I’ve been on my computer, mostly working in the archives, for the past few hours. Yes, I did plan on taking it easy all summer, but that’s proving to be easier said than done. It’s a bit scary to find out that I miss the work and studying whenever I take a few days off. Before I get to my evening work and musings; let’s do a quick recap of the rest of the day.
Rowen and I played, swam, biked, and went to the Emporium for two ice cream snack breaks. We had a picnic lunch at the park with Ethan and Ehlana, and I had dinner at home with Mom, Dad, and the twins while Rowen was doing the same with her parents at the computer store. Mom and Dad both had work to do after dinner, so Rowen and I took Ethan and Ehlana back to the park for a while, and then went for a swim with them before Rowen needed to head home, and I moved on to help Mom with getting the twins ready for bed - including doing a little bath time fun Magi lesson. I’d add any news about what Violet’s been up to, but we haven’t seen her since after breakfast. She and Dillon have been hanging out with Jake and Stephanie; and I won’t be surprised if we find out that they’ve spent the day out at Quarry Lake. Whatever they’ve been doing, I’m sure they’re enjoying their day off.
That was about it for today, and since coming to bed, my thoughts, and most of my archive studying, has been about the effects of puberty on Magi power and abilities; and the converse of that. Getting into this tonight came around in part because Rowen and I were talking about a few things earlier today, and a little archive research on that sort of turned into a mission. Mom and I both think that our archives are often missing important information because of how few of the books were written by women, and help for dealing with puberty is definitely one of those areas. I’m working on changing that, but while Mom can help me with anything I’m going through, it would have been nice to have more in the archives to learn from too. Even Mom’s personal journals aren’t very detailed; since she didn’t really start contributing to the archives until she took over running everything when she was twenty-one.
Going back to the chat that started this train of thought rolling tonight, Rowen and I have both hit the four and a half foot tall milestone, and though I am a couple of months younger, we seem to be on nearly identical growth paths. We’re also finding out that our Magi powers are growing and changing too, and Rowen’s been a bit worried about whether we’d have problems keeping control of everything. This isn’t something she wants to talk about with her Grandmother, or even with my Mom; and she obviously can’t ask her mother about it either.
We’re also wondering about whether I can use my Magi Healing talents to help both of us through some of the less-fun parts of puberty - or even if I can control our development. I haven’t found anything in the archives about that yet, and probably won’t, but I’m almost positive that I could do both. Helping Rowen when I can is an option, but I’m also sure that I shouldn’t use my Magi power to nudge either of us into adult bodies that we weren’t naturally meant to have. Since I know what I’m going to look like in a few years, thanks to Mom, I don’t have a problem with that. Rowen may secretly be dreaming about being a tall, blonde, and blue-eyed with a custom-tailored body, but I have a very strong feeling that she’s going to blossom from cute, shy little wallflower and bookworm to fiery and gorgeous. (Okay, so I might have a bit more than a feeling to go on for that, but let’s leave it there.)
Moving along, my own Magi power is growing, though I need to study what’s happening more to figure out how much of that is because I’m growing up. Part of the growth could simply be because I can use my gifts more often now that I’m allowed to shield myself. The biggest single change over the past couple of years has been my capacity. I almost never get tired out to the same extent I did even when Mom and I first moved here - or like after the plane accident. Of course, I haven’t tried to help keep an airplane from crashing since then either, but there also haven’t been any lessons that push my limits lately either.
As to Rowen’s concern about losing control, while I didn’t find much about that in the archives either, there also wasn’t anything written about it being a problem. That suggests that it probably isn’t an issue for trained Magi children. The only cases of Magi losing control of their talents have been in the rare cases like Violet, or due to severe mental or physical injuries or illness. I did find one reference that instructed all Magi boys and girls to completely avoid any sexual relations or risk ‘losing control’, but that honestly just made me laugh; since it could have been written by just about any father in any century, with the same goal in mind - and no real basis in fact to back up the claim. (No, Aunt Leanne, that does not suggest or imply that I’ve change my mind about boys; so don’t go there.)
I definitely don’t want to think about boys or sex, but using my Magi Healing to control and moderate everything that’s going to happen to me - and Rowen - over the next few years is going to be interesting. While working in the archives tonight, and thinking about all of this, I’ve been doing some internal exploration too; and I think that I’m subconsciously controlling my physical development already. That isn’t happening through an overt use of my Magi power, but I tried a couple of little things tonight, and I can consciously control my physical development. Maybe I’ll see if Mom will let me try to do that with Rowen during a Healing lesson sometime soon. I can measure down to the cellular level what’s going on with my body, so I’m going to keep track of that for a while - mostly because I’m wondering if I’m subconsciously speeding up (or slowing down) my development to keep pace with my best friend. To be a bit blunt, that might get a bit weird if it is happening. Being the same height or weight might not be a big deal, but we probably shouldn’t be shooting for matching bra sizes or menstrual cycles.
I’m going to keep working on this, and Uncle Adam and I are including Magi puberty development as part of our Magi Project archive, but I’ve had enough for tonight, and it’s time to get some sleep.
Live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie Proctor, signing off!