I have been writing my NW book for a while now, and have gotten to “Sunsets”, which is the little piece inside that is about my past experience with love potions got wrong. When I am done with it, I will post it here, as a “sneak peek” at my book, but before I even get any closer to finishing it, I would like to clarify a certain confusion which may occur.
While you are reading the excerpt, you may realize that it makes no sense. All our characters now are approximately fifteen years old. Judging by the fact that all the character names are different, this story is happening at least a generation prior to our time. So why am I there? And why am I fifteen now?
The explanation was only actually thought up by me recently, since I only recently noticed this dilemma myself. I apologize to those of you who think it’s way too retarded even for an indian game, but I actually think it’s pretty cool. So, here goes:
You begin Healer training at an early age. Training does not consist of only religious and medical education and knowing how to use acorns and Runes of Time (hah!) as GPS. Similar to what happens in the book “The Giver”, the old Healer passes on the memories of ens experiences to the Healer-in-Training. The difference is, they do not just pass on memories. They pass on the experiences themselves. The experiences actually become yours. As you age, the length of your life does not just go forward: it pushes back into time as well. In this way, I am fifteen, but I have had the experiences of all Healers’ past.
There is still a problem. In “Sunsets”, RainHeart (me!) remembers her teacher telling her a story. Why? Isn’t it her story now?
Not necessarily. Healers may choose what they ‘give’ to the next Healer, what they tell them, and what they keep completely to themselves. My “Sunsets” story is really StoneBlaze’s “Sunsets” story, and StoneBlaze also told me a “Sunsets” story. This does not mean that he experienced two different “Sunsets” stories. In “Sunsets”, I am not specific about the story he told me, and there is a reason for that. While I am living the “Sunsets” story, which is really HIS time, I remember him (already dead by that time, even though it’s HIS time) telling me the story. So basically, while you are living in someone else’s experience, you still have memory of the story as that person’s story, but not ‘given’ to you. You are never aware of being ‘given’ your experiences, you do, however, remember them being told to you.
And so the last problem comes. What do the people of all these Times-that-are-everyone’s remember? Who do they remember as Healer? The true answer would be: nothing. They’re dead. But since the real question is who they considered Healer during their lifetime, that doesn’t work. And so…
Even though different Healers live the experience many times, for the other people it is only once. While the people live it, the Healer is whoever’s experience it is at that moment. In that way, they are incredibly squished.
* * *
Those of you who have started to read my book, or who have heard me talk about what Healer life is like, know that Healers “embrace loneliness so others could be together”. This comes from many things. The most obvious are…well, obvious. Having to live in a den all by yourself, going on sacred but lonely pilgrimages, not being allowed to…erm…”love”…it’s all part of the loneliness. But the part that is the hardest on the persona is this. Your most important, most wisdom-teaching experiences are not going to be remembered by the people as your own. There will be no written documentations of them that will have your name on them. The fellow whose life you saved will not remember you for the rest of their life. The dog you adopted will not remember your scent. The most outstanding parts of your life will be forgotten. And yet you have to be outstanding, for the sake of the wisdom of the next Healer and for the sake of the StormClan…
). The two new notebooks are both brown, one with odd pink owls on it, and one that is “60-70 % recycled fiber” with “nontoxic soy-based ink”. Apparently they didn’t want to use up the soy-based ink on a dash in “nontoxic”. The cover also has a woodsy texture, which feels kind of odd when you expect cardstock.
