love is the great connector. It is a visceral sense of connected well-being with another... it leads us not to Judge and Rate and Rank, but to nurture and be nurtured.

This is beautiful. What you say next, too: even in the bad sorts of love, there is some sense of being part of a larger universe. Brings tears to my eyes and makes me want to hug everything tight.

And thanks so much for apples and pajamas! I laughed because I knew it was possible, but you showed how it was not only possible but quite reasonable (though in the first instance, in a dire way).

Regarding Rey, I think your outlook explodes open the fairly narrow and closed-in Star Wars universe. I like the bigger view! And I'm always keen to have a person's specialness not be attributed to Noble Blood. That's my preamble. Now comes the "but." But, imagining this like one of those games of chess where you play with only a few actors on the board, or as mystery with a limited cast, I think it's a fun game to pick the most unlikely or shocking player and then construct reasons why he's the (in this case) ancestor.

Let's have a day where we all speak forsoothly--it will confuse the prognosticators mightily!