((neatly penned in Lumi-kieli))
Tonight I heard that Miss Beri, who had asked me to go for a walk with her and admitted to being attracted to me, and then who heard my age and told me that she was no longer interested and left, said she was actually still interested. And I wondered and I am wondering now, does everyone but the Lumi-väki say the opposite of what they mean sometimes? Maybe I do not know the etelä-kieli as well as I think I do.
Mister Baraque told me that he would be gone for some time, and that if I saw him again, he would be only a patron. He said it in a mysterious way so I asked him very specifically, and he very specifically said only. Then when he came back he insists that is not what he meant. And the same happens the other way. He has decided what I think and feel, and I cannot imagine how anything I said or did can match what he thinks. It is nearly the opposite. (He has asked me to leave him alone and let it all go, today. I wonder now if that means I am to do something the opposite of that. Or at least if that is what he means; even if he did, I will not do anything but I would have done, which is to hope he is well, and hope that one day somehow we can be friends again, though I do not think we can.)
I have had similar experiences with a number of other people. They decide what I think for me, and then will not listen to me when I say anything different. What they say and what I understand are so often different, and what I say and what they understand just as different. If it were just two people, I would think it was them, or something like how some people seem to speak like strings out of tune, but it has been so many people, so many times! And it is not even just Bree-väki. Mister Baraque is Harad-väki, and Miss Beri is from somewhere else, and nearly everyone I know other than Mister Butterbur is from somewhere else, and yet I have had the same difficulty with so many of them.
I know that the etelä-väki do not think as we do, and that there would be challenge in living amongst them. I saw that even with the few etelä-vieras I met in trading while still in Lumi-mâ. And again with Arthfael and Inurawen. And I know that many of the things they think about us are untrue. Most of them on purpose; the best way to keep our own matters and wisdom and sacred things secret is to give them made-up stories that they will believe so they stop trying to find out. But I did not think it would be so great a gap that I cannot even understand when someone says they do not wish to be with me, but that means that they do, or when I say I care about them, and they think that means I do not.
When next I see Mister Godwin, after he returns from whatever dangerous business he is doing in the place called Chetwood, I must try to figure out if somehow we are saying things to one another and hearing the opposite. But how? Miss Aellwenn advises caution, that I go slow and be sure that I am the one who decides what happens when, and she is right; this is what I was already saying I need to do, because I do not wish to make any mistakes with this, as I did with Mister Baraque. And perhaps with Miss Beri, though all I did was truthfully tell her this will be my twentieth summer, so how can that be something I did or said wrong? (Why was she scared of my age? Mister Egfor said that, but I did not ask more and do not understand what it meant. At least I know I do not understand this!) But if I cannot be sure what G is saying to me means what I think the words mean, or what he hears is what I mean to say, how can I ever know? How can I test it, or ask it, if every test and every question is also affected? It seems mad and impossible. But it has happened time and time and time again, and with many people. Maybe that is what happened with
((several sentences are very thoroughly crossed out here))
ever be certain. There must be something I need to learn still. Maybe if I speak to someone else who also must learn the words of the etelä-kieli as I did, like one of the vahna-väki or kivi-väki, I can learn what it is that I am not knowing about it.
Maybe my attempts to help Miss Tacita were caught in the same trap. She left me a letter that she is leaving. I am not to tell anyone about this, and in fact I do not know anything to tell. I wonder if I could have helped her if I had been able to understand the etelä-kieli better. Probably not. She needs a noaidi, or whatever the Bree-väki, or Gondor-väki, have that is like that.
Reminders:
try the tea that Miss Beri left for me to see if it helps my foot more than nettle tea with willow bark shavings
ask Miss Cesistya or Mister Byrge about the etelä-kieli and if there is a trick to my troubles with it
talk to someone from the Watch about the man who tricked me into buying the wrong wine; there is a merchant who saw him today and learned of his name and the abandoned home he said he is staying in, so maybe there can be justice
more harp practice; it is sounding very sweet and I feel like we are becoming fast friends (at least it does not speak the etelä-kieli so I can understand it!)
read the book Mister Dem loaned me about the story of the etelä-kuningas who died in the Ice Bay; is the bay and the Sea that the Gondor woman talked about the same? and what do the etelä-väki think happened? from what I have heard, they will no doubt think the Lumi-väki were (and are) simple fools who happen to know a little bit about our weather but do not understand anything else
buy a dog brush and start teaching Suojelija to let me brush her, now that I have enough pennies
rest my foot and soak it in the river whenever I can
can I make more pennies by doing laundry for people, while I am already doing mine?
buy a new diary as soon as I can; after this I have only six more pages
