Chao Patties

A record of a particular Lost Ring task, in which I smack a parallel version of me about the head and face with a clew-by-four.

5/16: I figure pretty much any version of me is going to have a notebook of some kind that travels around with her, so for want of a proper register and a proper omphalos, I figure the Moleskine in my backpack will do just fine.

I haven't been outside since we got to the farm--it's 11:30 at night and it was already dark when we got in, so I haven't seen what state the vegetation is in. I figure the most likely candidates for labyrinth placement are a) the pasture next to the big pond in the back, or b) the big empty pasture in the northeast corner of the property, as they're relatively flat. And there's usually a bunch of loose hay and straw and various debris all over the ground that could be raked up into labyrinth "walls."

The world-splitting decision itself was a no-brainer: the decision to finally quit a soul-sucking nightmare of a job I'd endured for seven years because I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to find another one. Through a series of coincidences, I ended up going to work for the family business, which is about as far removed from the job from Hell as it gets. And so many other great things have happened since then (I quit smoking, lost about forty pounds, started writing again, and met the wonderful guy I refer to as the Intarweb Boyfriend) that it's a little scary to think about what kind of shape a version of me who didn't quit that job would be in. But the Codex says to use the biggest decision from the last four years, and that was it.

So, to the Moleskine. The first available blank page was the register. A little note of intent to perform the ritual of personal synchronization on Sunday, May 18, 2008 in a straw-walled labyrinth next to the big pond or in the northeast pasture, and my signature. The next page would be my scroll. April 2006: quit [company from Hell] y/n?

 

5/17: I went outside this morning to play with my new BB gun and some empty Coke cans, and also to see what shape the grounds were in.

Uh-oh.

Waist-high grass. Not good for labyrinth walking. My mom ran the tractor around in some places, but I wasn't going to ask her to go out of her way to shave a chunk of the pasture down for me. So short of going out with crop circle-fabricating equipment and a weedwhacker, both of my original two locations were out.

But there were other places that weren't in full view of the neighbors and not covered in waist-high grass. There was no loose straw-hay stuff to rake up into walls, so it would have to be yarn.

We made a trip into town for lunch, and then we went to a flea market-type thing at a park about half an hour away. When we got back to the farm, I got my stuff together--a skein of turquoise yarn, a pocket knife, and my camera. I thought I was going to have to fire up my laptop and doodle a labyrinth diagram from the Lost Ring folder to take out there with me, but I just so happened to have in my backpack a stack of miniflyers complete with labyrinth graphic. Go Team Mythopoeia!

 

 

There was about a ten-minute period of me dragging a little yarn tail around, kind of making faces at the miniflyer and going "hur, clew goes where?" trying to figure out which end needed to go where to make this thing work. And then it just sort of happened. There was a little weirdness with the second clew and the center of the labyrinth. I had to kind of stomp the yarn down onto the ground, since there were some grassy bits tall enough to keep it farther off the ground than I liked. And the lanes are probably not quite regulation-width, but hey, I have tiny feet, it's cool.

It's not going to win any labyrinth beauty contests, but there's a perfectly serviceable 5-circuit labyrinth out there now. I did a few dry runs, mostly to stomp down the odd sticky-up bit of grassy stuff and to make sure I actually did lay the thing down right. And then, just for fun, I actually ran the labyrinth. I'm not a runner by any stretch of the imagination, the only activities I display even the slightest appearance of athletic prowess at if you turn your head and squint are cycling, walking, and yoga, but that wasn't too bad. Of course I had my eyes open and could see where the hell I was going, which helped. :)

I've left the labyrinth up for now, and plan to take it down after the walk tomorrow. Hopefully I won't go out there in the morning and find a tangled mess where a deer or feral pig has trudged through it. I also made sure to change the location in the "register." Before I go to bed, I'm going to tear the scroll page out of my Moleskine, dab a little of the dragon's blood oil I got today on it, roll it up, and tie it up with bright embroidery floss.

5/18: I got up, ate a bowl of Cheerios, grabbed my scroll, and headed out to the labyrinth. It had not been wrecked by wee beasties in the night.

As I started to walk the labyrinth, the distinct impression I got of my other self was that she did not want to talk to me. I got nothing but dead air all the way to the center of the labyrinth.

All right then. So much for gently trying to slip into the other me's skin.

I started on my way out of the labyrinth, and I imagined reaching out, grabbing the hypothetical other me by the shoulder, and dragging her along whether she liked it or not.

She was pretty much what I expected. She hadn't lost the weight or quit smoking. She seemed irritated that a skinnier, happier version of her had interrupted her Sunday before she had to go back to the job from Hell. "Let me guess," she said, "you're what I would have been if I'd gone to college and gotten a real job."

"No," I said, "I'm what you would have been if you'd asked [Aunt Boss] for a job."

Cue the bwuh!? noises.

"You had to be at the shop that day, right? And you knew [other aunt] was moving back to [far far away] and leaving? And you knew you could make plaques and crap in CorelDraw and push a button on a laser thingy?"

Bwuh what well yes she thought about it but what about the money, she didn't think Aunt Boss would be able to pay well enough for her to cover the bills and stuff.

Yes, I pointed out, on paper she would have been making less, but when you're not having to spend loads of money on lunch (and cigarettes), it kind of evens out--in fact, I actually ended up with more in my pocket at the end of the week.

Huh. Hope? Was that hope? Imagine that!

So then I went on to detail all the other great things that happened since I left that job. And then, near the entrance to the labyrinth, I whipped out a picture of someone the parallel me would probably never have met.

I could just about hear an audible poing. "Who's that?" she asked me.

"That," I said, "is our Intarweb Boyfriend."

To which she said something like "O_o!!!"

"So," I said, "you are just going to have to give your two weeks' notice at [soul-sucking pit], ask [Aunt Boss] for a job, and synchronize your happy ass with me, because I am not giving any of this up."

In conclusion: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED \o/

I wasn't sure what to do with the scroll afterwards. Throwing it away was out of the question. I thought about burning it or burying it, but I got the feeling I was supposed to keep it. I ended up wrapping the labyrinth yarn around it. So now I have a big ball of special labyrinth yarn with a little scroll in the middle of it to keep, sort of a symbol of binding the parallel me to this me. It's now sitting on a shelf in the half-a-walk-in-closet-turned-writing-cave

< Prev		Next >