Please read Toni the Great’s entry first - https://tonithegreat.dreamwidth.org/8904.html

With full dark descended, Kylie’s sense of dread intensifies. She sees glittering eyes among the trees, hears trees moving in the wind. The reality of camping as an adult differs greatly from the rose-coloured memories of her youth. She remembers laughter and the crackle of fire that drew everyone into its circle of light. She remembers card games, and running through the rain to crawl into her sleeping bag.

She didn’t bother with a fire tonight; it’s too much effort for one person already exhausted by the reality of life. She hangs lanterns around the site for light, but the white LEDs of modern camping lanterns throw harsh shadows and create an ambiance very different from what she wanted when she drove out here. She can see campfires flickering at other nearby campsites though and hear the laughter of family and friends.

When she left this morning, all she’d said was she needed to get away, to be away from all the heavy expectations. But once she arrived, she realized that the heavy expectations followed her. No, even that isn’t right. She is the one with the expectations. She is the one who thinks she has to be the best employee, the best homemaker, the best person. No one else asks that of her. They just want her happiness.

She feels a little thrill when she thinks about Jameson. The 3 dates they’d been on had been lovely; great food, fun activities, and excellent conversation. But then he’d asked her to come to his place, and she’d freaked out. This body, naked in front of someone she was developing feelings for? As much as she feels desire for his touch, she feared his disgust more.

But now? Alone in the dark, she remembers floating and swimming in the Gulf this afternoon, how her body was strong even when she was frightened. 

Her body is strong. It isn’t perfect; she isn’t perfect. But she has the capacity for love, and a good man who is interested in building something with her. When she’d texted him that she had plans to go camping, he didn’t whine that he was being left alone, just said he hoped she had good weather. Told her he was thinking about her. Offered to take her out when she got home and even suggested dates and times that show how serious he is about spending time with her.

She levers herself up from her chair and moves around the camp turning off the lanterns. She’s smiling, thinking about Jameson. She grabs her phone, feeling that little thrill. Letting it make her feel confident, letting the thrill guide her fingers as she scrolls down her contacts to the Js. To his name.

“Hi Jameson. I’m sitting in the dark, thinking about you too. I’m coming home early tomorrow, and I’d love to have you come to my place for dinner. Around 6? I’m really looking forward to seeing you.”

Kylie’s laughter joins the distant laughter from other sites, and her words fade to a soft murmur as she tucks herself up in her tent to talk to someone who could be her future.

I have a project. To be honest, I have many projects, but this one seems special. Overwhelming, but special.

In 1942, my great-grandmother received a letter. By 1946, she’d received many letters from that correspondent, as had her daughters, my aunts Edith and Lillian.

The correspondent was my grandfather, Herbert Martin Garniss, and covered his years serving with the Royal Canadian Engineers in the European theatre.

Aunt Edith kept many documents related to her family. She never married and had time, space, and inclination to collect and store documents as each of her parents and siblings passed away. She instilled a love of history in me by sharing tidbits of family history, telling me about real people doing real things.

Aunt Edith was the last of her generation to die. With no children, clearing out her home fell to the nieces and nephews, and those nieces and nephews were only too pleased to pass along all the family history papers and the stacks of family photos to me.

It’s overwhelming to go through a century of accumulated history. History that sits within the great moments of the 20th century, but also is mostly disconnected from those moments, dealing as it does with the personal. I found my great-uncle’s train engineer tests and certifications - connected with a time in Canadian history when the train was the primary mode of travelling significant distance. I found my aunt’s grade school essays - written in an era of one-room schoolhouses. I found the original deed to the farm my family still owns - from a time when Britain encouraged settlement and colonization of a pre-Confederation Canada.

And I found a box of my grandfather’s letters. 6 years of letters, in a strong and confident hand that had been lost to palsy by the time I was born. Letters with a cheeky sense of humour that never disappeared until he died when I was 18. Letters providing advice to his siblings and mother from an ocean away and letters describing the war from the bottom up, from a man who volunteered “because it seemed like the right thing to do”, according to his military intake papers. But in reading his letters, he volunteers so his brothers wouldn’t. He volunteered to make sure his sister, the nurse, stayed home. He volunteered to make sure there was a steady stream of cash at home, and he volunteered because it was the right thing to do.

And thus my project - transcribe the letters into a document and have them bound into a book for my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and anyone else who is interested. At that point, I’ll donate the letters themselves to the Huron County museum, where my grandfather lived for his entire life, excluding a brief sojourn in Europe, or the national military archives.

It’s a challenging project, deciphering fading letters that are over 80 years old. It’s an interesting project, reading my grandfather’s instructions to his brother Ed on how to talk to the draft so he could stay home and farm their Uncle Will’s property. It’s an insightful project, seeing how distance meant sharing gossip simply took more time. But I do believe it is a valuable project, not just for my family, but for everyone who is living in these uncertain times.

And so, one day, there will be a book that begins:

Dear Mother -

Well, we have had a real wet day here all day, so had not a great deal to do. We were supposed to go on a route march this morning, but just went to the gym instead. Got the old kinks taken out. This afternoon I pressed my coat and tunic, and layed around. About 4 o’clock the sarg came for help to set up chairs for church but when we got there it was already done.

I grew up in rural Ontario. It was a very homogenous town, where we all had the same frame of references - sports, farming, the same food and traditions.

And then I grew up and moved to the city for University.

It wasn’t even a big city, but there was certainly a variety of different perspectives, different backgrounds, different frames of reference. I learned so much, not just in class, but by being surrounded by new people. But even there, it was still southwestern Ontario - whiteness and English language ruled.

Things changed after graduation. In my career, I worked with many people for whom English is not their first language, particularly Canadian English. I’ve enjoyed that diversity, but mostly I’ve enjoyed helping define the random turns of phrase that come up in discussion without even thinking about the confusion you are creating.

In my 25 year career, I’ve been a tech writer, an editor, a trainer, a knowledge manager. The commonality is communication. With that focus, I’ve seen teams made and broken by poor or excellent communication. 

“What is two-four?” “What is dart?” “What is give’r?”

It is my honour to be the person asked when language is used in unusual ways. It’s improved my own communications, not just with my colleagues, but also with my family.

We are a playful species, and our biggest game in language. We use it to connect or separate, to build or destroy. In the end, the opposable thumb and tool using may have made us capable, but language using is what made us human.

“The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

I learned that speech at 14 years old. I was a little nerd, in a rural school, who loved to read and imagine that I knew more than the average 14 year old. The first four lines are all I remember now, but I still imagine I’m better than the average person when I drop it into conversation, casually mentioning that I learned that in grade 8.

I can explain the meaning of the words, despite the floridity of the language. I can tell you how it impacts the story, these words coming from a female character with so little power to change her destiny that she relies on wordplay to avoid marrying arrogant assholes who want her money and the power her connections provide. How she steals power by dressing as a man and using the intelligence that she always had to change fate and manipulate the law. I can even tell you how the audience reacts when she launches into the speech, us knowing that the other characters don’t know who she is, don’t know why she’s doing this, don’t know why she cares about mercy.

I can’t tell you how to be merciful. It’s not a characteristic I’ve spent much time developing. I hold grudges; I remember slights against me or against those I care about, and I will never forgive that. I am selfish; I focus on my own needs and that of my family and friends first, only considering others once our needs are satisfied. I get angry when I’m ashamed or embarrassed, trying to blame my mistakes on poor communication or limited options.

In the end though, it isn’t mercy that saves Antonio from sacrificing a pound of flesh, it isn’t heaven or kindness or compassion or second thoughts that save him. It isn’t even a flowery speech.

It’s holding grudges, it’s selfishness, it’s anger. It’s logic, in the form of a woman hidden under men’s clothing choosing to help her family and friends first, leveraging poor communication to twist the rules to suit herself.

In the end, the quality of mercy is a beautiful speech that does nothing to evoke mercy in the heart of the characters. In the end, Antonio is saved through wordplay, and everyone lives happily ever after, secure in having money and power and not needing the blessings that mercy offers.

Everyone except Shylock, who in the name of mercy is forced to give up his wealth, his religion, his daughter. In the end, mercy is a punishment and blesses no one.

Quality