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Three Months Have Passed

It’s been three months since I left Second Life.

Nothing Left to Give

I didn’t really know why I was leaving and I’m not sure even now. I was disappointed in Second Life. I had nothing left to give to anyone.

I had nothing I could say to my friends, even the people I love most. I feared being asked why I’ve left. Some people are so well-balanced they may never understand what I mean, but this is how I felt.

Sneaking Into My Bedroom

It’s really a requirement that if you leave a place, you should really leave, right? Like, if you’re in high school and you run away from home but then at night you sneak into your bedroom to sleep, that’s not only comical but disingenuous.

Anyway, I’ve been kinda doing that, sneaking back into my bedroom but more like once a week or so. I’ve been online to catch up with Leanna, do some building. There’ve been weeks I haven’t been around, but on average I’ve been back for an hour or so each week.

Just Being

Many of my disappointments in SL have come from my drive to do things, to make things happen, instead of just being who I am. Is that Lao Tzu’s grumbling in my ear, “The way to do is to be”?

Leanna and I plan to go to SL10B and see what the residents have created. And when I sneak online, I plan to keep building a geisha house for my Edo era Japanese inspired drabbles.

I’m still not sure what the future holds but for now I need to find myself by just being.

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Laurence Simon’s Podcast

Laurence Simon has been publishing and recording 100 word stories (“flash fiction” or “drabbles”) every day for many years. The site’s title is “The 100 Word Stories Podcast” but its domain name is “OneADayTillTheDayIDie”.

Laurence also publishes the stories of other authors in a weekly challenge, on Sundays, where he gives offers up a topic and writers unleash their creative energy to somehow include the topic in their works. It’s a real show with Laurence acting as the host and the authors reading their works. I find the show entertaining and I try to listen to in each week.

This past Sunday, the sixth in my “Preludes” collection was published and  in “Weekly Challenge #367″ and — yes! — you can even listen to me read my contribution in my geisha persona.

Photo by Yordie Sands

Photo by Yordie Sands

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Preludes: And I Was Alone

a 100 word story by Yordie Sands
copyright © 2013

I was no longer geisha Suzuki, I used my real name again. I had a home of my own because my patron wanted this for me.

The garden was named Yordie’s Zen Garden. And in this place I discovered something I loved about myself, I found I could express my sense of beauty through my work. Many visitors came from the hanamachi and each day I enjoyed welcoming them.

I never saw my benefactor again but one day the attorney returned. Sadly, my danna had become ill and passed away. He left me his final poem. And I was alone.

Yordie Sands writer, photographer

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Preludes: The Zen Garden

a 100 word story by Yordie Sands
copyright © 2013

When I was a little girl I saw my first tea garden. I was charmed by the teahouse and the Zen rock garden. I visited there often and always found joy.

In the hanamachi, wherever I found a tiny patch of ground I often played at creating a garden from rocks and twigs. As a maiko, I chose Zen gardens as the topic of my study paper.

I didn’t know why my danna had given me this enchanting garden. Though unsure, I decided to create a rock garden next to the teahouse. I spent many hours working and found peace.

Yordie Sands Photography

Yordie’s Zen Garden @ Chodron:
Rock garden next to the teahouse.

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Preludes: My Danna

a 100 word story by Yordie Sands
copyright © 2013

When I became maiko I lived the life of an aspiring geisha. I performed for and served the many businessmen and samurai who visited our okiya.

One day I entertained a distinguished businessman who seemed to admire me. He spoke to me with encouragement, “You have learned your skills well.”

Days later I was informed by okaasan that my debt to the okiya had been paid. That same day a lawyer told me I have a patron, then took me to a garden on the northern side of the hanamachi. He said, “This is a gift from your danna.”

Yordie Sands Photographer

Yordie’s Japanese garden

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Street Dancer on the Blake Sea

I’ve spent a lot of time resolving issues with my computers, OSs and broadband service recently. Several changes I made have enabled me to run different Second Life viewers without incidents. Despite the fact that I tested these different viewers, I hadn’t given them a real workout yet. So I was eager to give my Firestorm viewer a real test out where I love to be, on the Blake Sea.

I took my speedboat, a Street Dancer 35, out for a high-speed run across the Blake Sea. I was tentative at first, creeping across sim crossings, but after a half-dozen or so I really took off. It felt great, wind in the hair, racing across the seas! After zooming around for awhile, I finally anchored at Tromp Island.

Blake Sea - Second Life - 2013

That’s actually my alt out there in the speedboat,
but that’s a story for another day.

I used a lot of Strawberry Singh’s suggested camera settings and really put the camera to the test. Eventually I blew-up the vid card, after torturing it with a wide range of Windlight settings, but the vid card didn’t crash the computer.  I didn’t expect the system to withstand all the testing. So this was all good!

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Preludes: Our Okiya

a 100 word story by Yordie Sands
copyright © 2013

The hanamachi was the oldest of all the flower towns and our okiya was the largest. We had five geisha and many apprentices.

The teahouse was open each day and we performed many geisha shows each month. Men came into our floating world to be entertained, but my life revolved around the world of sisters. I felt close to my sisters and our fates seemed intertwined.

In time I came to realize that my new onesan was a troubled and deceitful woman. And one day I learned that she was the very woman who had driven my first onesan away.

Inside the secret world of our okiya.

Inside the Yoshiwara geisha house, our okiya.