((neatly penned in Lumi-kieli))
The day after tomorrow is Juhannus and I am trying to do everything I can to make sure that it is a day of happiness, but I feel like I am trying to shovel away a blizzard with a spoon. I know I cannot have a real festival like they are having back home, with song, and games and contests, and a dance around a pole with bright ribbons, and the telling of long tales, and feasting. I wonder if the first of the hilla are being gathered for it already. And I think about being left out of all of that, and it makes me sad. And then I remember if I were there, I would feel just as left out, and that makes me sad.
So I think about my own plans here in Bree. I made no announcements and put up no signs, for I do not imagine that many of the people of Bree would think it important enough for that, but I did tell a few people that I will be serving pulla, and other foods, and maybe sharing music and song, and asked them to consider coming. Maybe hardly anyone will come, or only those who would have been in the pub anyway, and all it will end up being is Thursday. Juhannus is not a festival in Bree; they do not even mark the solstice, let alone the first full moon after it. And it will be just another night where I feel unseen. Or maybe people will come and there will even be merriment, and I will be there, amongst them and yet mostly overlooked anyway, as they talk in their tribes and I am not in any of them, and I will feel unseen.
(The Lumi-väki have our tribes, but we came together in our villages and camps so long ago, and intermarried so much, that the tribes hardly seem to matter when it comes to who talks to whom. I find it sadly funny how Bree-väki have no tribes, and somehow as a result, their tribes are so much more separated from one another. And I am not part of any of them. Even when I was asking everyone for help with finding a way to give away the gold penny, Mister Dem was looking for pennies to help pay for a good deeds thing he does, but he kept it secret from me and did not let me give him the penny; a pointed reminder of how much I am not in anyone's tribe here. Maybe if they made tribes and gave them names, and then many years passed, the tribes would come together as ours did, and they would be more like one people than they are now when they think they are one people. Or maybe not. Maybe it is something about them. Or just about how many of them there are.)
And before whatever celebrating we do or do not have, during the day, I have to go tend to the rituals for the spirits, alone (I had hoped to ask Rue's Lumi-väki friend Grimodor about participating, but he probably would not even answer). It will be harder than I expected since Beri is still recovering so I cannot be away from the inn for very long. I do not know where I will get a very fresh fish. Eira had promised to get me one, but that was before she went into hiding or whatever it is she is doing and I have not seen her in weeks and do not expect I will again, maybe ever. I sent her a short letter this morning. I miss her. The flower I made from a bit of her scarf for my harp strap makes me sad; if there are only six people in the world I put memories of into it, and she is one, and soon it will be longer since I have seen her than all the days I knew her, I wonder if that flower will just make me sad for years to come. Anyway I need to find a source for a fish. Probably if I were more wise I would think of something else to offer that better suits where I am living now. Maybe a boar! But I hope that the spirits will at least appreciate the effort of doing what I know how to do, even if I do not know the right words, and cannot hear the spirits, and will be alone.
It would be easier if Beri were recovered, and I was hoping that would have happened in time, but it does not seem like it is to be. She did seem to break her fever a few days ago, but she has slept just as much since as before, and maybe she has fallen back into the fever. When she awoke she said something about not being brought home. I wish I knew what it meant. But whenever I ask her about things like that, she does not want to tell me anything. I keep telling myself it does not mean anything. Maybe her people are secretive -- like mine are, except for me who cannot stop talking (Grimodor still does not even say hello to me and I try to avoid him so he will not feel like he has to acknowledge me). Maybe it is just because she is ill. Maybe a lot of things. But no matter what I tell myself, I feel like I am being kept at a distance. I am a fool. I am wanting to be closer than I have any right to be. Maybe it is because of how much I feel overlooked and unseen by everyone else that I try to reach more for her and then get rebuffed there as well. Poor Beri should not have to bear the burden of all my loneliness. Especially not when she is sick. This is how I will drive her away, if I have not already.
I also hoped the new harp strap would be done in time for Juhannus. It maybe still can be. Cat taking some of my beads and dunking them in stale beer set me back a little, not just because of the beads themselves, but because now I feel like I cannot do such work in the pub, and I spend much time there. If you cannot set out your tools and supplies on a table and expect people to not go taking them, then you cannot work there. I have been working on it all day since, but in a more private place. When I finish writing I must go back to it. I am happy with how it is coming out, apart from how sad it makes me to be missing all the people that are memorialized on it. I thought it was a good way to have a place to put Godwin's ring, but now everyone else that is on it, Beri, my family, and Eira, are all people I miss too. Maybe I will take some time not working tonight for finishing the strap and doing other preparations. Maybe the harp whose story is one of sadness will now have a strap that is also a story of sadness for me.
Reminders:
• Find someone who can get me a good fresh fish tomorrow
• I think Dem and Egfor are not going to go to Lumi-mâ like they said they would (summer is already here!) so I should see if anyone else might be going who could bring a letter to my family
• Maybe I should try to figure out the beeswax again even by risking ruining it
• Count my pennies; how much longer can I rent this room in the Pony before I start to run out?
• Nathan has come back but has been busy with other people so I could not ask him about the keg rolling rack which I hoped to have had by now
• Next time I can make soap I need to try to make something gentler since I wash my hands six-and-six times a day while I am caring for Beri (but I will not be able to make soap again until after she is better, so it will be too late then!) and give some to Dem and Egfor to replace the lotion they gave me
• Make myself sing and play music because it helps me feel a little less sad and lonely, even when there is no one but Suojelija to sing to
• Try to find out about this cooking in the Mess Hall that I have been hearing about
• I thought it might be good to try not eating meat like Beri does in case it would please her but maybe that is dumb; is there anyone I can talk to about this?
