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This morning I started out hung over and listless, keeping myself propped up while cleaning dishes by listening to Part 3 of the Hardcore History podcast series on Ghengis Khan. I really felt for a moment what it must be like to kill mercilessly, to feel bloodlust, to be part of an efficient and disciplined military machine, but also felt even more keenly the other side, the sadness, the seemingly endless sadness for those who suffered.

Later I tuned into 99 and Barry's Afternoon Sound Alternative on KGNU.  A sad Mongolian folk song came on in the mix. I thought of the Khans again, and the millions slain and raped and tortured by them. I realized that I must have this blood in me too, bits of it, from both sides of the battles, this genetic memory. I feel an infinite sadness down deep in my bones. I could fully feel it in the music, all of it. I took my phone and plugged it into the speakers for Lucia to hear too. We danced to the music. I swung her around and around, slowly.  Lucia has a bit of a Mongolian look to her, especially her eyes, from her mother's side. At one point as we were dancing she told me she was a princess. I could totally see her as a Khan's daughter. Her life would have been full of insecurity and pain back then, even as a princess. Now she is a princess of a much luckier kind, a sci-fi princess of the future, and at least, for awhile, she can relax and dance with her father to the old music of the Steppes in relative peace. The perspective of time is a trip. I was there, now I'm here, voila.