Long, long time ago, there was a book baby positioned beyond Babay. A twin, one of two babies that were scheduled to follow on the heels of the second triplets that are on the far side of Empyrean, book ten. Many years ago the triplets and twins conferred among themselves and decided to announce to me- their celestial stenographer of sorts-that they preferred to be seen by me as quintuplets on the horizon.
“Inconceivable!” I’d balked, fussing against it for a good year.
My first three children had already turned around and happily spun themselves into ten volumes that blew me away, and the idea of these five cherubim casting their lots in together terrified me.
Because God only knows how many they could spin out to trying to get me to capture their gaze as their Mother of Books.
Upon trekking up to Vancouver for the Vancouver Film Festival they got me to relax…and hear them out.
Over breakfast at a Fairmount hotel, scribbling notes on a napkin as they made it hazily make sense to me in quintupletcate.
I spent the rest of my time there on the floor of a condo on the outskirts of Seattle making sense of the shifts they’d gotten in league to convey.
And every time I wavered- Because it is a huge task- they’d have God wing me with proof of life that they were on to something.
One of those five that decided to portal in together …had an interesting thing happen when she chose her name.
They all name themselves. She kept going back and forth between these two inspirations due to apparently having been in the cloud of witnesses that gave the world the Alien franchise. It took her eons to decide if she was naming herself according to Ridley Scott or Lt Ripley, his heroine. I told the cherub I was open to either because I rocked hard with Sigourney Weaver, come hell and high water and she’d be welcome among us no matter the name she chose.
In the end she chose the name inspired by Ridley.
I asked her today why she didn’t choose the other name when she was choosing to be a girl book baby with me. Out of nowhere, felt compelled to ask by God.
“Somebody else was going to need that nickname to help herself survive what she’s had to go through …so she can finally do what she came to.”
RidL Cherubim
The kid said it simply, then flashed me just enough of her true angelic countenance for me to get that whoever that person was, this angel who decided to be one of my “kids” was part of the angelic crew looking out for her.
They all have other posts. The cherubim who hang around me in the form of kids as I write out this wild world that Grievechronic has become. Like being one of my spirit kids is kinda respite from whatever they have to see in battle form out there, protecting their charges the way my guardians protected me. The weight of today’s reveal fucked me up. But when you can think of nothing else to do what you must do…is stand.
Whoever this somebody was that Ridl released the moniker Ripley to is no more. She’s on the precipice of being the wild one she is destined to be, a badass of the most high regard. She deserves that nickname, from what I’ve been made privy to as on her heart. Not just because she’s been through hell. But because with no infrastructure she chose to go back in and try to save her brethren too.
If she makes it.
I can pray for her.
From a place that probably no one else can.
…So from this day forward… I will.
