Grand Joy and Subtle Happiness

The idea of beauty has gotten out of hand.  Beauty in Nature, in particular, seems to have become about rarity.  Those dwindling areas on our planet with grand mountains or deep forests, vivid colors or expansive skies.  A waterfall with spray landing on the brilliant green woods to each side.  The vista of Yellowstone National Park, perhaps, or the majestic Alps.  Exotic, colorful birds from the rainforests, or the ever-elusive predators that grow more scarce by the day.

This grand ideal of beauty has its place for certain, and brings a wild kind of joy to the heart.  It fulfills us in a way our daily lives can’t compare to, so we worship it the only way we know how: by flocking to see it at any opportunity and capturing it on phones in the hope that the pictures we take will continue to inspire that bottomless depth of joy we experienced while in that place.

It never does, though, does it?  It brings back an echo of the memory, and that can bring a smile to our faces, but it’s never the same again.  To those who never went, but only see the pictures, it brings a sigh of envy at the pale reflection of the beauty we are sure exists if we could only get there.  That indescribable joy of being in the presence of such rare, apparently fulfilling, beauty can’t come home with us the way we want, but still we try.

Why?  Because we think that joy is happiness.  That if we could take that joy home with us, then it would make our whole lives more meaningful.  Joy is not happiness, though.  Joy is fleeting, like the rush of rapids.  It’s breathtaking while we go flying through, but it will end, the waters will calm, and we’ll be left only with the memory that we felt so alive.

Happiness is far more subtle.  Happiness is the undercurrent of the water the keeps the canoe moving.  Sometimes faster, sometimes slowly, but an ever-present feeling.  The problem with grand ideals of beauty is that they only bring joy, not happiness. 

Happiness is everyday.  Happiness is quiet smiles, proud hugs, and daisies.  Happiness is the occasional bad day or misfortune amid a string of laughter.  Happiness is a hobby, a shoulder to cry on, and praise. 

If joy is the dozen roses, then happiness is the herb garden.  If joy is a magnificent rainforest, then happiness is the stand of oaks down the street.  If joy is the clear waters of the open Caribbean sea, then happiness is the rippling patterns on any surface of water.

Humanity is ‘us’, but that’s not really the way to be happy.  Happiness is ‘me’.  I love to look up through trees on a clear morning and see the different shades of green where leaves are in shadow as opposed to in light.  I love to watch squirrels scamper and chase each other through the branches.  I love to stop and listen to the sound of water burbling through a ditch.  I love to look at the pattern of clouds in the sky and watch it shift, even without applying shapes to it.

If we all love mountain ranges, then I like plateaus.  If we all love grand rivers, then I love streams winding through suburbia.  If we all love the colors of sunset, then I love the colors of rock in the Panhandle.  If we all love grand towers of rock, then I love the colors of pebbles on a gravel road.

Beauty can be everyday, too.  Just because I have seen a tree a thousand times doesn’t mean I won’t appreciate it again.  Just because I have been to beautiful parks and breathtaking mountains doesn’t mean the street I live on doesn’t thrill me. 

Just because I’m beautiful when I dress for a wedding doesn’t mean my smile isn’t compelling every day.  Just because I’m adorable when I jump up and down doesn’t mean the way I crinkle my brow when I think isn’t cute. 

‘I’ could be anyone.  However, ‘I’ am not ‘us’.  I am always myself, no matter how many others might be similar.  I never confuse myself for all of humanity.  I recognize my similarities to all of us, but don’t credit everyone else for what makes me amazing.  I am happy, but I don’t know about us.

My Side of the Family

I have one of those classic names.  Everyone has a friend with my same name, usually several, sometimes with numbers to differentiate them, others use nicknames, and some forsake the name altogether to avoid confusion.  As one in the final category, I don't use that name anymore except in certain circumstances, like around my family.

I changed my name when I went to college because before that it was impossible to change it.  No one would call me by anything but the name they'd always known, so when a clean slate was offered to me in a new town, at a new school, with none of my family around, I took it.  My parents make the effort to use my middle name only when around those that would know it better than my given name.  My siblings never bother.

That name is now little more than a stage name to me.

When necessary, I can play the role of the geeky, shy girl who keeps all to herself.  The girl that my family knows, the girl that was the name they use.  A girl who could nail an accent for a role but not fill the auditorium with her voice.  A girl who made friends by reading books off by herself.  A girl who only sometimes spoke up in class, but who could talk to her teachers for hours one-on-one.

That girl found an amazing group of people and started to bloom.

Everyone has a side of the family from their mother, and a side of the family from their father.  Me?  I have my own side of my family, too, and I don't even have a boyfriend.

My side of the family is huge.  They don't all talk to each other all the time, and they can cause drama and strife with the best of them.  They're from all walks of life, all ages, all personalities, and all styles.  All colors of the rainbow, in any sense of the word you can think of.  And we have a family reunion that's four months long, only on the weekends, every year.  The extended family shows up for the second half.

My side of the family jumps up and down and screams when they're excited.  They laugh and say, "I love you," when someone says or does something weird.  They don't always like everything, but they always encourage when someone is clearly passionate.  They're not afraid to tell each other when something is stupid or just a terrible idea, and they know how to take that kind of criticism.  They hug, kiss, compliment, and cuddle at every opportunity.  No matter what, if one of us is in danger or unhappy, everyone pitches in.

They're not a group that's for everyone.  Some people can't handle how stupendously creative we all are, especially when we gather in groups.  We can get obnoxious at restaurants, and leaving anywhere when at least four of us gather is always a multi-step process.  We're a troupe of trained monkeys who know all the song cues, not to mention the obligatory call and response or the corny jokes that are only funny still because it's traditional and we're having fun when we say them.  

They were exactly what I needed.  They didn't need me, and they probably still don't, by and large.  When I leave soon, with no clear idea on when exactly I'll be back, they'll go on next year just fine without me.  I will be missed, but not needed, and when I return, there will be work ahead of me to forge my place among them back.

I'm still a geeky, shy girl.  I still hole myself up in my room or up in trees and read.  I still have trouble striking up spontaneous conversation with strangers.  The fact is, though, that the girl I was when I arrived there stayed home in the minds of my family, and someone new went off to college.  Someone who could jump up on a table and whip her hair around without a care in the world for how stupid she looked.  A girl who could step up to be the first volunteer whether she knew what she was doing or not.  A girl who still feels her heart pound in her throat at the thought of going up on stage, but who can own that space with her voice, her presence, and her confidence.  A girl who knows who she is, and the girl my family knows never did figure that out.

I arrived in their midst an unfinished person, still floundering, but with ideas and potential.  I barely had enough confidence to throw myself at them and hope they would catch me.  I would like to finish this saying that I'm successful now, that everything's worked out, and I'm an amazing person, but that's not true.  Yet.

That's a powerful word.  I have come a long way, and I'm pretty cool.  Among my side of the family, I'm about your standard amount of awesome, which means I'm pretty spectacular among regular folks, but I don't stand out among those I respect and love the most.  I've gone from cruddy job to cruddy job, working my butt off and being respected there, but unable to get better jobs.  I'm still an unpublished author, and the best work as an actor I can get, aside from the improvisational work I do with my side of the family, is extra work that requires no auditions, only that you show up.

A lot of persistence, not to mention loads of help from my family of choice, has landed me with something spectacular, though.  This summer, I am off to teach English in Japan, fulfilling a dream I've been nursing for years.  I wouldn't call it "successful" in a general sense, but I would call it a good start.

Does my side of the family need me?  Nah.  They'll be fine if I was down the street, on the other side of the globe, or spinning through space in a blue box.  They love me, though, in a way I'd never experienced before, and which can and will reach me all the way over on that gorgeous archipelago.  I won't be in the immediate family, but they'll still think of me and love their distant cousin, coo over my pictures, and possibly threaten me with bodily harm because my life is more amazing than theirs.  When I return, however long that may take, there will be plenty who remember me and herald my return with love, hugs, and teasing.  Those who don't remember me will welcome me with open arms back into the fold because we all can recognize our own, even if it's been a long time, even if they've never met us before.

We are a family of choice.  A family that picks and chooses who comes into the fold, and then never lets go.  A family that picks up those with potential, those who need support, and gives them as many shoulders to lean on as they need.  A family that can pick up a crowbar and pry open the shell that keeps us hidden from the world.

My side of the family made me into who I am.  Go ahead, you can be jealous.

"Hide" an alternate ending and missed opportunity, Part 3

Spoilers!

Please beware, I am using original dialogue and plot from the episode “Hide” in season 7 of modern Doctor Who.  I have rearranged things a bit, and added some bits of dialogue, but most of it is intact in some form or another from the episode.  I begin my alternate ending at about thirty minutes in.  I will write some small bit of lead-up, to show the context of my changes, but the rest after that is my engineering or my reproduction of events between my changes.  Enjoy!

This is part 3.  Please see part one here. 
Part 2 here.

“Doctor, can you hear me?” shouted Emma over the sound of the portal.  Of course, there was no harness over there any longer, and the whole mechanism to get him out was a bit in shambles, but the first problem was establishing contact.

Unfortunately, the pocket universe had already shrunk considerably from where it had been when the window had closed, and the Doctor had planted himself right in the middle of the universe to give himself time to think of a way out.  He could hope that Emma might restore herself and try again, but had no guarantees that it would happen.  He jumped when he heard her voice calling out to him, but it was even fainter than before, and the direction was muddled.  He took his best guess and ran.

It seemed he took a wrong turn somewhere because he ended up on a meadow near the edge of the pocket universe, still no sign of the window Emma had made for him.  He stopped and looked around, listening for her voice again to give him some clue where to go, when he saw a familiar figure appear out of the mist above the trees.  It was spinning and nearly out of control, but that was definitely his TARDIS.

With a clear idea of what could happen to her if she stopped and got stuck here, the Doctor braced himself and grabbed on when it came near enough.  He clung for dear life and hoped she had enough sense to go through the psychic wormhole Emma was still helpfully providing because if they went through the vortex with him on the outside....

As they landed on the other side of the wormhole, the Doctor leaned against the side of the TARDIS to the sound of Emma screaming from the effort.  Clara opened the door as he came around the corner, her mouth open that she had actually somehow managed to pull that off, not to mention at the sight of Emma on her knees and gasping for air.  An exhausted Doctor gave her a high five on his way to check on Emma, though.

Assured that she was just strained, and would recover just fine, he straightened up to look at the emerging sunlight out the window.  The tension and fear of nearly being trapped in a universe that was collapsing around him worked its way out in a small smile and a soft chuckle.

Then, Clara remembered.  “Doctor!”  She seized his sleeve and spun him around to face her half-glowering, half-frightened face.  “Why did that monster get through before?”

“Monst—Oh!”  He smacked himself on the forehead again.  “I thought I had a little longer, and that I would come through after it.  I’m sorry.”  He put a hand to her shoulder briefly, then turned in a circle, peering in the corners of the room.  “Where did he go?”

Clara looked at the doorway, still half closed with the rope hanging from it.  “Ran off that way.  I’m not sure why it just ran off so fast, though....  But then the wormhole closed, and I was just thinking about getting you back....”  She realized that through the whole thing, after the monster left, she hadn’t been afraid of it once.  Until just now, but it was a much quieter fear.  More worry than anything.  Now Hilla and Alec were looking at the door nervously, too, though Emma was far too exhausted to think of anything else.

“Ah, well, I’m sure he can figure it out.”

“What are you talking about?” Clara asked, stepping up so he couldn’t avoid her question.

“How do sharks have babies?” he asked instead of answering.

“...Carefully?”

“No!  No, no, no.  Happily.”

Clara frowned at him.  “Sharks don’t actually smile.  They just, well, they’ve got lots and lots of teeth.  They’re quite eaty.”

“Exactly!  But birds do it, bees do it.  Even educated fleas do it.”  He threw an arm around Clara on one side, and Alec around the other.  He smiled at the half-closed door where the monster had disappeared through.  “Every lonely monster needs a companion.”

“...There’s two of them?!” Clara demanded. 

“It’s the oldest story in the universe.  This one, or any other.  Boy and girl fall in love, they are separated by events, war, politics, accidents in time.  She’s thrown out of the hex, or he’s thrown into it.  Since then, they’ve been yearning for each other across time and space, across dimensions.  This isn’t a ghost story.  It’s a love story!”  He looked first at Clara, then at Alec, then at his arms around their shoulders and let go.  “Sorry.”

***

The Doctor stepped away into a corridor and leaned against a window frame.  He folded his arms, frowning to himself.  Emma strolled up behind him.  “You wanted a word?”

“Well, if that’s—”

“It’s fine.”  She smiled at him when he faced her.  “You didn’t come here for the ghost, did you?”

He smiled back.  “No.”

“You came here for me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I needed to ask you something.”

“Then ask.”

“Clara.”

“...Yes?”

The Doctor stepped up close, peering into Emma’s eyes carefully to get as much information as possible out of what she was going to say.  “What is she?”

Emma smiled uncertainly, not knowing what to make of the question.  “She’s a girl.”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile, now.  “Yes, but what kind of girl specifically?”

“...She’s a perfectly ordinary girl.”  Silence for a moment, as she looked at the Doctor and tried to figure out what he wanted.  “Very pretty.”  He laughed a little and turned away, no longer sure he’d get anything useful from the psychic.  “Very clever.”  He nodded agreement to that one.  “More scared than she lets on.”

Several paces away now, back to Emma, arms crossed, the Doctor pushed once again.  “And that’s it, is it?”

“Why?” Emma demanded.  “Is that not enough?”

***

They all walked the Doctor and Clara out to the TARDIS in the morning sunshine.  Hilla and Emma embraced.  The Doctor threw his arms around both of them, pleased with the happiness after all the tension and fear during the night.  “Where will you go?” Emma asked Hilla.

“He can’t take me home,” she explained.  “History says I went missing.”  The Doctor nodded along.

“But he can change history,” Emma suggested.

“No, no no, I can’t actually.  There are fixed points in time, you see.”  Clara popped up next to him as he was about to launch into an explanation, glomming onto his arm.  “What?”

“Hi,” she whispered, but just dragged the Doctor away with her, to let the two women talk. 

“I knew you were there,” Hilla told Emma.  “I could feel you.  I knew.”  They smiled at each other.

The Doctor tried to rejoin them, but Clara held on.

“...Have we...?”

“We can’t have,” Emma answered, though she was thinking the same.  “You haven’t even been born yet.”

Finally, he pulled away from Clara because this time, he absolutely had to speak up.  “No, you can’t have met, but she can be your great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter.”  He had to do some math in his head as he counted out the ‘greats’.  “Eh?  Yours, too, of course,” he said to Alec as the major walked up.  “But you guessed that, already, didn’t you?” he asked Emma, not noticing the baffled looks he was getting from the couple who had not yet gotten together.  At least not until he’d finished speaking.  He looked between the three people staring at him.  “...Oh.  Apparently not.”

“...But the paradoxes—” Alec started to protest.

“Resolve themselves, by and large, that’s why the psychic link was so powerful.  Blood calling to blood.  Not everything ends, eh?  Not love.  Not always.”

“Doctor,” Alec called as he chased after the retreating Doctor.  “What about—what about us?  Emma and me....”

“...What about you?”

“Well, what’s supposed to happen?  I mean, what do we do now?”

Emma was standing beside Alec, now, and the pressure was on the Doctor to say something helpful, though he was rather terrible at doing that on purpose.  Accidentally romantic things, he could do.  Simplicity, that’s what he had to go with.  “Hold hands,” he said to them.  “That’s what you’re meant to do.  Keep doing that, and don’t let go.  That’s the secret.  Eh?”  He looked up through the window to see two knobby heads peeking out of it. 

Then, he jumped and smacked his forehead.  “Oh, stupid!”  He dashed for the house again.

“Doctor?!”  Clara ran after him.  No way was he going to leave again without her. 

“I can’t just leave them here,” he explained over his shoulder.  “I can take them somewhere safe quite easily, now they’re both out of the pocket universe.  I just have to get them to—”  He skidded to a stop as he went careering around a corner, and Clara nearly ran into him.  Once she regained her balance, she looked up to see what the Doctor was already staring at—the alien standing over them, with another one, slightly smaller, behind it.  “—trust me.  Hello.”  No response, though that wasn’t unexpected.  “I can take you somewhere safe.  I got you out of that collapsing universe, yeah?  Trust me.”

"Hide" an alternate ending and missed opportunity, Part 2

Spoilers!

Please beware, I am using original dialogue and plot from the episode “Hide” in season 7 of modern Doctor Who.  I have rearranged things a bit, and added some bits of dialogue, but most of it is intact in some form or another from the episode.  I begin my alternate ending at about thirty minutes in.  I will write some small bit of lead-up, to show the context of my changes, but the rest after that is my engineering or my reproduction of events between my changes.  Enjoy!

This is part 2.  Please see part one here. 

At last, Clara saw what she had been hoping for.  The rope tugged again.  “It’s the Doctor!” she cried.  Without waiting for any assistance, she immediately ran to start pulling him through.  It was more difficult than she’d thought it would be.  The psychic screamed again, and the professor ran to her instead, while Hilla threw herself to helping Clara get the Doctor out.  He had saved her life, after all, it was the very least she could do.

Just as the wormhole was collapsing with a final scream from Emma, a figure fell out of the doorway, but not the figure any of them expected.  Hilla practically ran backwards until her back hit the wall, Emma fainted (though to be fair, that was due to the strain), and Clara and the professor stared in shocked astonishment.

Instead of the Doctor, they saw a creature made of knobby logs hunched on the floor.  The harness seemed to be attached with some difficulty to one stumpy leg, and it watched them with at least as much caution as they watched it.

“Where’s the Doctor?” Clara demanded.  Her concern outweighed her fear, and after everything she’d seen so far with the Doctor, she almost expected to get an answer back, even from such a creature.  “What have you done with him?”

It took a couple rapid steps forward, and she backed up just as far before she could help it.  Steeling herself, she raised her chin and determined to keep her ground this time, though her confidence that the creature could understand her and speak was waning.

Before she could repeat her question, the monster rushed forward, and Clara had to jump out of the way or be run over.  It burst through the door right next to Hilla, who threw her arm across her face to try and protect herself, but it went straight past and through the door, leaving all of them unmolested.  The rope from the harness caught on the door, and the harness pulled off the creature’s leg, slamming one of the doors shut behind it.

Clara turned and stared in horror at the empty doorway.

***

The Doctor stared at the empty doorway.  Well, that hadn’t worked out quite like he’d hoped.  He looked round the empty room, then took one slow step.  It vanished, leaving him alone in the collapsing pocket universe, back in the misty woods.  Unable to think of anything to do yet, he crouched down to retrieve the folds of his tie, now lying on the floor where he’d dropped it after the alien broke the door down.  “Oh dear....”

***

A bell tolled.

Clara turned away from the empty door to look for the source of the sound, but she didn’t see anything that might make a sound like that.  It sounded far away, though, so maybe another part of the house? 

Enough of that, though.  The bell continued to sound ominously in the background.  Her eyes landed on the unconscious Emma.  “Wake up,” she muttered.  Then, launching herself toward the Doctor’s only hope, she shouted, “Wake up!  Open the thing!”

“I’m sorry,” whimpered the groggy Emma, her face pressed against Alec’s chest.

“Don’t be sorry,” Alec insisted, raising her head so he could look at her and she could see his sincerity.   “Don’t be sorry!  What you did—”

“Wasn’t enough,” Clara interrupted.  “She has to do it again.”

“She can’t.  Look at her!”  He held Emma’s head protectively.

“She has to!”

They stared at Clara for a moment, then Emma looked at Alec.  She was a wreck, barely able to keep her eyes open, and breathing heavily.

“We can’t leave him!”  Giving up on them as useless, Clara got up and stormed out of the room.  She refused to be helpless!  There was another option.

Alec supported Emma’s weight so he could keep looking into her eyes.  “I know you think you can’t do this, Emma,” he said gently, “but look at that woman over there.”  They both looked at Hilla Tacorian, who was still slumped against the wall, not sure what to do next but not willing to leave the room just yet.  “You saved her.  She’s only here because of your strength!  And so am I.”

***

The TARDIS.  That was the Doctor’s other hope.  Clara remembered what the Doctor had said about the TARDIS going into the pocket universe, but that was before he was trapped in it!  The tolling of the bell had gotten louder as she went, so it must be coming from the TARDIS.  It started right when the gateway to the pocket universe collapsed, and the Doctor was trapped.

She slammed against the doors harder than she expected.  Blinking, she rattled the door to try and get it to open, but no such luck.  Clara stared up at the lights coming out of the windows in open-mouthed astonishment that the TARDIS would refuse to let her in now, of all times!  She rattled it again.  “Oh, come on!”  Once more.  “Oh, let me in, you grumpy old cow!”

A zap from behind her made Clara spin round, and she was faced with ... herself.  “Whoa!”

***

“Emma, I was as lost as her,” Alec continued, “but being with you?  You gave me a reason to be, Emma.  You brought me back from the dead.”

A change came over her face, and Emma had finally gotten her breath mostly back.  Alec stood up and helped Emma to her feet.  Without a word, Hilla came forward as well.  With the crystal back on Emma’s forehead, the three of them linked hands to help her concentrate for another try.  One last deep breath, and she closed her eyes.

***

“What’s this now?” Clara demanded.

“TARDIS voice visual interface,” intoned the fake Clara.  “I am programmed to select the image of a person you esteem.  Of several billion such images in my databanks, this one best meets the criterion.”

“Ugh!  You are a cow, I knew it!”  She pushed that aside for now.  Squabbling with a time machine was low in priority at the moment.  “Whatever!  You have to help the Doctor.”

“The Doctor is in the pocket universe.”

“You can enter the pocket universe!”

The fake Clara twisted her mouth sardonically at the suggestion.  “The entropy would drain the energy from my heart.  In four seconds, I’d be stranded.  In ten, I’d be dead.”

“You’re talking, but all I can hear is ‘mehmehmehmehmeh’!  Come on!  Let’s go!”  Who would’ve thought it would take so much convincing to get the TARDIS to go rescue the Doctor?!  The interface didn’t even let her argue any further, though, because it disappeared right after she finished.  “Hey, hey, hey!”  She spun back to the police box and pounded on the door. 

***

“Doctor?” Emma asked, as the black, spinning mirror appeared in the air where it had before.  “Can you hear me?”  It shattered, and the whirring sound of its spinning grew louder and louder.  “Doctor?”

***

“Come on....”  Clara rattled the door again, then stepped back to regroup, but the door creaked open as soon as she moved away.  A smirk at the blue box later, she was inside the console room, trying to figure out how to get the TARDIS into the pocket universe after the Doctor.

  



It got a little too long for only two parts, but I've completely finished it, and there is a final segment coming tomorrow for plot resolution!  Read it here.