P.S. (note to self: look at entry 3 ... some of the timing is off in the below stuff that I wrote yesterday, due to my not knowing how to properly tell time without a time-display on a computer. there's no room to change it, so I'm adding THIS note today -- as a reminder when I'm old and re-reading this)

Entry 2:

Oh Blessed Goddess, what a day this has been. Today I feel overwhelmed by your great bounty.

Surely it must have been YOUR divine hand that guided Gwenn MacConal into my path this morning. Thank you for the genetic gift YOU saw fit to bestow upon me. It has been a mixed blessing at many times in my life, but it let me see beyond an adolescent boy in a Guard uniform, and showed me someone who is alot like me in many ways, and who was just as lonely as I. His company fills one of my empty spaces as closely as my father's ancestral sgian dhubh fits its scabbarb.

Aye, there have been many times when I've had a feeling of immediate affinity --yet never before with such strength. There have been few things in my life than I have ever wanted as much as I instinctively wanted (right then and there) for him to be my friend. The feeling washed over me with irresistable might until I felt near to drowning.

And when he first spoke to me, it was like a door suddenly opening in my mind. Gwenn's accent triggered memories that I must have repressed when I got so sick after my grandparents died. All of a sudden, cahuenga no longer seemed like a foreign language to me; the language flooded into my mind with memories of grandmother speaking it to me as a child. I too had spoken it then, and now I speak it that way again (even though I've never been to the hills).

I would have thought myself well-blessed and deeply-honored if all he had done was to fullfill my wish to be friends. What he later asked of me was more than I'd ever dare hope from anyone -- to become his sister-by-choice. He called it hill-kinship and tried to explain, though I'm not sure I fully understand all the implications of it yet. What I do know, is that such ties are considered to be both legally-binding (and permanent) ties of family affiliation.

Please, O Blessed Lady, I beg of you to give me some sign to guide me in the choice I must make. I am torn in both directions, and am unsure what to do.

Gwenn looks at me in the way that I always imagined a brother would look at me; with caring, affection and friendship --- and none at all of lust in his eyes. He appears to be several years younger than myself, yet he sometimes acts as those he were the elder. Such company warms places in my heart that I'd thought would remain forever cold and empty after YOU (in your dark aspect) gathered my grandparents back into YOUR loving arms. My heart cries out that I would be a fool to turn away.

Yet I am beset with the same doubts and fears that lead me to show such cautious in seeking out the estranged relatives whom I have no memory of ever meeting. Gwenn himself had even admitted to me that any connection to a noble family (however small or distant) still potentially had the power to make honor-bound demands of those who lay within its sphere of power. Yet he'd also said there was usually some degree of freedom-of-choice within them.

I am likely to encounter a similar choice if I am successful in finding blood-kin and they wish to claimed me. But that it in the possible future, and this is all too soon. Three or four days; time is not much.

O Blessed Goddess who is both Bright and Dark, and whose holy aspects are the Holy Trinity of Maiden, Mother and Crone, PLEASE show mercy on me and grant me at least one day of peace, in order to sort all of this out in my mind.

Ever since I first became a woman I have prayed to YOU. I know not why YOU never saw fit to bless my mother with any other children, and did not raise YOUR divine hand to stop the quarrel that tore my immediate family away from our two ancestral tree. All these years, I've wondered if you heard me not, but now I realize that perhaps it was all part of YOUR larger plan that I prove myself worthy to serve as a tool in YOUR hand.

Tomorrow, I plan to go seek out that artist, so I can get my photos copied. I've managed to find a picture of Grandfather Malcolm and Grandmother Callisu from back when Grandfather was stationed at the base in Caer Donn. I hope that Master Tomas Painter turns out to be as friendly as that scribe to whom Gwenn introduced me. Mestru Merrick reminds me of my father; he's got that same reserved warmth to him, and seemed to like me. Perhaps he'd be willing to give reading lessons. Though I now speak more fluent cahuenga, my reading is still at the same level it was. I'd like to improve my casta too).

And I still haven't managed to get to MacDoevid's Tailor Shop yet. Hannah and Katerina MacDoevid are said to be the best in all of Thendara. Hopefully my new green outfit will keep them from thinking I'm just another ignorant Terranan barbarian. I don't want to make a fool of myself like I did in front of that nice young shopclerk at MacBrides (asking a strange male shopclerk for underwear -- I'm still horrified that I had the nerve to do it). I don't remember who he said did the lovely embroidery. Was it his friend, his sister or his mother ? I'm even not sure what relation he was to the woman Cassandra who I had been expecting.)

Ah well, I am starting to babble and the hour grows late. 'Tis off to bed for me, with a hot cup of tea to help me sleep.