A long-standing war between two species. I look human, but I'm really only half. My mom is a sphinx! I may learn to shapeshift--haven't yet, but the ability can lie latent in halfies like me. Unclear how you practice shapeshifting... and Mom can't help; she's always been a talking, winged, leopard-sized cat.

I'm in a shabby, crowded warehouse/machine shop, working on a small sculpture near an open cargo bay, where there's more light and air.

I'm talking with one of the enemy, also passing for human today. I don't hide that I know who he is, but also that I don't want to fight. Try to explain why: "My mom's magical forte is healing, so she's always hated the war; taught us to work toward peace talks, even if they take another generation." Emphasize this is my whole family's political position and not a rare one on our side; I'm holding back from fighting him on more than a mere whim.

I'm not clear, suddenly, what gender I am. But I know my orientation! I suspect the writer of this fantasy trilogy we're stuck in is plotting to make me fall for one of the enemy, play a Romeo & Juliet role. Fine, fine--as long as I get a girl I'm attracted to, not this guy! Nothing wrong with him, I'm just not into guys. Girls, dear Author, dear Creator! Human girl, sphinx girl, antelope girl... I'm not THAT fussy. But don't ask me to switch and get a boyfriend just for Your plot requirements.

And while I talk to this guy, trying to convince him we're people not monsters, and conduct a second private dialog in my head with my (literary) Creator, bargaining over love and plot... my hands are up to a third quite different dialog, on my workbench. They're shaping a pale clay figurine, not very wet but leathery-damp; still a little flex in it. The figure's a sphinx--like my mom, but younger, slender, winged, about 20 cm (8") long, lounging, almost rolling over. Elegant--all taut curves.

She seems nearly done. May be a self-portrait--me as I am when I shift. If I ever shift.

Future self-portrait? Is art how I practice transformation?

Notes in the Morning

• My mom: a Gandhian pacifist. So she nagged me not to fight back when attacked, as a kid. This caused problems! But the dream shows my mom's values can be a strength too.
• War, peacemaking, sphinxes: echoes Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy--in it, our legends of warring angels & demons are folk memories of a real war in another world. There, two sphinx sisters are dreaded assassins--anti-pacifists! But off the job, not monsters--just soldiers defending their people.
• passing for human, antelope girl: in Daughter of Smoke the hero Karou is a gazelle-girl reincarnated as a human.
• ACTION 1: quit whining about my childhood--getting hit, 'unable' to fight back. False. I could've. I CHOSE not to, and not just to please my mom, but because I AGREED with her. I still do--mostly. But if one side massacres civilians, fighting may save more lives than it costs. Yet that can degrade the defenders till they won't talk peace either. The Daughter of Smoke & Bone books describe such a war--both sides trapped in specist vengeance. "They're monsters."
• ACTION 2: sculpt the sexy sphinx I did in the dream--if I can. I have clay, time and fingers. Ability? We'll see. She's my future, after all--maybe. My latent future. What effort will help me shift? If affirmations can help push you to do or become what you affirm, can sculpture? Can one sculpt a prayer?

Note Months Later

It's July now, and I've finished the figure at last. Not as elegant as in the dream--she had a cleaner, leaner curve, head-spine-tail, echoed by slenderer wings--and lighter colors, since the dream-figure was of white kaolin clay, and when I woke, I only had terracotta on hand. Painted her partly white to help. Not a total failure; traces of the seductive dream-sphinx are there.

If she's a prayer...

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