*blink*
The weekend is off to an interesting start.
In three sittings, and just over 24 hours total, I started and finished Haibane Renmei. More or less all of it was watched in the digital presence of Trice, who has seen it first and has some very strong feelings about the series.
"Stunned" would not be a bad word for the reaction. I do not wish to speak of it too much right now, for it is still being assimilated and absorbed, and to speak at length would force my conclusions prematurely. However, I can safely say that Reki and Rakka were both very powerfully-empathetic figures for me, and also that I identified to a surprising degree with Nemu (who was sadly not given as much screen time as she might have been). The story itself was quite intensely-moving to me. I cried at several points, and frequently felt reluctant to start the next episode for fear of what might happen next.
That is all that will be said of Haibane Renmei for right now.
--
After finishing it, I found the urge to clean and organize the space that is nominally mine, here in the apartment. It involved cleaning out old boxes I have taken with me from home to home since first leaving Portland. I was surprised there is still so much junk in my possession, things I have hoarded as though they might ever again become useful. For one who believes the wisdom of the saying "You do not truly own anything you cannot carry at a dead run," this is rather shameful and unbecoming. In my last days before leaving Oregon, I had gathered innumerable papers and other similar items that were built up over the years, and burned everything that did not seem suitable in the fireplace. It was many years of memories, and much nostalgia. I once kept virtually anything I wrote down or sketched, no matter how inane or useless it might be. Ditto anything I had printed, or paperwork that seemed maybe useful someday. As a result, it took about three hours to burn all the things I had chosen to eliminate, and the result was an intense catharsis. I consider it one of the few truly "magical" acts I've done in my life, in terms of doing something mundane to effect a desired change in oneself.
It was not enough, I suppose, to rid me of all the cruft still being ferried about every time I move. It took several hours to clean out the entire bedroom closet today, but music, persistence and the exercise to motivate me, it got done. There are still several bins worth of assorted nothing to be filtered for important things and disposed of, lurking in the hall closet...but there are other things I wish to accomplish this weekend. Hopefully, I shall get around to it before I next find myself looking for a new home.
--
It is perhaps appropriate, then, that my wings began to change.
It began before I sat down to the first episode of Haibane Renmei, though I would be remiss to suggest I did not pay more attention to it as the series went on, thanks to the obvious imagery from that story. The specific nature of the change is still being observed, but their count has been reduced from six to two, which are larger than before (the six having split off from the two I used to have, starting years before when I first became conscious of this sensation).
I almost never discuss my wings online as there are few whom I trust with that information, and because it is somewhat befuddling. I have been, at times in my life, given to spiritual or religious behavior...but the wings seem wholly disconnected from that, as they have been "present" even during some moments when I did not have an active belief in any such things (and this is the case of recent as well). Only two people can read this entry, and are presumed to be reasonably understanding that sort of thing. Once I attributed spiritual significance to it, even assuming a sort of private identity as an angel, but it did not really persist once I my spiritual impulse burned out. The wings, invisible, intangible and yet oddly present for such seemingly-imaginary things, have remained.
As a result of the recent changes, they have been hurting quite a bit, and the cramping in shoulders and back is very tiresome. It is one of those odd little perceptual things that simply makes more sense if I pretend not to be confused by it. Suggesting I simply have an oddly-specific body-dysmorphic disorder seems like no answer at all. It just persists, independent of whether I believe it should, and...to be honest, I am very grateful for it. Even if it is a quiet delusion, it is one of the most delightfully strange pieces of my everyday experience. I wonder what things will look like when the changes are complete.