A shy reference librarian, and a college student who was disowned when she refused to submit to conversion therapy, meet in a bookstore. He's been waiting his whole life for her. Meanwhile, she's starting her whole life over. What ensues between the...
اوووه! هذه الصورة لا تتبع إرشادات المحتوى الخاصة بنا. لمتابعة النشر، يرجى إزالتها أو تحميل صورة أخرى.
A couple of weeks ago, it was bitterly cold out, but now it's warm enough that I'm tempted to not only skip wearing a winter coat but also go around in my short sleeves. I resist the temptation. It's March. The temperature can drop forty degrees in the space of minutes this time of year. It has in the past.
Since Lydia and I are planning to do a photo session in the cemetery, I'd rather not be caught outdoors without a coat if temperatures suddenly drop. Yes, it's a short walk from the northern part of the cemetery to the apartment, but it would be a short walk in freezing cold, which I'd rather not have to deal with if all I'm wearing is a short-sleeved tee shirt and leggings.
I could, of course, summon Fire. Summoning enough Fire to keep myself warm for the duration of the walk, though, requires a certain amount of energy, and right now, there are other things I'd like to save my energy for, such as cooking dinner. It's my turn to cook something tonight. We have some tilapia to use up, and I was thinking of steaming it and serving it on top of a lentil and rice pilaf. It's not a very labor-intensive meal to prepare, which is one reason it appeals to me, because I still have my weekly essay to write.
And then Magister has some plans for the evening tonight that he doesn't want to share all the details of, but apparently what he has planned will keep us both busy until well past midnight, so using my energy and willpower to summon Fire to keep myself warm for a brief walk through the cold, resulting in me crashing halfway through the evening and nodding off at the table before the night's festivities have even begun, would not be useful.
Easier to just wear my coat.
"You're so lucky to live across the street from a cemetery," Lydia says. "I wish I did."
"You can look out your living room window and see a lake. With swans swimming on it. That's better. Has the town brought the swans back from their winter home yet?"
"Not yet, but it shouldn't be too much longer. The ice on top of the lake has melted."
We continue to walk south, downhill. The northern part of the cemetery doesn't have much to look at that's interesting, nor does the middle part, unless you want to visit the gravesite of a famous preacher and sobriety advocate, in which case you can look for a plain, modern tombstone that looks like all the other plain, modern tombstones near it. (In June, you can also look for motorcycles and a crowd). There are better photo opportunities in the older section of the cemetery. The monument art there is spectacular.
"Lydia, why did you want to take pictures of me in a cemetery?"
Magister was wondering the same thing just a short while ago when Lydia knocked on our door to come pick me up. Which, in turn, got me wondering. It's not so much the cemetery I'm wondering about - this is Lydia, after all - but why include me in the pictures?
