright blue eyes, the pupils round and completely human, but they were not exactly Shade's eyes; the way he squinted against the light, his whole face wrinkling into the expression, was exactly like Ignifex.”

True SelfPrinceLuxTwo Sides Of The Same CoinTrue Name
Book:Cruel Beauty
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“This is real," he whispered, sitting up. "Yes," I said. "You're real. I thought-- I started to think--" He was shaking now. Shame burned through my body, but I pulled him into my arms, and still holding on we rolled back down to lie on the grass. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry." For an answer, he only buried his face in the crook of my neck, and we lay still together for a long time, until at last he whispered in my ear, "At least you're not as shy as when we met." I was about to say, Do I need to remind you how much I am used to you?-- and then I bolted upright, skin burning. Because I remembered everything we had done together, remembered being this woman at ease in his embrace, yet I knew bone-deep that I had never even held hands with a man, let alone kissed one. Memories tangled in my throat and I couldn't breathe. Then I realized I had thrown him to the ground. "I'm sorry," I blurted, hoping I had not hurt him. But he was sitting up now too, leaned back with his hands behind him, his head tilted to one side. It was exactly the sort of posture that Ignifex might have sat in. "You saved me," he said quietly. The cadences of his voice were uncanny: entirely familiar, but not exactly like either Ignifex or Shade. "You saved me, and I think that covers almost half your sins." I snorted. "I was more than a little late." "Better than never," he said. "Besides, I did deserve it. I wronged you. Both of me." His mouth tightened, and then he said, whisper-soft, "I'm sorry too. Please forgive me." Neither one of them would ever have apologized so desperately. It was a new person staring back at me with blue eyes-- but I was a new person too. And if he, so long divided, could gather himself together and remember how to love me, then I could do the same for him. "Well, you were at least both handsome, too." I took his hand again; our thumbs rubbed together, and then suddenly we were kissing.”

ForgivenessLuxReunited LoversNyx Triskelion
Book:Cruel Beauty
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“Come on." I took his hand and stood, pulling him up with me. "Let's go home. Aren't you tired of being in this house?" meant the words lightly, but he looked around the sunlit ruins with solemn eyes. "It's strange," he said softly. "I think I'll miss it." And I realized that in every life he had lived, this was his only home and he had never left. "I miss hating my sister," I said, pulling him toward the gateway. "She's a little bit more wicked now, so I can't even hate her for being too kind." But when we were almost at the threshold, he paused again, and this time there was naked fear on his face. "You do realize," he said. "I don't remember how to be anything but a demon lord and his shadow." "I'm still not very good at being anything but a wicked sister." I took his other hand. A handful of kindness, the sparrow had said, and now we each had two. "We'll both be foolish," I said, "and vicious and cruel. We will never be safe with each other." "Don't try too hard to be cheerful." His fingers threaded through mine. "But we'll pretend we know how to love." I smiled at him. "And someday we'll learn." And we walked out through the gateway together.”

Happily Ever AfterLuxNyx Triskelion
Book:Cruel Beauty
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“July 15, 1991 Nita: My mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. “Don't you see what's going on in this house?” To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face and cowers) I cringe. Then they look at me like, what's your probem? You don't get that from a great childhood.”

TraumaPtsdTraumatizedPost Traumatic Stress DisorderPosttraumatic Stress DisorderDefensiveTraumatic StressOverreactionTrauma SurvivorHypervigilanceJumpyOverreact
Book:Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“What indeed is the half-life of a mortal consciousness? What is the half-life of a memory of that mortal consciousness? Of course, this is purely an academic question and of no immediate concern to those of us existing in the world of the living, for we possess already a memory, in its stead, which serves as a basis of our perception of the past. Accurate or not, this nature of memory allows us to understand the past according to the positions occupied by the flesh about which we seek to know, but, unfortunately, not in a way relative to the flesh itself—that flesh stripped of identity and circumstance, that flesh which, in its most rudimentary capacity, had once collided, interacted, fought, competed, negotiated, cooperated, and mated with other flesh: there is no history of this kind, thoroughly naked and telling enough, which is accessible to us, for we are composed of the very same substance, the very same flesh, and sadly incapable of stepping outside of it, even momentarily.”

ConsciousnessRolesFleshSubstanceMortalitySublimeImpermanenceHalf LifeMemory And ImaginationAshim ShankerImagined ExperienceInsubstantialHistory Of Material SubstanceTangible Versus Intangible
Book:Only the Deplorable
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“To borrow Julia Creet's phrase, maybe "memory is where we have arrived rather than where we have left." ... I used to think I was a transcriber of my own experiences and memories, adding an image here and there, but now I think I am more of a shaper. I take small fragments of image, memory, silence, and thought, and shape them with imagninary hands into something different.”

Memory And Imagination
Book:Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief
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“Language is a tool that allows us to express our thoughts. We use mechanisms of language including oral storytelling and indicative writing to depict a storehouse of evocative images. Language links our mind’s tawny memory and blooming imagination to the world. Storytelling connects each of us to the consciousness of other people who inhabit this planet.”

LanguageMemoirStorytellingWriters On WritingWriting ProcessMemoir WritingWriters On ThinkingWriting MemoirMemory And Imagination
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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