stripey

Ursula has arrived safely. I haven't seen so much as a photo of her in some years now, so it occurred to me as I waited by the arrivals level at the airport that I might not recognize her. When I first knew her, she had shoulderblade-length auburn hair that tended toward curls, but the year after she'd cut it off and dyed it platinum, and I had heard of further hair experimentation beyond that. No sooner had I begun to say something than I partially glimpsed someone through the glass-and-metal framing the chute that funnels arrivals out past the security checkpoint, and immediately knew it was her-- petite figure, square shoulders, abrupt stride.
She looks exactly as she did at nineteen, and was even dressed similarly to how the St. Leonards dress code had made us both dress. It was a strange sense of time dislocation.
It remains unreal-- so much of a period of my life was defined by where Ursula was, and I wasn't, that it's very odd to have geography suddenly align thus.
There is always the oddness, as well, of the fact that I am so poorly-established a character in my own head that much of how I identify myself is linked to a time and a place. Several times now, of late, I have had dislocations where people and things from specific times and places have come to me here, now, in this different world where I am a different person now, and reminded me that no, it is the setting, ostensibly, that has changed: I am still me.
Mostly.

Chita is working extra-hard to bring on the weapons-grade cute. I sometimes don't know what to do with her.