Jaine's Journal

An Old Memory

I was repairing an old Japanese fan I got at Disney World a few years ago and remembered something from my first life.

(I still love this old fan. It's a bit torn though and the stick thingies keep moving out of their places so I had to glue them in place.) My first life my original family beat the shit out of me and my twin and left us to die somewhere. My adoptive parents Yin and Yang Zenaldo found us and raised us in heaven with them. If they didn't take me and my brother in a billion something years ago, we would be dead. Heaven is only for deities and their families. It's a bright place full of mansions, temples, and the occasional city built by demigods. (Mostly Athena's children built them. They built most of Greece when Earth finally came around. The big bang was actually a war between pantheons to decide whom was going to control the new universe since not many was formed in my time. They eventually decided to rule certain regions. America is the most known region since many cultures and religions migrated there.) There used to be a festival held by my new family every year and that's the backstory of this memory.

The Memory

I sat on the stone stairs of my father Yin's temple as he tried to keep my 5 year old face from squirming too much as he put traditional makeup on me. I felt like what your Earth sees as old Asian paintings with the white faces and bizzare blush and eyeshadows and lipstick. I was wrapped up in a slightly too big blue kimono. "Hold still, Jaine." My father kept telling me. "I don't like it..." "It's tradition. Do you know why we celebrate this festival every year?" "Because you and father Yang was born." I heard the story a zillion times it felt like. "Precisely. Before my mother gave birth to me and your father, the elements weren't controlled well and there was chaos. After our birth, the elements of light and dark and well as tangable things like science and magic were suddenly under control. Then when your uncle and aunt were born, life and death were under control. We celebrate this festival to celebrate our branch of the family for finally bringing control to chaotic elements." I yawned. "And yet there are still elements not under control." My father smiled at me. "But they will be someday when more yin yangs are born on this side of the family." I looked at him. "Does that mean me and Jaicobe are a yin yang because we're your kids now?" My father grimaced as he tried to lightly explain why we're not like him and our other father. "Well, sweetie, you don't have your own yin yang symbol. And you nor Jaicobe have shown to control elements that oppose each other. But that doesn't make you two any less of our children." He handed me a fan that matched my kimono. "History set aside, you're old enough to take part in the fan dance." I beamed up at him. The fan dance is a traditional dance women took part in that represented our history through the theatre art of dance and they each held a fan with an image representing each branch of our family, so far there were 5 branches. The originals, the three siblings, and the yin yangs. I opened up the fan to show a silver and gold yin yang symbol stitched into it. "It's the first time a daughter of our branch respresents us." I hugged him. That fan made me proud.

And to think that was only a billion years ago. Time flies by fast doesn't it? I haven't been in heaven in a few millenia since my aunt wanted me to help her in her dominion in hell but I'm pretty sure we don't celebrate that festival anymore since we moved onto more modern holidays.