Elise Matthesen

Neil has this on his journal, which Mike wrote in 2003:

Mike wrote "The Declaration" for us in 1998, and a couple of years earlier I wrote a poem for him. Every now and then lines from both of them float through my consciousness. Sometimes, though, I need to go back and let the words pass before my eyes one by one, in their cadences, taking the time it takes to reread something that he undoubtedly knew I would go back to, and something else where I was trying to tell him about time and eternity-in-mortal-time and all sorts of things that I could only say with those lines.

Tonight it was this:

One partner: I stand here with you because together we possess infinity in a finite space of time, and our combined reach surpasses the mortal.

Other partner: I stand here with you because we have seen in each other a shared task: and though the void may separate us, and matter must always fail, we shall never truly be apart, one from the other.

Together we take joint and equal command of the time still before us, to watch and to defend, to endure the cold and the fire, to stand until the last.
For against that power armies are as nothing, and Death itself comes begging and ashamed.

So please be aware that all the CN are in the tags, and here, have a link: https://elisem.dreamwidth.org/1306788.html

Once during a gaming session which Mike was GMing, he handed me this note.

I'm pretty sure what he meant to do was sow seeds of confusion and trepidation amongst us players.

I was poking through some old entries looking for a thing, and instead found this. It's from when Mike and I were visiting Jim and Harriet for the holidays, as was our wont, and it makes me smile. It's also the last Christmas Mike and Jim got to celebrate together, so it's a bittersweet smile, but a smile nonetheless.

These are written snapshots of the day, in chronological order:

The needleworked pillows around this house delight me. I'm not sure whether my hosts made or acquired them, but they're just the thing. The one I can see from where I am sitting says "No one is safe with a writer in the room." One of the ones downstairs says, "Love thy editor."

There was the Hallelujah Chorus again today, but this time it was with kazoos.

People gave me amazing presents, which I just want to sit and read and read, but at the same time, the bead boxes are calling me. This is why I can be found at the kitchen table with Mary P., designing shinies and sparklies.

Mike is taking a nap. I went up to see him just now and used the usual is-your-sugar-low? metric: I said, "Say something complicated." It works remarkably well. Today I got back a declaration of love with side commentary explaining that while this wasn't really complicated in its own right, it was at the top of his mind. We agreed that the side commentary hit or exceeded the complicated mark, and I was much reassured, so I kissed him and told him I was going to go on-line for a few minutes, but that he was welcome to come join Mary and me at the table soon.

Jim with a brand new lightsaber is a sight simultaneously endearing and terrifying. Heh.

Now, it being very late evening, I am sitting in the kitchen with Mike and Mary and Lese (oh, dear, I do not know how to spell her, but she is very cool and an artist). They are watching movies, in a multiplexed channel-flipping sort of way, while I make a necklace-crown. (Swarovski, greens and grays.) Lese has informed me that I am not allowed to say that I can't draw; we have compromised, and I may say that I have not yet been able to draw well. (Except for botanical illustration, and a very, very few portraits. And a tornado, once, but that was something else again.)

(I'm going to add more snapsnots as the day goes on, if there's time. If there aren't any more snapshots here, you may picture me under a heap of ribbons, snoozing blissfully.)