McCaffrey's writing sparked my imagination, and resulted in writing my own series of fantasy adventures that (thankfully) were long ago discarded with other failed writing endeavors.
The element I found most intriguing about the Dragonriders of Pern and one that I have continued to ponder from time to time in the ensuing years, was the dragon's ability to take it's human in between. That is, the dragon, being a mystical creature, had the ability to move through time and space, traveling from one place to another instantaneously by blinking into the space in between the layers of visible physical existence.
To an observer, the dragon and rider would disappear momentarily, then reappear some distance away, or, if necessary, back into the same location. It would appear a fairly innocuous exit and entrance, happening in the blink of an eye. But to the dragon and rider, the experience was wholly different.
Once disappeared, they would suddenly be flying within a cold tear in space, determining reentry calculations and staving off intensely bitter cold.
It made for some glorious battle sequences.
It also provided me with an understanding that we, too, have our in between.
Ours may be absent of dragons, but it most definitely exists. It is the place between the sequence of our life events to which the world bears witness. It is the place where the strategy of life's battles is actually determined. It is the place where risk is weighed, where decisions are made, and where the calm mind can realistically discern want from need and false hopes from realistic expectations, difficult choices that too often aggravate the forefront of our consciousness relentlessly.
It is often a cold place. A place where we feel most alone.
The most fortunate among us have a partner to keep us warm against the driving cold, to help us in our strategic planning, and to help prepare our reentry into the raging battle. Still, there is always the possibility our best strategy falls short. Or we are ill-prepared once we appear in the skies circling the battlefield. Or perhaps we arrive prepared, but the rules have changed and we no longer have the advantage.
So we retreat again. But not for long, because spend too much time in between and we freeze to death. We have to keep reemerging, not only for our own survival, but for those dependent upon us.
Yet, it is only the moments of appearing and disappearing which most people witness. Others often know nothing of our existence in between, where we are tired and unsure of what comes next, fearing what will be revealed as we make entry.
This is partly because we dragon riders have our pride, and want the world to witness only the best moments of our glorious battles. But from time to time, we falter in our resolve.
April 5 was one such day for me. It was the day I miscarried at nine weeks.
I had never been pregnant. I am at an age where most of my peers are either having grandchildren or are planning for them in the not so distant future. My beautiful kids, now 13 and 14, were adopted from China as infants.
To suddenly be pregnant was completely unexpected, and worrisome, and an idea that filled me with intense hope, and desire to have a baby again, regardless how impractical the idea. It helped that the man whose blueberry seed I was carrying is the love of my life, and he seemed to take it in stride. We're probably too old, but we will have a beautiful baby.
Knowing the odds were against making it through the first trimester, it shouldn't have been a surprise when we lost it. But that didn't stop my heart from fully breaking when it happened.
I felt myself slipping in between.
Glenn held me while I cried through that first night, and again when spontaneous bouts of tears and sadness would surface in the days that followed. His calm and strength never failed to reassure that we were in it together, and that I would never be alone.
His timing was also impeccable in knowing when the sadness needed airing. He took me for walks on the nearby castle grounds where we are to be married in an ancient chapel, made me laugh hard over ridiculous jokes, and always reminded me that there is too much good in this world to be sad over things that cannot be changed. He quelled my doubts that said I had failed.
He was my dragon determining my readiness for reentry into the battle.
Soon enough the pain became a soft memory completely overshadowed by my depth of good fortune. I came away knowing that having a partner so capable, and so fiercely protective of me in my sadness was worth any number of misfortunes. Equal parts of the same soul, we again faced life eternally bonded warrior-brothers, once again ready for battle.
It's a good feeling, knowing your partner always has your back. Because whatever comes our way, we will face it together.
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| Løvenborg Slot, April 2017 |
