The novel, People of the Rock, has a rough first draft complete. It’s the story of a woman from Vancouver and her somewhat cantankerous ex-lover who do a bit of involuntary time travel to the future. It’s a mixture of quantum mechanics, mysteries of life, future ecotopias, hope and present day childbirth, with a bit of juicy sex and a love that spans half a millennium.

I’m working on revising it now, and filling in some bits that I didn’t have time to research during the November writing frenzy. I’ll keep you posted after that. If you’d like to read the first few chapters, there’s an excerpt posted on this site.

-Sophia Kelly, LQ Editor

Eons Ago

a past where womyn lived as the female head of tribal lineage
welding marked ability to act with strength, to uphold justice, and
were given to the healing arts of Gaia and those creatures dwelling
within her most loving arms
while vast prisms graced the skies
and crystals, like tiny shards of ice, danced so very gaily
off molten waves of other worlds unknown
eons ago
womyn met in what was known as a circle of life
with the centre being their perpetual and sacred universe- cone of
power
their north came the earth energy and
and to the west came the energy of water
and to the south came the fire energy
and to the east came the air energy
and throughout the meeting
they held hands and danced with unbridled joy of simply living and
breathing
at one with Mother Gaia and her children….at one with each sparking
crystal.

I’m writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve decided to do it here, and will be adding to this post throughout the month. The task is to write 50,000 words between November 1-30th. We’re not supposed to edit or review so this is the first draft, but I thought it might be interesting to follow the process. Here’s more info on www.NaNoWriMo.org - (c) 2009 Sophia Kelly

(Note: I originally posted the raw draft, but replaced it in December with a more edited similar sized excerpt of the book. After I wrote the sex scene that comes next, I decided to keep the rest of it off the net for now)

Chapter 1

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. ~EF Schumacher

It was a dark and stormy month. November in Vancouver is always a bit cold. People who can, stay inside, except for the soccer players, who are crazy and run around in the mud and cold like it was any other day. Lucy found all her great tentatively anchored new good habits, to go for long walks daily, to garden and get outside to see the sky, washed out like a chalk drawing on the wet sidewalk.

Lucy’s friend, Michael, had other ideas. A confirmed gym bunny, or whatever guys with tight butts who go to the gym all the time are called, he liked the different quality of gym time in the winter. The condensation on the windows of the second floor the Ron Zalco’s gym he went to prevented people from looking out and so people talked to one another more. You had to. The place was so crowded these days by people antsy to move but unwilling to get cold and clammy, that there was always someone asking to work in on your set, and conversations just happened.

“You should come to the gym with me sometime” he told Lucy. You’d get to like it, and it might make you feel better. There are lots of interesting people there…”

“Which part of it would I like more, the sore muscles or the slipped vertebra when I put something out of joint trying to lift the damn weights?” Lucy snorted. “Or maybe listening to my attractive puffing and panting in a nice public place where people can hear?” Lucy liked exercise that was dignified, or, failing that, done to loud music so no one could hear her asthmatic lungs cope with the unaccustomed strain. Chatty men with cute butts were in no position to know what would make a perimenopausal amazon like herself happy.

Walking slowly to the escalator, they left the food court and wandered upstairs. Lucy liked shopping with Michael. He shared her taste for rapid browsing, non-engagement with salespeople and Purdy’s ice cream bars with fresh melted chocolate and toasted nuts that were so fresh and crunchy they squeaked on your teeth. After she had lost Brenda, Michael had helped keep Lucy moving, even if it was only on the mall level.

Hugging Michael goodbye, Lucy buttoned her coat and headed out the side doors of the mall and onto a courtyard that was, if not exactly rain proof, was at least sheltered from the wind. The old stones were time roughened, or perhaps time smoothed from a rougher state centuries ago. Looking up in the too-early-to-be-dark wintering sky, she noticed that the moon was a wee sliver of platinum coloured light, pale like blonde baby hair against the black. Just past new moon, waxing crescent. Brenda would have said that it was a time for good new beginnings. But not to Lucy. Not anymore.

“I wanted my life to be a science fiction novel”, thought Lucy. “Where anything could happen, and the truths that seem to hold me from stretching out into life were only one version of reality, and a highly unlikely one at that. I wanted to live in a world where Brenda and I could just be who we were”.

Brenda had disappeared. On purpose, probably.

“I don’t know why you need to tell everyone. It’s not something I need.” she’d said during their last, dismal failure of a fight, precipitated by Brenda once again allowing her mother to set her up on a blind date with a man. Brenda’s need to pretend to herself that she wasn’t gay had been understandable at first, but had begun grating on Lucy, who wanted to go out with other couples. She wanted to stop pretending they were just roommates. Her partner of two years should not be going on fix-ups with men just because she was too chicken to tell her mother she was already in a relationship. Brenda’s religious guilt and, to Lucy’s mind, intrusive family, were big blocks around her neck pulling her into the closet and anchoring her there.

The sex, once phenomenal, had dried up. They were barely talking, and had become room mates in truth again.

Then one day, Brenda was gone. Had Brenda told her family and they’d come to pick her and her things up while Lucy was at work? Had they hauled her off to some bible camp to be brainwashed and married off to some church scion? Lucy had even called Brenda’s mother in Abbotsford, who said she hadn’t heard from Lucy and didn’t know where she was. Somehow Brenda doubted that.

This courtyard was where they had first met. Not in the rain, obviously, because they’d never have sat out here for so long, finishing the last of their lunches while watching the birds finish the last of someone else’s and then fly off. The seagulls had been brazen, and had sneaked up beside Lucy and nearly stolen half of her good roast beef sandwich. Brenda had leapt to Lucy’s defence and waved her umbrella like Xena the Warrior Princess. For someone who was such a strong presence in the rest of her life, so articulate and decisive, Lucy couldn’t understand why Brenda had quailed at this last, seemingly straightforward challenge, to be honest about her life.

Lucy had told her mother that she was interested in women when she was 19. They’d been walking on the beach on one of her mom’s visits to town, and her mom had asked about her friends. “Do you hang out with any guys?” She asked, looking sideways at Lucy. Lucy drew a deep breath and answered honestly. “Not really, I have a couple of good guy friends, but most of them are gay.” Long silence. “I thought that might be the case.” said her mom, and changed the subject. But her mom had liked Brenda, and had treated them just the same as she treated her brother and his girlfriends, so Lucy figured that even though they didn’t discuss her being lesbian, her mom was fine about it.

Lucy passed the bench where a lone seagull squatted. No squabbling for leftovers today, he’d have to go back to eating fish. “Better for you anyhow” Lucy admonished him. “Omega 3 fatty acids are good for birds you too, I’m sure.” She reached the end of the courtyard and went down to the water, walking along the large rocks that line the shore, slowly to avoid slipping on the wet underfoot. It was barely raining now, only misting. By Vancouver standards, that really didn’t count as rain. The mist was enough, fortunately, to keep the beach relatively clear, and she could pretend she had it all to herself. She might even be able to cry, here, surrounded by the comforting sound of the waves slipping back and forth, and the big grey belly of the Mother Ocean behind them.

Lucy could feel the mist swirling around her as she walked, getting to almost pea soup thickness. It reminded her of the festival of Samhain, when they’d visualize visiting the island of apples, Avalon where the dead go to rest before being reborn. Stories of getting lost in the mists and having adventures were a folkloric staple, as were tales of coming back after only a few days to discover years had passed.

Her shoes weren’t the best for this kind of thing. Brenda was always after her about wearing her nice clothes and shoes when she indulged a sudden desire for gardening, or fixing something outside, or walking a muddy beach. Well, Brenda wasn’t here to judge, she told herself rebelliously. She could walk just fine in a leather sole on a slippery rock. It was just like walking on ice, and she’d done that often enough growing up. She’d be….

Lucy’s ankle wrenched as she went down on the rock, hitting her butt and back of head. A person standing on the courtyard above, if someone had been there, would have seen the mists wash over her, hiding her from view.

Chapter 2

The sunlight was frighteningly bright. Looking out over green hills and birch trees with light green leaves. “I’m looking out over green hills and birch trees…” thought Lucy, dazed and pleased and then less dazed and less pleased. “What the hell?” she thought.

Looking down, she noticed her clothes and shoes were gone. Every stitch. She was naked, on a rock in a strange forest in the sun. Craziness.

“I must have hit my head harder than I thought”, she thought to herself. Nearby, neatly folded on a rock was a cream coloured soft fabric tunic, with thick handknit socks and soft leatherlike boots. Seeing no reason not to, she pulled them on. The rock she found herself sitting on looked familiar, just a little.

Just out of sight around one of the trees, she saw movement, and a woman emerged from the forest and started coming toward her purposefully. “Good, you’re here. Come this way.” she said, as if greeting a woman who’d popped into existence in a clearing was part of her every day duties. Then, seeing Lucy was rubbing the back of her head, she added as an afterthought, “do you need medical attention?”. Her speech had a slight accent that Lucy couldn’t place.

Lucy looked up at the woman from where she was sitting. The woman was beautiful in a solid no nonsense way that Lucy liked a lot. Slightly taller than Lucy’s average height of 5′6″, she was fairly broad shouldered and carried herself with posture that Lucy’s chiropractor would have approved of. Lucy’s chiropractor was always giving Lucy exercises to do to strengthen the muscles in her upper back to balance her largish bust. Lucy met the woman’s startlingly blue eyes for a moment and shook her head.

The woman’s hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. She wore no makeup, and a tunic similar to Lucy’s, with sturdy looking boots.

“Sorry about your clothes” she said. “It doesn’t bring those. You’d think materializing you with your clothes on would be better than bringing you through naked, in case the weather was terrible. Although come to think of it, it never is.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucy said a bit rudely. “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry” said the woman, pushing back a wisp of blonde hair from her forehead in a way Lucy suddenly found facinating. “I’m Mariha, Mariha Birch. This is going to be confusing for awhile, I’m afraid, and I’m not sure what I can explain to you yet. But we mean you no harm.”

With that, the woman turned and began walking back toward the forest. Lucy didn’t see any reason not to follow.

The path narrowed a bit and the ground underfoot got a bit boggy after a few minutes of fairly brisk walking. Lucy found herself panting and wheezing, as usual, from her asthma. Mariha didn’t seem to notice, but slowed her pace slightly, which Lucy appreciated. She also appreciated the boots and soft socks. Her ‘girl shoes’ would have been more hopeless here than they had been on the wet seaside boulders she’d been walking on earlier.

Their trudging fell into a steady rhythm and Lucy found herself listening to the leaves rustle. Looking up she could see blue sky in places through layers of soft green leaves, lit up in the sunshine. As she let the peace of the place fill her, she found her breathing eased a little.

Mariha stopped for a moment and drank a little from a canteen looking thing she wore on a strap over her shoulder. She offered some to Lucy. “Water?” Lucy drank a little and caught her breath. She’d been studying the woman’s back for some miles now, but hadn’t hadn’t exchanged much in the way of words. She felt like she was getting pulled along in Marija’s wake, a bit like she did with Brenda, now that she thought of it. Brenda had a way of sweeping you into things, that at first Lucy found endearing. Swept her into her bed, and then into the closet pretty quickly, once it became clear that was the only way Brenda would have a relationship. At first Lucy hadn’t noticed, since she pretty much didn’t want to get out of bed when they were together, but after awhile she picked up that Brenda would show her no affection at all if anyone else was around. Even Brenda being closeted with her folks wasn’t a big deal, if they weren’t always trying to find her a man.

“What am I doing? Where the hell am I?” thought Lucy bracingly to herself. “This is a crazy situation, and I’ve just been going along like a good girl”. Just like with Brenda, Lucy found that with an attractive woman leading the way, she didn’t much care. “How sick is that?” She thought. However, what else was there to do, really?

Finally, the forest opened out to a sloped clearing containing a large adobe coloured circular building. It appeared to be made of some kind of concrete, or maybe even actual adobe. The walls had a comforting curved warm earth-toned look to them, and several of the windows were round as well. A sculpted relief showing trees and what looked like agriculture scenes flowed along the walls, inlaid with what looked like bits of glass and stones.

Mariha stopped at a small fountain near the entrance and splashed water on her face, drinking some and sprinkling water lightly down the front of her tunic and over her hair. It was an automatic gesture that looked like she’d done many times. Lucy awkwardly drank a little water from her hands, finding that it tasted slightly of iron. Now that she was right at the fountain, she saw that the water had a reddish tinge and seemed to stain the fountain itself a bit red. The water looked like it flowed from a stream nearby and then empties back into it once it had made its tour of the pool. The edges of the fountain were surrounded with shells, lozenge shapes, and sensual looking pale rose flowers.

Past the pond was a curving half wall that bordered the walk that led to the front entrance. Lucy snapped out of looking at the fountain and scrambled to catch up to Mariha. The door looked to be carved of a single piece of wood, fir – if she remembered her woodworking classes in high school – with a curved top and a latch like handle. Mariha opened the latch and held the door for Lucy. Then followed her in to the slightly cool interior.

Inside a lot of the light came from skylights curving around the ceiling. Looking up, Lucy could see what looked like strandboard beams supporting the roof, made up of multiple long slivers of wood glued together. She’d seen them at the PNE one year, as part of a green building exhibit. They had been called green, because they were supposedly a way to have nice long strong wood beams without needing to cut down old growth trees.

Lucy looked around, registering a kind of vestibule with a series of small doorways and one large one, like a church. “Is this a church?” she asked.

“Not exactly, I mean, all of our forest gathering places are sacred, of course, but it is not a church, not in the way I think you mean.” said Mariha.

“Well, where are we, then? What happened to me? What’s going on?” Lucy was beginning to feel like it was time for Some Answers. “It’s not that I’m not happy to be out of the rain, but you have to tell me what is going on.”

“I will tell you what I can. A few years ago, we discovered that the rocks in the place where you emerged from would from time to time deliver us a person from some period in the past or future. It’s like we’re a way station of some kind. The person stays for awhile and then, without us really knowing why, disappears again. We’ve worked out a schedule in relation to the sun and moon, and are getting better at predicting when women arrive, but not exactly when they leave.”

“Women? only women?”

“So far. You’re the sixth woman to arrive so to date.”

“Can I meet the others?”

“Eventually, I think you will, although none of them are here right now, and only four remain.” At Lucy’s alarmed look, she added quickly “Two disappeared again about a month ago. This will all make more sense after ou talk to your Elder. She’s waiting for you in the central hall.”

Mariha led Lucy to the main doors, and into the central hall. The hall was a large circular room with a high ceiling. Benches in a circular pattern lined the circle two deep. In the centre was a beautiful mosaic floor pattern divided like a pie into foursections in colours of red, green, blue and yellow, that looked like it was made of glass tiles. Looking closely the mosaic had scenes of fire and trees and what looked like wind and water, each in it’s own coloured section. A woman who looked to be about Lucy’s mother’s age sat on a bench in the inner circle, to one side.

The woman rose to greet them. “Thank you Mariha, for bringing our guest in. It looks like the schedule is as accurate as we thought.” she said. “At first the newcomers would wander through the forest and became quite tired and hungry before we located them or they found us. This is a lot more civilized.”

Civilized was right. Looking around the room, Lucy saw that over to the side was fresh fruit and vegetables, a pitcher of what looked like the spring water from outside and some delicious looking bread. Lining the walls were beautiful tapestries that looked as if they were meant to mirror the trees outside. The tapestries were so detailed that she could almost feel the leaves move in them. The skylights in the ceiling were made of a transparent material of uneven thickness, which provided a mottled light, primarily in the centre of the space. It gave the place the feel of being in a clearing in the woods, except with far more comfort. A fountain at one end provided a low burble that gave a restful undertune to the space, and Lucy found herself relaxing in spite of her unusual circumstances.

Seeing Lucy’s eyes notice the food, the woman moved over to the food table and took a seat on the outer ring of seats, motioning Lucy to sit opposite her on the other ring. “Can I offer you something to eat?”

“Perhaps in a moment”.

“My name is Rosemary, and I think Mariha will have probably explained that I am Elder here.”

“Yes, but I don’t exactly know what that means”

“Well, I’m the person in charge of holding this gathering space both physically and spiritually for the people who come here, which includes the nearby holy forest. Since the travelling stones have showed up near here, they have been given to my care as well. I’m called Elder in part because of my extreme age, but also it’s just the name this role assumes.”

Lucy didn’t feel it was polite to ask how old Rosemary was, but wondered how young people died here if this woman was considered extraordinarily old. Rosemary’s face had a few wrinkles, like Lucy’s did, and her hair had quite a bit of grey, but she wouldn’t have put her at over 65, at the most.

Lucy’s thoughts must have showed on her face, because Rosemary said “You’re wondering how old I am.” She smiled. “Some of the others were confused too. It seems people in your time have environmental factors that make them age prematurely, so I’m not looking old enough to you?” She chuckled and shook her head. “I assure you I am old enough to have great, great, great grandchildren. Our people generally live to 150 or so, and I’m well past that. “

Chapter 3

The rock basked in the sunshine of this clearing. Of all the times it inhabits, this one was/is/will be its favourite, so it focuses its attention here often, usually when it can feel the warm sun and strong pull of the full moon. A trick of the moon sometimes allowed it to bring along a traveller. This latest soft-bodied one had seemed so wrong for her time, like that other one had. The rock is old, as rocks go, in this time especially, and it’s worn soft surfaces absorbed the radiance and pulled it deep inside.

The rock couldn’t remember when it had developed this skill. Like all rocks, it could be in multiple times at once. Most rocks learned this in the first millennium or so. It was only the fresh lava who hadn’t yet mastered it. Most of the beings seemed to be stuck in time. Some long lived trees and fungi developed the ability of being in many times at once, but since they were easier to destroy than rocks, few who learned the skill lasted long enough to get really good at it.

The ever reincarnating spirits of people and animals did have a sort of permanence, but didn’t often retain enough memory while in body form to get the hang of being in more than one time at once for more than a glimpse or two. These commonplace abilities aside, the ability to bring the soft ones along when shifting focus from one time to another was not common. At least the rock thought so. It was not widely known among the rocks of this rock’s acquaintance.

“The Weaver” the rock thought. Yes, that was who had helped Rock learn this skill. She had demonstrated it once, moving a doe forward in time to prevent her species from becoming extinct. She said not to do it often, though. “Wouldn’t want people to catch on. They need to know the consequences of their actions. Just enough.” she said with a wink.

Chapter 4

Lucy is a woman on a Mission From The Gods. She just doesn’t know what it is. At least that was Rosemary Elder’s take on it. “You’re here to do something, to affect us or yourself, we don’t know. Follow your instincts. You’re here for a reason. By the way, what is your full name, dear?”

“Yikes” thought Lucy. “They’ve got to have me confused with someone else.” she said to herself. ““Lucy Elizabeth Andersen. I’m from Vancouver. Where are we now, anyhow?” Lucy looked around if expecting signpost or map or something.

Rosemary hesitated, seemingly having something stuck in her throat, and Lucy answered for her. “You’re on an Island called Boan Island, a relatively short boat ride from Old Vancouver.”

“Okay, then. What do I do now?” she said aloud.

“That’s not for me to say” said Rosemary firmly. “Whoever or whatever brought you here did so for a reason. Most people the rock brings, we don’t even know what time period or location they’re from in relation to this one.”

“I don’t think this is the past” said Lucy “since your setup here doesn’t seem like anything I know of from history, and besides I can understand what you’re saying. That must mean you’re not so far removed in time or geography that you speak a different language. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“160″.

“Whoah. One hundred and sixty years old? Seriously?” Lucy laughed nervously, not sure whether to take the woman seriously, but not wanting to give offense. “Um, you don’t look a day over 100…” Rosemary smiled.

“Just because Mariha and I can speak your dialect doesn’t mean the younger folks can. I remember something like it from when I was a little girl. It’s nice to hear the old fashioned phrasing again.”

“Where did you grow up?” asked Lucy.

“Canada, in the west near the ocean, in a place that’s now underwater, unfortunately. Before the big quake changed the coastline a bit. But I’m not that old, some of the trees have been here longer, and of course the rocks. Some of them were dredged up from the sea bottom and moved here to shore up the dike, and then moved around a bit for building and such, but that was awhile ago now too. The rocks where you came through came from some where off the original coast of Vancouver, I’m told.”

Lucy took a deep breath and let it out. She looked around at the room again, at Mariha, and then at this impossibly old, and strangely familiar woman. “Breathe, ground and keep your feet on the floor” she told herself. “So you’re not going to tell me where to go or what to do? I can leave?” asked Lucy.

“We’ve all agreed amongst ourselves not to tell you where to go or what to do, to let you complete your mission according to what you feel is right. We will, however help you in whatever way we can. We have a pack fixed for you if you want it, with some supplies and equipment and you can take the ferry to the mainland. You won’t need money.” Rosemary looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s so funny to think of needing money, I haven’t thought of money in ages…”

“You don’t have money here?” Lucy was shocked.

“Not as such. People just do and make and help where and how they see fit. For larger projects, like building larger buildings or boats, or industrial services, we meet in places like this one and decide who will do what and how it will be supported. It’s kind of like barter, but mostly we just make sure everyone gives what they can and has what they need and that the work is fairly distributed. People work out of a sense of connection with one another, and because they enjoy what they do. It all only works because we organize locally in smaller communities. For trading between communities where people don’t know one another, we have system of tracking exchanges using something you’d probably think of as a computer network. It’s not the only way to organize, some places still use some of the ancient currencies, but we don’t generally need them around here day to day.”

“So what about me, since I’m not part of a community? Do I contribute?”

“You’re a special case. You’re here from the Gods to do whatever you think you need to do. You don’t have any restrictions on you, within reason. If you need food or shelter, just ask someone who seems to have a surplus. Most places have hostels, maintained by the community where a visitor might stay. It’s generally considered polite to help out if something needs doing wherever you’re staying, but there’s no hard and fast requirement.”

“When can I go back?”

“That I don’t know. When you feel you have done what you were brought here to do, go back to the place by the rocks where we found you and you might be taken away again. We think that’s what happened to the two women who left already. One at least was headed toward the rocks with that in mind, and the other was in the vicinity. I suppose they might have had an accident somewhere remote instead and just not been found. We’ve never had anyone go away at the rocks and then come back so we don’t know if they go home or not, or just on to somewhere else.”

How wierd. No job, no family, an important mysterious mission, and no one telling her even which way to go. Lucy couldn’t let it all in. She decided to focus on the concrete. “Ground, breathe.” she told herself, and took a moment to do just that. Travelling alone. She’d never travelled alone before She was unfortunately too aware of the hazards. That time she wandered into the wrong area of town on a trip to LA and gotten mugged, the time she’d had all her stuff stolen in Mexico, that man who had slipped GHB into her drink and would have raped her if her friends hadn’t found her in time just outside that bar in Seattle. Speaking of which…

“Where are all the men?” Lucy suddenly realized that she hadn’t seen any guys or even heard male voices around.

“Oh, they’re here all right, but we didn’t know what time you would be from. Some of the other times seemed to have some quite barbaric practices about women and men and we thought it would be most comfortable for you to be met by a woman. In your time are men more violent than women? Some of the women seemed quite wary of men here it seemed they’d come from times where women were enslaved and treated pretty badly.”

Lucy had to admit that in general that men murdered more women in her time than was true in reverse. “I guess, when you’re used to it, it doesn’t seem unusual. Women aren’t property in my time, but it was a relatively recent thing, so a lot of vestiges still definitely exist. Women’s labour is worth less, for example, and women aren’t safe to travel alone in many places. In some places in the world women are still property.”

How strange to talk of women’s oppression like it was ancient history. This strange journey might be a good thing after all.

After her interview with Rosemary Elder, Mariha led her to a small bedroom off the main corridor, which held a double bed and very little else. “These are our guest quarters for gatherings”, Mariha said. ‘Mostly people are so busy meeting they don’t spend a lot of time in the rooms.”

Laying back between sheets made of something that wasn’t cotton. Was it linen? Lucy’s body began to relax, and then, quite unexpectedly, began to cry, tension rolling from her body in large shaking sobs. First all her worry and hurt about Brenda came flowing out in a way it hadn’t yet, these last two months, and now she’d had such a confusing and overwhelming day. For all this space was almost unbelievably calm, ordered and tranquil, it only made her all the more aware of the rocks of tension in her shoulders, the screaming waiting at the back of her throat. Thankfully, the soft looking plastered walls looked soundproof. She certainly didn’t hear anything from outside, and hoped that went both ways.

If this was the future, then everyone she’d known, Michael, her parents, even Brenda were long dead. How weird to think she’d outlived them in the blink of an eye. Would she ever get back to them?

Eventually, the room’s cool, solid, patient darkness won out and she wound down fell asleep.

When she woke she didn’t remember any dreams.

Chapter 5

A bird landed on rock, scrabbling a bit as it settled in with its prey to eat. The soft brush of its feathers were familiar, as was the light touch of its spirit, trusting, grounded by the rock’s presence.

The rock liked birds, the light touch of their mind, focused on small details that were easy to overlook otherwise in the vast stream of time. Birds paid attention to small things seeds, wind patterns, the clouds of dust raised by a small animal digging, an unusual animal in the forest. This bird had flown from the mud building some distance from here, and had seen the soft bodied one the rock had shifted through time enter it.

It was as the rock had expected, it had seen it plain in the mind of the soft bodied human who’d collected his charge. The swirl of time around her made her easier to track, dust patterns were shaped by it as they blew by. The rock would watch this one.

Chapter 6

Rising from her room in the morning, Lucy found a sturdy pack parked next to her door.

Inside were a couple of changes of clothing, mostly tunics and a kind of knitted legging trousers that looked handmade, some socks and underthings, sweaters, bedding, a small tent, and what looked like travel rations. There was also a canteen similar to the one Mariha had worn yesterday, full, when Lucy tasted it, of the same iron rich spring water. A note was perched atop all the bundles saying “Blessings on your journey”.

Lucy dressed and walked down to the main room where it looked like a fresh spread of food had been laid out, including some sandwiches packed for the road. No one else seemed to be around, although it looked like some of the food had been eaten earlier. Lucy ate her fill and returned to her room. She made the bed, and washed up a bit in a bathing room she found down the hall, re-donning the new gifted clothing.

“Well, I may as well try it on”, she thought to herself, standing in front of the large pack frame. Lucy turned it and slipped her arms into the straps, then hunkered forward as she remembered from Girl Guides and lifted the heavy pack with her legs. She could just do it. The pack made her feel rooted into the tiles beneath her feet and when she moved she felt a ponderous importance to every step, as if the spiritual weight of her journey had been made tangible.

The pack seemed to give her more momentum, so when she moved, she wanted to keep going. The pack carried her out the main doors, which closed softly behind her. She looked at the path back to the rocks, and thought about just going back there and camping out until she was brought home. What if she missed some sort of window and could never go back? or on?

Curiosity won out and she turned to the left hand path, which she thought might lead to the beach and ferry, stepping carefully to keep her loaded legs under her.

Chapter 7

Mariha the Archiver stood up and stepped out from behind the half wall once she saw which way Lucy had gone. Dressed in travelling clothes with a light pack of her own, she followed silently. Her job was to keep an eye on Lucy, not interfering, but documenting her journey for the community. She didn’t want to affect Lucy’s decisions, so kept a discrete distance.

This Lucy Andersen was a very interesting woman. Mariha marvelled at how quickly she had accepted the new reality. Some of the women had stayed for months at the forest gathering place, until they accepted that they really could move off on their own, that no one controlled them. They received as much reassurance as Mariha and the others could offer that no one wanted them to do or not do anything in particular, as long as they harmed no one. This Lucy – what a quaint, archaic name – would be worth watching.

Rosemary wanted to wait till she was sure great great grandmother Lucy was gone before going out from her sitting room into shared space. What a strange gift from the gods to be presented with her ancestress, live and looking like a grandmother herself. If Lucy doesn’t go back to her own time to birth the parent of Rosemary’s own beloved great great grandmother, will all that any of them had done and experienced be erased? Gods only knew. Rosemary was quite certain her own soul and those of her ancestress would remember, even if nobody else did. She’ll have to ask her long dead grandmother when she spoke with her next Samhain, that is if she herself was still alive. “I guess I can ask her either way.” she thought to herself.

“It’s been a long run we’ve had, Body,” she said, patting her long familiar form. She was showing some signs of winding down, who wouldn’t at her age, but age hadn’t stopped her yet. Perhaps it was living in such peace in the sacred forest that had gifted her with such a long life, or drinking daily from the Mother’s spring. Perhaps it was just luck and good genes. Rosemary felt the signs of aging in her bones, during morning yoga while the earth bermed gathering place was cool from losing the last of its stored solar heat from the day before. How her great grandmother would have laughed at the idea of doing yoga at 160. Rosemary laughed and went to the kitchen to see about lunch.

Chapter 8

The path widened as Lucy got closer to the shore. Down the beach a ways, she could see a dock, with a little cabin for people waiting for the ferry. There was no one there. Lucy took off the heavy pack gratefully, and then settled into a comfortable chair to wait. Something was written on the wall that looked like a schedule. It appeared to be in English, but some of the spellings of the words were strange. Since Lucy didn’t know what day or hour it was, the schedule wasn’t of much use to her.

It had been a long time since Lucy has had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Work, chores, television, laundry had kept every moment filled with information or activity. Other people’s thoughts and other people’s needs. All silent now. Having surrendered to where she was, and what she was doing, there seemed to be no reason to hold on to any of it. The crying last night had released something, and it felt like she could finally breathe deeply.

Lucy went to the porch of the cabin and looked out at the peaceful forest. She could still smell the moist earth of the forest floor, but now it blended with the familiar smell of the ocean. “At least some things never change”, she thought. She sat on a comfortable seat on the porch and settled in to wait.

Lucy awoke from a nap to hear voices from the ferry heading toward her. The ferry was a sailboat, which shocked her. Don’t these people have motorboats anymore? They were like some sort of futuristic Amish or something.

The man captaining the boat, didn’t look Amish. He wore a variation on the tunics and leggings outfit she’d seen on Rosemary and Mariha, except with a long hip length jacket made of tightly woven and slightly shiny fabric, like a rain slicker. His tunic and leggings were died in multiple shades of blue, like tie die except a bit less hippy and more like camoflage fabric, except in much richer colours. His tunic had a row of buttons down the front, which were open to reveal a darker undershirt and some gold chains. With the layered garments and his curly hair, he looked a bit like a pirate to Lucy. The pirate had a broad smile and a neat mustache and helped her into the boat, along with Mariha, who turned up unexpectedly just as they were leaving. Mariha was going to the mainland, apparently to gather supplies not available on the island for an upcoming gathering. “We’ve got a new settlement in construction down at the other end of the island, so I’m going to record at a coordination gathering”, she said. “Then I’m going to visit some relatives”.

“Where does your family live?” said Lucy.

“About an hours bike ride from the ferry terminal on the other side”, said Mariha. “My family keeps a bike at the quay that has a cart attached to it. If the weather is bad though, sometimes I take the bus. You will be welcome to use one of the community bikes if you like. You do know how to ride a bike? I think they’re pretty old technology, right?”

Lucy nodded “although it’s been a long time since I’ve ridden a bike. We mostly rode in cars where I’m from. Do you have cars now?”

“Oh yes. Generally they run on electricity, like the buses. The fuels we used in ancient times are mostly gone. I saw an internal combustion engine that ran on gasoline at a museum once, and they made it run for us briefly during a school tour. Smelly things weren’t they? Bicycles are easy to make locally and you don’t have to wait for them to charge up. Most of us make our first bike during adolescence, as part of learning about transportation, and we all start riding pretty young. I do admit though, I like to ride the bus when the winter rains come, or if it’s snowy.”

That was the longest sentence she’d heard from Mariha yet. Lucy was finding herself a little bit smitten by this future woman, although after speaking with Rosemary, she wondered if Mariha was a centenarian as well. Somehow it was hard to believe. Mariha looked to be about 30, but if what Rosemary said was true, she could be 80. Looking over at the beautiful woman, Lucy realized she really, really didn’t want to know.

The boat slapped its way over the waves, crewed by a motley assortment of cheerful men and women, and the occasional child. There was a comfortable cabin below, but Lucy found herself with Mariha on the deck, watching the opposite shoreline approach, blue grey in the distance.

The boat did have a motor, it turned out, although they didn’t appear to be using it. What looked an awful lot like solar panels were attached in various places around the boat, along with some wind turbines of unusual design. The captain, Yan, said that yes, they did have an electric motor, but when the winds were favourable they used the direct wind power of the sails instead. “More fun sailin is anyway” he said, his thick accent, sing song delivery and word order reminding him slightly of the Cantonese class she’d taken in high school.

“The quay is attached to an ancient city that might have been there in your time. Old Vancouver was partly submerged during the time of the polar ice caps melting, and I don’t think there are any buildings left that are over a couple of hundred years old. Vancouver has such beautiful stone buildings overlooking the water, that were built around then, and some of them were built on urbanite foundations from further back” Mariha explained.

“Vancouver! That’s where I lived! It’s still here.” said Lucy, amazed.

“It must be very different now, the sea rise, the earthquake…” Lucy warned.

“Yes…I guess so.” Lucy put it out of her mind for the time being. “What does your family do?”

“Most of them are artisans, weaving, dishmaking, bicycle builders and such, a few musicians and instrument makers. My aunt creates theatre in Old Vancouver that people come from a long distance to watch. Some are recyclers and materials collectors, some work in farming, energy collection or composting.”

“Sounds like a large family”.

“Yeah, I guess so. We have to eat in shifts at the holidays at my parents’ place”.

Aided by a brisk tailwind, the boat moved along at a good clip. Lucy enjoyed watching the crew tack the boat, moving the sails and boom periodically to get just the right angle on the wind. She was amazed at how fast they went. They made good time and finally pulled into a large quay with a lot of similar boats tethered there. They passed several similar ferry sailboats leaving the harbour as well, some larger than the one she was on, one of which Lucy told her was headed to the larger islands to the west, and some which looked to be cargo boats. It looked like the electric/wind hybrid boats were a major source of transportation for the region.

After disembarking and bidding the pirate man and his crew farewell, Lucy stood on the dock, and waved goodbye to Mariha, who pulled a sturdy looking bicycle out of a shed and began loading her pack into the trailer attached behind it. The striking, calm woman mounted her bike and began to cycle up the street. As she left, Lucy watched her in some dismay.

Lucy called out to her. “Can I come with you?”

“You had only to ask” said Mariha.

Mariha knew she shouldn’t be distracting Lucy from her sacred task. Lucy must find her own way. After a bit of an internal arm wrestle, she’d made a compromise with herself, that if Lucy asked to accompany her all on her own, with no hinting, that it wouldn’t be interference, really. Besides, travelling together was a way easier way to observe Lucy’s progress than skulking along behind, as she’d planned to do once she’d gotten out of sight. Lucy was someone that Mariha had nott known her whole life, like she had all the other people around her, and especially all her lovers. This made her exotic and unfamiliar, a woman out of time, chosen by the Gods. It was natural to be curious. It didn’t mean she was interfering, did it? Mariha hoped not.

Chapter 9

The Rock felt the caress of the ferry boat’s sails in the wind that brushed over it, touched with a faint hint of time swirl from it’s soft bodied protege. The shifting gravitational pulls of the myriad of moving beings and energies of their spirits colliding, falling into sympathy, merging and separating were an almost hypnotic pattern that required great stillness to observe. Fortunately stillness was not hard, or in this case was hard as rock. “Hah! a little rock joke there”, thought the Rock. “I kill me”.

Chapter 10

Cycling through ‘Old Vancouver’, as Mariha insisted on calling it, was very strange. The place was unrecognizable to Lucy. It looked unlike anywhere Lucy was familiar with. Global warming had caused high sea level rises that had altered the coastline beyond recognition, and the big earthquake (Mariha wouldn’t tell her exactly when it was/would be) had removed most of the rest of the markers.

The weather was similar to June weather that Lucy knew, with the tail end of cherry blossoms drifting to the ground, but this was March. The cherries, Mariha informed her, were all edible, and when Lucy told her of the aisles of purely ornamental cherry trees that had lined the streets in her old neighbourhood, Mariha was appalled with the waste. Surely edible cherries have equally beautiful blooms? Were people never hungry in her Vancouver?

“I think they didn’t want people to eat them and have an allergic response or choke on a cherry pit or something, and sue the government.” Lucy tried to explain what suing was and why a person would blame someone for something they’d done of their own free will and got a bit bogged down.

“I’m sure it all made sense in context” said Mariha, which Lucy thought was particularly kind.

“Not really, at least not to me”, said Lucy.

Mariha stopped at a fruit stand and grabbed a couple of apples for them to eat on their way, thanking the stand owner and admiring the fruit. Lucy couldn’t detect any form of accounting for their ‘purchase’.

“Why would we need to account for it? Apples are for eating. If we don’t eat them or preserve them, they will go bad.” said Mariha.

The day’s unaccustomed exercise, on top of yesterday’s hike, was taking a toll on Lucy’s body, which was aching, particularly her legs. The bicycles had a remarkably broad range of gears, apparently designed to be as easy to ride for the centenarians as the young, so she was able to keep pedalling, but Lucy fervently wished for less hills, at least uphill ones. “Let’s take a rest and eat our apples”, she offered.

She and Mariha stopped in a beautiful park, and rested in lounge chairs set up in a conversational arrangement under an awning. Children played nearby, building with what looked like large blocks. A cluster of people doing tTi Chi were visible in the medium distance. “At least some things never change”, thought Lucy. There were a number of covered public squares, and people sat or lay on comfortable seats, chatting and working on various projects.

Chapter 11

Lucy remembered a children’s book published a few years back, in her own time, called “Heather has two mommies”.

Mariha didn’t have two mommies.

Mariha had ten mommies. And eight daddies.

“But they can’t have all… you know… unless things have changed… babies are still made the same way aren’t they?”

“I’d imagine so.” said Mariha sensibly.

“Well then, how does that work?”

“Oh, I see what you mean I have two genetic parents, my Mommy Lorina and Daddy Reno. And Mama Dina, Lina, Serina, Palan, Pramjid, Teo, Xena, Ellan and Omila, and Papa Thenir, Saul, Gibbs, Pollin, Calvin, Sander and Zimm. But they all raised me, clothed me, fed me, taught me, loved me, made sacrifices to keep me well and happy. They’re all my parents. I lived with all of them at whatever point in my life and theirs that made sense. I also have nineteen brothers and sisters.”

“But you’re not genetically related to all your siblings.” said Lucy, catching on.”So do your parents all sleep together?”

“That’d be a pretty big bed” said Mariha.

“I mean… are they all lovers with one another?” said Lucy, more directly.

“No. What’s that got to do with it? I mean some of them are, but I don’t really track that. Mommy and Daddy were lovers for awhile, of course, but not so much any more, that was a long time ago. Mommy and Mama Lina are partners and live together, although I think they have other lovers sometimes. Life is too busy to have more than one primary partner, I think, although I know people do it. But that doesn’t have anything to do with them being my parents anyhow. My sister Sally doesn’t know her genetic male parent, I think her Mommy didn’t get along with him, and he moved far away soon after she was born. She only has four parents, which is kind of a small family. Most people think 5 is the minimum number of adults you need to raise a child properly.”

Lucy had to agree on that score, having seen her single parent friend Karen raise her two children alone. Many hands make light work.

“I will be staying with Mommy and Mama Lina. Lorina is a builder, and has quite a large house, which means she gets a lot of guests. They seem to like it or they wouldn’t have built such a large house. She always keeps a spare room for me or one of the other kids, so there should be room. She won’t mind me bringing a guest, although we might have to share a room. Or if you like you could sleep in one of the community guest houses?”

Lucy felt a moment of panic “If it’s okay with you, I’d really rather stay where I at least know someone. For now anyhow.” Besides, Mariha was the only one here she didn’t have to explain where she was from to, and everything here was strange enough.

“Oh good. I didn’t want to monopolize you, but I’m glad you’re staying with us.” She smiled warmly at Lucy, and lightly touched her arm. Lucy suddenly had small insects jumping around in her belly. “While you’re here you should probably go to the guest house, just to see what they’re like and how they work. If you’re going to be travelling alone you should probably get the lay of the land.”

They pulled over briefly to let one of the brightly coloured electric buses go by. They reminded Lucy of the jeepney busses she’d seen on vacation in the Philippines. They were so quiet that the first one that went by, Lucy didn’t notice and get out of its way until the driver good naturedly blew the horn at her. “Sorry!”

They passed several arrays of solar panels, which is where Lucy assumed the power from the buses came from. Apparently some of the buses were ‘fleksicars’, which were also fuelled by ethanol or biodiesel when it was available.

The solar panels and busses were among the projects that the community worked on together, as industrial production was so resource intensive. “Who needs to have a car of your own anyhow, it’s a lot of work to build something you’re not going to use very often” said Mariha. Because they’d all contributed, such items were made and used sparingly. The same went with the biofuels, since the waste that was fed to the bacterial cultures that produced them was also in strong demand for compost for food production.

“But yes, people and goods do move around some physically. Some things are valuable enough and can’t be produced locally. Some kinds of medicines, seeds for newly developed plants, things like that. We move information, music, theatre, literature, scientific knowledge and such around via the computers and the net. And some people just like to travel, so they tend to be traders. People travel by whatever works, biofuel powered cars and light airplanes, bicycle, horses and horse drawn carts, boats. There’s a brisk trade between places along the coastline and the islands by boat. I went on walkabout before I settled in to work at the forest gathering place, as part of completing my history degree, collecting oral histories. We’re getting close to home now. This is my neighbourhood.”

Was it ever. Mariha was greeted by virtually every person who passed now, some of whom were parents or siblings. Lucy lost track of the names. Mariha introduced her as ‘one of the people of the rock’ and people’s eyes widened, but they didn’t ask her a lot of questions, for which Lucy was very grateful.

Lucy’s mommy and momma, Lorina and Lina, seemed much like any other lesbian couple Lucy had known, although Lucy figured Lorina must be bisexual, since she had been with Mariha’s dad before Lina. Maybe those terms weren’t used anymore. Lucy would have to ask Mariha. Children played in their yard and after hugs of greeting, Lucy and Mariha followed the two women into a large comfortable kitchen and they sat at the long table, looking out on an impressive attached greenhouse. It being summer, the greenhouse was vented to the outdoors, and the kitchen, which had a dark stone floor, was relatively cool. Lorina and Lina sat near one another, holding hands and looking over with pleasure at their daughter. Gossip was exchanged about the large family. It seemed two of Mariha’s siblings were getting married (not to each other, Lucy was happy to note) and ceremonies would be held near the end of summer. The couples would be discouraged from birthing children until they’d confirmed at least three other parents, but the general consensus was that Lucy’s brother Marty would be the first to breed, since he was so good with children and had a secondary lover and a lot of close friends already, who might be interested in being mommas or papas.

In the cool, quiet kitchen, warm with wood and plants and children playing outside, Lucy relaxed enough to notice how tired she was. Lorina noticed first and hustled her off to a small room on the top floor of the house. “This was Mariha’s room for awhile when she was a little girl” she said. “I thought you and she might be comfortable here.”

There was only one bed, and not a huge one at that. Lucy realized that her mother was making an assumption. “Mariha and I aren’t…”

“Oh” said Lorina. “Sorry”. But she smiled a little at Lucy’s embarrassed flush. “Well, if you’re quite sure then. Mariha knows where the extra bedding is. I’m afraid I don’t have separate rooms to offer right now. Most of the kids are with me and Lina right now, sorry.”

Chapter 12

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” ~Harvey Milk

“The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.” ~Judith Light

“There’s a lot of skeletons in my closet, but I know what they’re wearing. I’m not gonna act all ashamed of it.”~Naomi Watts

Brenda was angry. The tent she’d pitched last night in a vacant field had turned out to be a pasture, and she’d woken before daylight to the sounds of goats, bleating. “They have goats every where!” she thought in frustration. She’d gotten back to sleep but the morning sun had hit her tent, making it bright and hot. She’d had uneasy dreams of being smothered and then had burst awake, sweaty and ornery.

The goats seemed very pleased they’d gotten her to leave her tent, and looked at her expectantly as she blinked back the unbearably cheerful brightness. It seemed wherever she went the goats came over to check her out, like she was some kind of local celebrity. They would get as close to her as they dared, cocking their heads to one side and gawking at her, chewing. If she turned to go, they’d bahh at her, protesting her leaving without a proper visit.

“The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” she hummed the old ’80’s song to herself, smiling wryly at the irony. What would her family be thinking by now? The old lady at the mud house in the forest had insisted she had important work to do, but Brenda couldn’t see what. She was a receptionist, for Godsake! Time travelling was not part of how she’d wanted to spend her life. That first day when she’d figured out the folks at the gathering place thought it was time she ‘go forth’, she’d gone back to the meadow and sat with her head on that damn rock for hours. She’d cried for her familiar home, what was left of it, and her family and even Lucy. Lucy had been so easy going, except about one thing. It had been so hard to understand how much being ‘out’ meant to Lucy, since usually she yielded to whatever Brenda wanted badly enough. That should have been her clue that this was something that was too important to Lucy to yield on. “I mean, WE know we’re together, why does anyone else have to?” Brenda had said on their last night together. “I was so stupid.”

That next morning, she’d called her brother, who had helped her pack up her things. He’d invited her to stay at his place, but Brenda knew that meant that her every move would be reported to her mother. Luc hadn’t finked on her yet about Lucy, but he would if she made it too obvious. Her father’s hatred of gays had been expressed loud and clear, and he didn’t even know that Brenda and her cousin Mike were gay, yet. “I will figure it out”, she’d said to Luc and driven off, most of her worldly possessions packed in her car.

At least her car was safe. She’d parked it in a Stevie’s underground parking, knowing that he was away in Thailand for six months. She’d planned to stay there, letting herself in to his apartment with her spare key. Stevie wouldn’t mind. Without really taking time to settle in, she’d gone down to the beach, and ended up gravitating toward the beach near where she’d first met Lucy. Lucy, the damsel in distress of that day, who Brenda had rescued from the marauding seagull, had proved to be the braver woman in the end. Lucy didn’t broadcast who she was widely, but when it came up, she hated to do the pronoun dance. She loathed avoiding using a female or male pronoun and letting people assume she was straight. She’d just take a deep breath and say ’she’ when she felt backed in a corner, something Brenda could never bring herself to do.

The large boulders lining the beach had seemed just right for sitting. Listening to the ocean wash in and out, the sound felt like a gentle touch from an understanding friend, one that wouldn’t judge, just be there as Brenda cried. She had lain back, abandoning herself to the sound and letting the sun slowly sink into her. She’d lain like that for what was probably several hours. When she had awakened a bit out of her trance, the sound of the ocean was suddenly gone, and that fact had seeped into her emotionally exhausted stupor until she sat up and opened her eyes.

Where the hell was she!? Had someone lifted her up in her sleep and moved her? More appallingly, her clothes were gone. Brenda had never been naked in public in her life. Lucy might have gone ’skyclad’ at some of her women’s spirituality retreats, or gone skinny dipping sometimes, but Brenda would never do that. Even in the women’s change room at the pool, she’d always changed in a private cubicle. Her Catholic momma would have been beyond horrified. All of her id, her purse, her shoes, it was all gone! How had they done it without her waking up? Nearby were a robe, some socks and boots and Brenda pulled them on hurredly, hiding behind the rock and looking around for her assailant.

Had she been drugged? Assaulted? Her body appeared to be unharmed. “I’d better get away from here” Brenda thought, “in case they return”. Brenda found a nearby path and hot footed it along it, then slowed when she realized she wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming if she was making that much noise. After what felt like hours, she found the mud house in the forest. This could be where her attackers lived. She kept hidden on the edge of the woods and observed the comings and goings. Luckily her earth toned robe blended right in with her surroundings.

Chapter 13

Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non violent, the elegant and beautiful. ~E.F. Schumacher

A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well being with the minimum of consumption…. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity. ~E.F. schumacher

“EF Schumacher was one of the first philosophers in ancient times to bring up the idea of countering the ‘globalization’ made popular by available fossil fuels with ‘decentralization’. His work ‘Small is Beautiful’ is on your reading list for this term.” announced the professor, clad in a long kaftan of soft rose coloured fabric, which set off his dark eyes and hair.

Lucy had decided to go to university, and was studying ancient history. “Start with your strengths, Luce” she thought, and it was true. She knew more about ancient history than anyone here.

“About a century before the fall of globalization worldwide due to the impact of storms, rising sea levels and ultimately, running out of oil, Schumacher argued that the workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature (and the world’s natural resources) are priceless.”

“While by no means a mainstream philosophy of his time, fringe culture adherents to this and other ‘voluntary simplicity’ movements developed some of the skills and ways of organizing, and a rational economic basis to deeply held feelings of connection to the natural world that helped humanity recover from what was to come.”

Lucy’s community contribution, which she gave in exchange for the gifts of shelter, food and education she received, was to hold weekly seminars. Professors and students in the history department would ask her about things that seemed banal and ordinary to her. They’d ask about things like garbage pickup, what she remembered of the geography and buildings, or sometimes she’d work with sketch artists to draw artefacts from her time that people were interested in. She’d talk about her time’s system of medicine, politics, quirks of language and tell all the old folktales she could remember. It seemed that Vancouver’s large Asian population had affected the local dialect during the century or so of relative isolation that had occurred after the oil had run out. The undergraduate students, in particular, who hadn’t studied ancient languages, sometimes had difficulty understanding what she said, since she didn’t say words using the correct tone patterns.

She found her long ago Cantonese class helped, since she at least understood what tones are, and why modern word order seemed so much looser than she understood it. Luckily, Mariha, who seemed to have been some sort of prodigy with language, was there to translate for her, and she never seemed to miss a seminar. Afterward, they’d go out to eat together at a nearby restaurant that seemed to be Mariha’s favourite.

As they ate and sipped the excellent boutique beer, which was a popular specialty of this college hangout, Mariha would tell her long stories about her family and the people she grew up with, shaping the words and situations with her hands. Lucy could see pictures in her head when she spoke.

Lucy had moved to a hostel that was closer to the university, and Mariha had stayed on to help with the preparations for her brothers’ weddings and to help build a new house. The house was being built of mud and straw, mixed together into little loafs and then packed into the walls. Lucy had helped out on some of the work party days and had found the work tiring but strangely satisfying.

This morning, she and Mariha held onto each other’s forearms for balance and then stomped the mixture into a smooth mess in a tarp, while the other workers grabbed up ‘loaves’ of the mud mixture and packed it into a wall. Since the wall could not be built too high without taking rests to allow it to harden up a bit, the work parties weren’t every day, but many hands made light work of it. Lucy realized that the forest gathering place must have been made in the same manner. The local soil had a fair bit of clay in it, Vancouver being located at the mouth of a large river, so the ‘loaves’ stuck together nicely. Holding onto Mariha’s arms, Lucy found herself shy to look up into the taller woman’s face, but they laughed together readily enough. Mariha had removed her shirt in the heat, along with several of the other women and men, and Lucy found it hard to know where to look, with the taller woman’s perfect breasts ending up just below Lucy’s eye level. Mariha never teased her about her modesty, as one of the other women, Amand, had done, for which Lucy was grateful.

One Saturday, on a break, Lucy had finally gotten up the nerve to remove her own top. “This is just like the Michigan Women’s music festival, except with guys.” she told herself bracingly. Then she laughed a bit nervously, “I guess not so much like Michigan then.” Mariha had playfully made her turn her back to her and then had marked designs on her back with the soft clay used for finishing the walls. Lucy couldn’t see what she drew, but the soft spirals Mariha’s fingers made had tingled along her back. She turned around and finally looked in Mariha’s eyes. Mariha smiled and took her hand, leading her down the path to her mother’s house.

Chapter 14

Quantum mechanics allows one to think of interactions between correlated objects, at a pace faster than the speed of light Quantum Mechanics for Dummies, Swapnil Srivastava (4/11/2009)

The Rock’s consciousness was back in its favourite basking spot. Pheremones on the wind, little spikes of passion and discovery floated by and through long practice could be sifted into separate shapes and matched with separate beings. As if we were all separate, anyhow, the Rock thought with the rock equivalent of a snort. So many of the minds it encountered seemed to experience themselves that way, that the rock had gotten practiced at shifting it’s perception into that mode. Bodies, for one. So many beings thought of themselves as ending where their forms stopped having their greatest concentration of molecules. However, with every movement, every thought, every chemical interaction, molecules entrained with their consciousness would spread throughout the universe. Wading into this soup or web or wave of experiences and interconnections, the Rock could sense the molecules of its own pattern still embedded in the dense form of Lucy around her skull, and feel the instantaneous distance effects on its own being. Mostly it didn’t think about these differences in perception at all. Mostly it just settled into the omniscient consciousness familiar to all rocks.

Lucy’s distinctive time swirl was getting a lot thinner as she entrained with this time period. If rock was going to pull her back to her own timeline, it would have to be soon.

“Our new album “Not Deserted” has just been released worldwide!

To hear our online CD release and interview with the lovely Len Rogers in Virginia, USA, go to http://www.rainbowworldradio.com (till Sept 15)

Get yourself a cuppa (Aussie for a cup of tea) and settle in. You’ll hear the first half of the CD, then a nice long interview, then the second half of the CD.

“Not Deserted” can also be heard at:

www.sugarbeachmusic.com & www.myspace.com/sugarbeach

You can also see videos and photos and other info on these 2 sites.

To purchase “Not Deserted” either in disc form or digital, go to: www.cdbaby.com/sugarbeach1 You’ll be able to download the individual songs from iTunes in a few weeks.

Thanks

Marlee & Tully

OXOX”

Sugarbeach's new album cover

Mary Kathryn Arnold

Mary Kathryn Arnold is a Nova Scotian lesbian from Halifax. Editor of Rhythm Poetry Magazine, her poetry has appeared in The Antigonish Review, The New Compass, Mezzo Cammin, The Fiddlehead, and is forthcoming in If Poetry Journal.

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The Girls They Speak in Spanish

for Laure Conio

I.

pecado pecado

up down up down fast -
and and and too
two of them together on one old mattress;
the other: she thinks in French
lying on her mattress
the Spanish perfume is in the air
the air so heavy and dark
between the four of them
lying down they hear
the trees
the birds
outside
the radio
the girl (la jeune Veynois, quinze ans)
who likes to dance in the courtyard below
Florence Florence
il n’y a pas du feu au lac

upstairs the room is small and dark and hot
the shutters are closed
but the girls – they know
the walls are lavender with their old wallpaper
they know these mattresses
these mattresses that have known so many others
Florence Florence
you will know them too

outside the window
un deux (sigh) trois
elle entends les sons d’eglise
these bells toll
en anglais en francais en espagnol
over the roofs of tuile
past the boulangerie
over Florence who is clapping her hands and laughing now

yesterday
on the chemin de la vieille digue
they stopped together
la jeune fille Canadienne and the one who thinks in French
past the horses and far from the lake
their lips were dry
she points because she doesn’t know the word in English
the berries – so red
staining their lips
their skin so tanned
elles aiment de bronze
they stopped together on the chemin de la vieille digue
the mountains
reaching high all around them
when I was un enfant, there is a buisson comme ca
en dehors de ma maison
she speaks with her sticky berry stained lips

il n’y a pas du feu au lac

on the chemin de la vieille digue the men come walking
the girls they hurry back on the road
hiding their guilty red fingers

pecado pecado
II.

in the kitchen
it’s warm tonight -
they dance here,
the three girls
Immaculada (is this the moment you live for now?)
she’s the one who lost her faith in America

here in the kitchen where it’s warm
and the music’s loud
and the girl who gives a mean massage
is here to dance with her;
those Spanish girls
Iruna – she said to them
my sister she begs me at home
to give her a massage it’s the truth
yes they believe her

they have felt those Spanish hands on their backs
rubbing sun creme in by the lake
they have seen her carrying the stones out of the yard
(she can carry two buckets)
not like the other girls
she dances with Immaculada
and Florence Florence
Oh, she can go so low
doucement doucement
She says to the one who gives a mean massage
but her French it’s not so good

together they fall to the floor
and laugh and laugh -
their tanned warm bodies
shaking with laughter on this sticky tile floor
it has seen too much dancing
and vin d’Alsace and sangria tonight
by the window Laure is standing watching them
Laure who leaves the lemon pits in her glass every night

She watches the three who like to dance.
Laure she likes to watch
and sway like that
and listen to all the different voices
she hears the Spanish and the French and the English
and the boy whose father is German
but you know
his mother is from this country
where le soleil brille pour tout le monde
he’s a good boy -
yes his hair is trim
and he doesn’t know how to dance like the girls do

and the boys they never break the glasses
(this unforgiving floor)
how many times
the glass on the tile
today it’s three
the boys they wanted to drive to Marseille
(just for the day)
they said it’s not so far we know the way
the English girls,
the one from the North and the one from the South
(you know they talk so different)
they wanted to go
yes we can take the motorway they said

but the other girls
they are happy here;
here where you can see the mountains out the window
where the air is clear (and you can walk to the lake)
here in the kitchen tonight
where it’s warm and sticky and the music’s loud

yesterday at the table
the boys they drank their bottles of rum and beer
(they don’t break the glasses)
they ride their bicycles to the lake -

they go to swim
their hair it’s trim

not like Immaculada;
she piles her hair
on top of her head
when she lies in the sun

The “Golden Age” of bicycles came in the 1890s and they were particularly fashionable in cosmopolitan cities such as New York, London, and Paris.”

“During this Golden Age campaigns were waged to encourage women to ride and, as a result, the bicycle became both a symbol and a means of women’s liberation.

With the new transportation came a “rational dress” movement for women, who could not reasonably be expected to ride in full skirts, wearing the average of thirty-seven pounds of clothing that was common before the advent of the cycle. As a result of the cycling craze bloomers in the 1880s at last became a viable fashion option for women, although feminists had pushed for years for their acceptance.

Another direct result of cycling’s popularity was a rise in female athletes–cycle riding had proved that exercise was not detrimental to women as was commonly believed. However, women cyclists were criticized for abandoning their femininity and becoming “mannish” or “manly women.”

In the United States, an image of singer Katie Lawrence appeared in men’s clothing on the sheet music for the 1892 popular song Daisy Bell, a love song to a cycling woman about a bicycle built for two. ”

“In France, Art Nouveau advertisements for bicycles often included nude or otherwise liberated women; one ad from around 1899 for Liberator Cycles depicted a bare-breasted helmeted Amazonian warrior alongside her wheels, while another from around 1895 for Cottereau Cycles showed a woman astride her cycle while breast-feeding.

In Staten Island, New York, lesbian photographer Alice Austen often pictured her bloomer-wearing women friends astride their bikes. In what would be some of her only commercial work, Austen made the illustrations for Violet Ward’s book Bicycling for Ladies (1896).”

Rainbows for Beginners

Pride season is in the air. Last year I wrote a post-pride advice guide for straight people hosting floats in the parade. It seems like time to bring it to the surface again, in the hopes that companies wishing to market to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people by having a float in the ‘gay pride parade’ will have a successful time of it.

Yay for cultural sensitivity.

Here’s the link to that article: Pride Parade Entry Basics for Straight People

Which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members to the Provincial Legislative Assembly?

• The existing electoral system (First-past-the-post)
• The single transferable vote system (BC-STV) proposed by the BC Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform

Photocredit: BBaltimore

I think that anyone who believes in diversity, democracy and fairness will want to vote Yes for STV on May 12th.

Diversity and Fairness:

The current system (First past the post) only delivers fair results if everyone lives in a riding where they have the same political opinions as all their neighbours.  In a diverse society, we’re going to be living up next to people who are different beliefs from us. STV makes sure that we don’t lose our political representation when we do that.

The data on countries that have STV is that the popular vote (how many votes for each party in all the ridings) matches closely the number of people from each party who get elected. This is the definition of a fair system in my book.

In countries with STV, more women get elected than in countries with our system, and more lesbians and other minorities get elected. Both are good for lesbians.

For example, if little politically progressive me moved back to my home town of Prince George, currently I could kiss goodbye ever being represented by a politician that didn’t make me ill. There would be nobody to represent me. If STV gets passed, most of the elected folks in my district would be conservative, but there would be at least one I could support that got elected.

If I stay in my progressive East Vancouver riding, currently I have to split my conscience between a Green Party candidate who supports my hard core environmental values, and an NDP candidate, who also supports things I believe in but who has a prayer of being elected.

Under STV my voting could be more nuanced. I could have the luxury of voting for a Green Party candidate that supports my environmental values, as well as an NDP candidate.

Similarly, a conservative right-wing person living in my current riding would have some representation if STV is adopted that they wouldn’t have otherwise. We both get what’s fair. With STV every one still gets one vote. The ridings are larger, more like federal ridings, and there are more MLA’s elected in each riding. When you vote, instead of voting for just one person, you are allowed to indicate who your second, third and fourth choices are.

There’s a great little video online that does a good job of showing how the votes get counted. 

How my vote counts more with STV: When my favourite candidate has enough votes to get elected, the surplus votes gets assigned to our second choice. This means that I can vote for a Green candidate and an NDP candidate, knowing that my vote will go to where it does the most good, or even to support two candidates from the same party I like. I don’t ever again have to vote strategically to prevent a bad candidate from getting in. We can all vote our conscience.

How my political opposite’s vote counts more with STV: Although the majority of MLA’s representing their riding will be not to their taste, the conservative family down the street will be part of electing a small number of candidates whose values they agree with. When they need help from a MLA, they now have one with whom they feel comfortable.

So I hope you will vote to make this historic change to the way we elect people to represent us, and help spread the word about BC-STV.

John Cleese on Proportional Representation in England (STV is a type of PR. All of Western Europe uses some form of proportional representation except England)

I was intrigued by our lesbian heroine, Maggy Gale, and her qualifications. At the age of 37 she has acquired and accomplished so much. She has an arts degree and then rose to the rank of leiutenant in the police department. She owns her own apartment building and had the expertise to do the renovations in that building herself. She earned a black belt in Karate.”

“This”, I said to myself “is a single woman. And she’s been single for a long time.” Who else would have time for all that? On some levels I can relate to our heroine. After all, isn’t that what we are trying to do when we read these books? But then it starts to sink in that she achieves so much more that me and seems devoid of any faults so I stop relating to her. I become confused as to why I haven’t been able to accomplish half of this stuff myself, after all I have something in common with the our heroine: I like root beer too.

Then I realize, “Oh, I’m busy reading about this and she’s busy living this”. Even so, Maggy’s ability to jump over a piano and do handstand push ups is a bit over the top. Despite her perfection, the character and story are engaging, making for a fun read.

Needless to say, our heroine is well qualified for her job as a private detective. She’s a retired (by choice) police lieutenant with all the contacts a private detective needs to ply her trade. In Angel Food and Devil Dog, she investigates the death of a professor at the local college, and finds herself attempting to find the killer before she herself or her lover is the next target. Will she solve this case before another life and her love are taken from her?

This mystery can be ordered from Amazon