DOI: 10.3726/9781915734822.003.0010

9: Wildhorse Creek Road

Jonah and I are teachers at a high school in Midway, a tiny rural town in southern British Columbia. We rent a double-wide, beige and brown aluminum-sided mobile home on an 800-acre ranch, a couple of kilometers out of town. Jonah was born half an hour down the road in Grand Forks and comes from a Russian family. He is tall, good-looking, athletic, and musical. He has a warm smile and a beautiful, deep voice with a booming laugh, and he laughs at my jokes. And, he makes great spaghetti sauce.

Within six months of our relationship, I try to convince Jonah we should have a child together. I am surprised at this sudden urge. Raising children was never something I wanted. I never yearned to have a baby grow inside my body nor could I imagine one exiting my body. That has always felt unfathomable, not to mention, it seems so painful. I always used to cringe thinking about it. Yet, now, here I am.

“I’m 30 years old. It’s time,” I plead.

“Babe, I don’t want to,” he tells me, holding my hand. “One child is enough for me.”

Jonah has a 9-year-old daughter, Joy, who we see on weekends. She lives with her mom in Kelowna, a couple of hours away. I feel a twinge of jealousy that Jonah has a child with another woman, but I dismiss it. Joy’s a great kid and I marvel at all the ways that Jonah loves her.

Within two weeks, I forget why I ever wanted a child in the first place. Must have been a phase, I think to myself.

At the end of the school year, Jonah and I decide to quit our teaching jobs and leave Midway. Neither of us is happy here.

“Even though it’s beautiful here, I’m glad we’re leaving this place,” I say to Jonah as, one last time, we drive up the laneway from our rented mobile home onto Highway 3. My Ford Ranger pick-up truck is stuffed to the brim with our belongings. “It’s just too conservative here,” I declare, as I survey the rolling hills and sprawling ranchland passing by us along the highway. Jonah agrees.

As I breathe in the warm summer air swirling in through the open windows, I think about Danny. She and I were still dating when I landed my first teaching job in Midway. Trouble is, it was hard being gay here.

During my first year teaching in Midway, I kept my personal life and my relationship with Danny to myself—especially in the staffroom, when all the other straight teachers were talking about their husbands and wives and families. On weekends, I didn’t socialize with them. I didn’t want to have to field personal questions or accidentally say something that would tip them off. If word got out here that my partner was a woman, I don’t know what would happen to me.

Instead, after the bell rang each Friday, I got in my truck and drove nearly two hours back to Castlegar to see Danny. Then, each Sunday afternoon, I drove back to Midway and resumed my life as a closeted queer teacher.

At the end of my first year in Midway, Danny and I split up. It wasn’t working for a range of reasons, one of which was the internalized homophobia that I can’t shake. Jonah—the physical education teacher at the school— feels like a safe, easy place to land after I end things with Danny.

When Jonah and I first start dating, I tell him about Danny. I tell him about the women I made out with in gay bars and at women’s music festivals. He doesn’t seem to care, and he doesn’t make offensive sexual comments that some straight men sometimes make about lesbians. He’s just a warm-hearted, easy-going guy.

When Jonah moves into the double-wide trailer with me, my social life in Midway comes alive. We spend time with the other teachers. We host parties at our house and get invited to parties hosted by our co-workers. We go for beers after work at the local pub and gossip about the school administrators. We play baseball in a local rec league. I am struck by how easy my life suddenly becomes. My desire for women fades into the background, and I am relieved.

But, as Jonah and I begin planning to leave Midway and I think about moving back to the Kootenays with him, thoughts of meeting a woman start creeping back into my mind. I begin daydreaming about how we would meet, what we might do on dates, and what our life together could look like.

A warm hand closes over mine on the seat beside me, pulling me out of my reverie. I look over at Jonah and smile. He’s really sweet, I think. I pull my hand away and crank up the Macy Gray CD in the truck stereo. Then, reaching for his hand again, I focus on the road ahead of us.

We find a mobile home to rent in Slocan Park, a small unincorporated village in the Slocan Valley not far from Castlegar. Jonah gets a job as a substitute teacher with the Kootenay-Columbia District School Board. I get a job as a teacher at a private school, called the Valican Whole. It’s a few minutes up the road and it’s organized and run by the parents whose children are the students. Many of the parents grow marijuana for a living.

Jonah and I have fun together. We ride our bikes, hike and camp in the backcountry, snowboard at the local ski hills, canoe on Slocan Lake, float down the Slocan River in the summer in black rubber inner tubes, drink beer, play our guitars, and laugh. We have two dogs and a cute cat. His daughter, Joy, visits us every two weeks for the weekend. When I am with him, I feel content.

One day, I come home after walking the dogs and Jonah is out. Grabbing a glass of water, I go into our home office. I start my summer job tomorrow and I have to check my email account once more before I leave for six weeks.

Sitting down on the swivel chair at the desk, I move the arrow to the middle of the black screen of the monitor of our desktop computer and click on the mouse to revive the window. It flashes open to an image of a young woman perched on the edge of a bed. Dry shoulder-length bleached blonde hair sprouts from dark brown roots at her scalp and hangs down beside her face. Her large breasts are stuffed into an underwire white lace bra. She looks at the camera. Her eyes seem empty. My heart thumps. My esophagus tightens. I swallow.

My hand hovers over the “play” button. I inhale sharply and press my finger down on the mouse. It clicks and the video rolls. A sleazy male voice delivers directions from behind the Handycam. She follows his instructions.

The young woman looks up at the camera through made-up eyelashes. She puts her hand between her legs, rubbing herself.

Jonah’s been watching porn? And, homemade porn? Really?

She twirls strands of hair around one finger and talks in a baby voice to the man behind the camera. She has a weak smile on her round, grey face. My stomach twists as I watch. Anger churns inside me.

Fuck you, Jonah. She isn’t even good-looking, and she looks like she uses cheap conditioner!

Then, a weight presses on my insides. I wonder if the young woman on my computer screen feels stuck. Stuck in the belief that the only option she has is to lie on a bed in front of some nauseating guy with a Handycam doing whatever he tells her to do. That she might never find a career that feels exciting and motivating and pays her well. That she doesn’t know how to create a life for herself that fills her with joy.

I feel stuck. Stuck in this relationship with Jonah. Stuck in the worry that I will never find someone I trust enough to tell them about the complicated history I have with my body and with sex and that I don’t always want to spread my legs for them just because they want me to. That I might never find a woman to love and who will love me back. That I don’t know how to create a life for myself that fills me with joy.

Other than the cheap porn thing, Jonah is a nice guy. We make a great couple. But, he’s still a guy.

He’s just like all the rest of them, I think bitterly.

I wonder what my friends will say when I tell them about this. What kind of feminist woman has a boyfriend who watches porn, especially behind her back?? I snort.

Then, an idea flashes into my mind.

The porn is my way out. It’s the only way I can get out of an otherwise functional, loving relationship. It’s the only way I can free myself up and make space in my life to meet a woman.

I declare out loud to myself, “It’s over. I just can’t be with a man who watches this sexist crap.”

When Jonah gets home later, we fight.

“You left the internet open on the desktop.” I cross my arms in front of my chest.

“I didn’t realize you were into shit porn.”

Jonah’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open.

“How could you? It’s so gross!” I yell.

“We haven’t had sex for a year, Kate!” he bellows. “A whole year.”

His chest puffs up. His broad shoulders square.

For an instant, I feel afraid. Then, the heat of humiliation spreads across my cheeks.

“We never talk about it,” he throws his hands up in the air. “What am I supposed to do?”

An instinct to fight rises inside me. Rage churns in my chest.

“I thought you were different from the other guys!” I shout.

Jonah’s eyebrows knit together, his chest deflates, and his shoulders slump.

“I can’t be with someone who watches porn,” I announce. “And crap homemade porn, at that.”

I spin around and storm down the narrow trailer corridor back to our bedroom and throw myself on the bed beside a pile of clothes. My heart aches. As tears sting my eyes, I feel myself sinking into shame. Questions circle around in my mind, like they have so many times before.

Why can’t I figure out how to keep things together? Why can’t I find someone who I can stay with for longer than two years? Why do I fail at every relationship? What’s wrong with me? What am I going to do now?

This is such bad timing. I leave tomorrow for my summer job, and I’m still not done packing. Sitting up, I begin folding t-shirts and shorts from the pile of clothes on the bed. I place them neatly in my large, multi-day backpack. I’ll be gone for most of the summer—six weeks in total. I’m a field coordinator for a youth summer leadership program with 12 youth and my new co-worker, Miles. We’ll be doing community projects and learning about the environment, the people, and the history of the places we visit along the great Columbia River, which weaves through the Kootenays, down through Washington and Oregon, before emptying out into the Pacific Ocean at Portland.

The next morning, Jonah and I talk.

Putting his hand on mine, Jonah says, “Let’s figure this out at the end of the summer, Kate. I’m sorry,” he offers, his eyes dim.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I agree, quietly. Tears pool behind my eyelids. “I’m sorry, too.”

I hear a vehicle coming up the driveway and then a horn. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and jump up. Miles just pulled up in the large passenger van we’ll be driving around the Kootenays all summer. After hugging Jonah goodbye, I walk outside to the van, throw my backpack in the back, and jump into the passenger side.

“Hey, Kate! You ready?” He flashes me a friendly smile. I remember that smile from when we first met during the group interview for this job.

“Sure am! Let’s get out of here!” I reply, smiling back, ready to leave behind my life for a few weeks.

Miles reverses down the driveway, onto the road, and we drive away, heading to Nelson to pick up the youth and start our summer together.

As we wind along the road toward the junction at the highway that will take us to Nelson, I sneak a look at Miles. He is 29 years old with dark, curly, brown hair, sparkly bright blue eyes, a wide grin, and a passion for the outdoors—especially rock climbing. He’s easy to be with. Nonchalant and laid-back, young and unambitious. He’s cute and his jokes make me laugh.

***********

I lie on my side in my dark green, down mummy bag in my four-person, three-season Eureka tent, a tent I bought for camping trips with Jonah. A pair of folded up fleece pants from Mountain Equipment Co-op provides an improvised pillow under my head. My Therm-a-Rest provides some insulation and cushioning from the cool bumpy ground. Cricket songs rise into the night air as they rub their tiny legs together in the dewy grass outside my tent.

It’s the end of August and autumn is coming. Small, breathy clouds swirl out my mouth against the backdrop of the dull porch light that filters through the translucent tent fly. I’m staying in the backyard at my friend, Rebecca’s. She and her 8-year-old son, Oliver, live in a small house on Goose Creek Road, a dead-end, dirt road off the highway that runs between Castlegar and Nelson. A week ago, Jonah and I broke up and moved out of the mobile home we rented.

Now, I’m living in my tent—homeless, jobless, single, and broke.

And, pregnant.

Earlier that evening, I stand barefoot in Rebecca’s cramped bathroom, bending over the sink in my favourite cut-off army shorts, a white tank top, and a bright orange toque I bought from a second-hand store in Nelson.

“Fuck, I can’t believe this. I’m such an idiot,” I murmur.

A tiny pink stripe materializes in the little window of the white plastic wand of a home pregnancy test I bought at Shoppers Drug Mart in Castlegar. Stepping backwards, I slide down the wall beside the bathtub. I pull my knees up to my chest and huddle in the corner.

“Fucking Miles,” I gasp. Shame and anger flood my body. A tear traces a silent path down my cheek. Rebecca crouches down, putting her hand on my knee.

“’Fucking Miles’ is right,” she agrees.

“What am I talking about? This is my fault,” I scoff. Looking at her, I smack the heel of my hand against my forehead and rest my head there.

“It’s finally happened, Rebecca. After all these years of unprotected sex with men. I deserve this for messing around on Jonah.”

“You don’t deserve this, Kate. It happens,” she replies. She squeezes my knee. “What are you going to do?”

I look at her, perplexed.

“Have an abortion, of course,” I shrug. “What else would I do? You know I don’t want a kid. Especially not with Miles.”

I can barely take care of myself, let alone a kid, I think silently. Besides, I don’t want to be tied to a guy for the rest of my life.

“Yeah,” Rebecca says, standing up. “Let’s make us some noodle kugel for dinner. Kugel makes everything better.”

I stand up, straighten my shorts, throw the white plastic wand with the pink stripe into the wastebasket, wash my face, and follow her into the kitchen, relieved that Oliver is absorbed in afternoon cartoons in the living room. Rebecca pulls eggs out of the fridge and grabs a mixing bowl from the cupboard.

“I have to make an appointment to see my doctor to make sure I’m actually pregnant.” I retrieve a mesh bag of onions from the top of the fridge and a bag of potatoes from under the sink.

“Good idea. Then you can just get it done in Nelson.”

Rebecca butters a 9 × 13-inch baking pan. She turns the oven on to 350 degrees.

“At the hospital?” I crack eggs into a bowl. I think about the egg inside me that was fertilized by Miles’ eager, 29-year-old sperm. I cringe. What was I thinking?

“Yep,” she shrugs as she peels potatoes. Rebecca knows about these kinds of things. She works at a community organization in town that supports women leaving violent relationships.

“Are you going to tell Miles?”

I grate the freshly peeled potatoes into the mixing bowl and dice up a small onion.

“Yeah. I should, shouldn’t I?” I whisk the eggs and onions together until the yellow mixture looks frothy and chunky. Rebecca uses a wooden spoon to mix the grated potatoes in with the onions, eggs, some salt and pepper, and a bit of oil.

“I don’t know. I guess so. That fucker,” she exclaims. “Didn’t you use anything?”

“Rebecca, please. I’ve never used protection, remember?” I sigh. “Sometimes I think I’m just lucky to be alive, all the stupid stuff I’ve done.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too,” she says. “What about Jonah? Are you going to tell him?”

She dumps the contents of the bowl into the baking pan and spreads the pale-yellow concoction around. I think about how Jonah’s face will look when I tell him that I got pregnant with Miles. My stomach turns.

I start washing the dishes. Wincing, I reply, “Yeah, I feel like I should tell him even though we broke up. I’m such an asshole.”

“Well, you’re not an asshole,” she asserts, sliding the pan of kugel mixture into the oven and closing the door.

“But,” she looks at me, raising her plucked eyebrows. “You do need to stop telling everyone you’re a lesbian if you keep sleeping with men.”

Shame slithers across my skin. My face burns. I look down at the floor.

I know I sleep with men; I’ve had a lot of relationships with men. But that doesn’t make me straight, does it? I don’t want to live with a man for the rest of my life, I know that. I had a girlfriend before I was with Jonah. I’ve kissed a few women. I feel more whole when I am with women, even when I’m just hanging out with my friends who are women. I want to live my life with women. I want to share a home with a woman, have a cat and maybe a dog, plant a garden, share meals together, sit on the porch, drink tea, watch the sun set, curl up with her in bed at night, read, and fall asleep beside her. Then, I want to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Doesn’t all this make me a lesbian?

What does Rebecca know anyway? Fuck her.

I wipe my hands on my shorts and use a dishtowel that has little birds printed on it to wipe the counter. Pulling the plug in the sink, I watch the dirty water swirl down the drain.

“I feel like shit,” I say. “I think I just need to go to my tent and sleep.”

“Really? But, what about dinner? The kugel?” Rebecca pleads.

I feel a twinge of guilt.

“I’m sorry, Bec,” I say. “I can’t.”

“I’m sorry I said that.” She puts her hand on my arm. “It’s just…”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re probably right.” The words almost get caught in my throat. I don’t look at her.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she sighs.

I grab my flannel shirt off the kitchen chair and walk past Oliver in the living room, sprawled out on the couch. He doesn’t take his eyes off the TV. I don’t bother to say “goodnight.” What does he care? What does anybody care? I’m fucked.

Opening the back door, I step out onto the deck and look up at the dimming sky. I can breathe out here. I walk over to a bush behind the shed, pull down my shorts, and crouch in the tall grass to pee. I think about Jonah. I think about Miles. I think about the little thing that’s attached to the inside of my uterus, growing. I wonder if it already has a spirit.

I finish peeing and stand up. I pull my shorts up and trudge over to my tent, unzip the door, and crawl inside. As I wiggle into my sleeping bag and lie down, I put my hand on my abdomen. I think about Miles and about how being with him made me forget that Jonah and I were finished and how I loved Jonah but not in the way that I should and how I didn’t really have to commit to Miles because I knew it was just a rebound affair and how I just wanted one more guy to distract me from who I was.

“Oh my god,” I say out loud. Bolting upright on my Therma-Rest, I cover my mouth with my hands, my sleeping bag bunched around my waist.

“I’ve been using men this whole time,” I whisper through my fingers. “I’ve been sleeping with them to try and convince myself that I’m not queer.”

How could this be? All this time, I had been telling myself that men use women for sex. That men were the ones who just got what they wanted from women and then threw them away. It never occurred to me that I was doing the same. That I used men to help me feel wanted and attractive, to help me fit in and feel straight. Maybe that’s why I was so insistent that Jonah and I have a child within the first few months of our relationship. Maybe I was desperate to have a kid with a man because it would prove that I wasn’t queer.

My shoulders shake. As sobs wrack my body, I put my hands beside me on the tent floor to steady myself. Tears run down my cheeks. It’s hard to breathe.

After a few minutes, I wipe my face with the corner of my sleeping bag. The sun has gone down and the darkness is creeping in. I cinch the hood of my down bag around my head to block out the chilly air. The crickets begin singing. A warm light from Rebecca’s living room window spills out onto the lawn, casting a glow into my tent.

I’m pregnant. I’m alone. I’m a lesbian.

And, I need to find a place to live.

**********

The ad in the Nelson Daily News reads, “Small cabin for rent. Wood heat. 40 acres. Washing machine. Propane stove. Beside Wildhorse Creek near Ymir. $500/month. Utilities not included. Call Ashanti at 505-5443.” I dial the number from Rebecca’s cordless phone.

“Allo?”

“Hi, my name is Kate. I’m calling about the cabin for rent. I saw the ad in the Nelson newspaper. Is it still available?” I ask.

“Ah, oui! This is Ashanti. The cabin is still available,” she tells me in a Québécois accent. She gives me directions to the cabin.

The next afternoon, I drive to Ymir, a tiny town 30 minutes from Rebecca’s house. As soon as I drive up the laneway to the cabin, I know I want to live here. It’s a small log building with a chimney set back off the dirt road and nestled against the evergreen forest. A hundred feet or so in front of the cabin lies a grove of aspen trees and beyond that, a field of tall, yellow grass. On the other side of the field, a homestead spreads out behind a wooden fence—a house, a small barn, and a couple of outbuildings.

A woman stands on the uncovered deck at the front of the cabin. With long brown hair that hangs down her back to her waist, she waves at me, revealing a hairy armpit. She wears flowing green cotton wrap pants that are tied up in the front, a tank top with large pink flowers on it, and brown Birkenstock sandals. She looks like a classic Kootenay hippie woman. I jump out of my truck and walk down the path to the steps of the deck. Birds are chirping in the trees beside the shed. A river burbles nearby. My heart swells. That must be Wildhorse Creek, I think.

“Âllo! Bienvenue! Welcome. Je m’appelle Ashanti,” she says, smiling. I walk up the steps and shake her hand.

“Hi. Nice to meet you, Ashanti. I’m Kate. Thank you for letting me look at the cabin.”

She invites me inside. I step through the open door and feel at home right away.

“It’s an old miner’s cabin that we fixed up. We built this little front area to extend the living room and we added that front deck,” she explains.

The walls of the one-room cabin are dark brown logs chinked with white plaster. The floorboards are painted mustard yellow. A black cast iron wood stove stands in the middle of the room. I can already see where my couch and coffee table and chair and bookshelf will go. The kitchen area has a full-sized fridge, an oven, and a window over the double sink. Sunlight streams through the west-facing window looking out over the deck.

Motioning to the kitchen wall, Ashanti says, “Outside on the other side of this wall, there’s a shed attached to the cabin where you can stack your wood. You can get a cord around here delivered for, uh, peut être, a hundred and fifty dollars. You will probably need two cords to get you through the winter.”

“Great. I love wood heat,” I answer. Chopping and stacking wood and building fires in wood stoves reminds me of growing up on my family’s farm in Ontario.

“Come and see upstairs,” she says, beckoning me up a ladder leading into a large cutout in the ceiling above. Upstairs, there’s a bedroom with a sloping ceiling. The only place I can stand up straight is where the ceiling peaks in the middle of the room. A large, west-facing window looks out over the front deck, the grove of aspen trees, the field of yellow grass, the valley, and beyond that, the Bonnington Mountain Range.

Back downstairs, Ashanti agrees to rent me the cabin and I give her a cheque for the first month’s rent and another one for the damage deposit. We agree that I will move in on the 15^th of the month.

“Thank you, universe,” I breathe out loud to myself as I drive away. I don’t know how I’m going to live way out here with no job and a truck that doesn’t have four-wheel drive, which is a must-have to get up and down a road like Wildhorse Creek in the wintertime. But, I don’t care. I think about my upcoming appointment at the Nelson hospital to have the abortion. I think about how I can’t wait to be free of the relentless thoughts about Jonah and Miles and this mess I got myself into.

A few days after moving into the cabin, I pack a small overnight bag and drive to the hospital. Rebecca meets me in the parking lot outside. We go inside and I sign in at the reception desk. After sitting in the waiting area for a few minutes, a nurse walks up and greets us and I ask her if Rebecca can come with me. The nurse agrees and escorts us through two swinging doors and down the hall.

The air smells like disinfectant. The nurse shows me to a change room, hands me a blue hospital gown, and a basket. Instructing me to place my clothes in the basket and put on the gown, she yanks the curtain across to give me privacy.

When I emerge, she takes me to a bed near the operating room door and motions for me to lie down. Rebecca takes my hand. The nurse wipes rubbing alcohol on the back of my left hand with a cotton ball and slides a needle into one of the thick blue-green veins on my hand. Taking the cap off the back of the syringe, she attaches a thin, clear IV hose to a bag of liquid and hooks the bag onto the IV pole. My hand feels like it’s burning as the liquid surges into my vein. I can’t tell if the tears brimming in my eyes are from the pain of the IV, the shame that’s coursing through me, or both. I tell myself that I deserve it for getting pregnant.

Turning to Rebecca, the nurse says, “time to go.”

I let go of Rebecca’s hand.

“I will be here when you get out.”

“Thanks,” I smile weakly.

The nurse wheels me in through the swinging operating room door. Three people in scrubs are milling about organizing trays of medical instruments. I try not to think about what they are going to do to my body while I’m under the anesthetic. I have to trust that they are just doing their jobs. I shudder knowing that they are going to press a vacuum up against my vulva and suck the lining of my uterus out, along with the tiny, fertilized egg.

I wonder what they do with it after that? Do they just throw it in the trash with all the other hospital waste? Is my uterus lining and the tiny, fertilized egg going to rot in a massive garbage bin alongside other people’s internal organs, shitty diapers, pissy medical bed pads, mounds of bloody gauze from surgeries, used maxi pads, and heaps of food scraps and plastic cutlery?

Standing over me, the anesthesiologist puts the oxygen mask over my face.

“Okay, dear. Just count backwards from ten to zero,” she tells me.

“10-9-8-7-6…”

***********

After the abortion, I stay at Rebecca’s to recover.

Then, a couple of days later, I drive out of town, alone, towards Ymir and my cabin on Wildhorse Creek Road. As I begin the ascent up the winding dirt road, I roll down my window. The larches are starting to turn bright gold on the mountainsides. Autumn is near.

As I meander around the last corner of the road, the cabin comes into view. The west-facing bedroom window reflects the afternoon sun. The long, yellow grasses ripple in the field in front of the cabin, welcoming me back. The leaves of the aspen trees flip and flutter in the breeze like sequins, dark green, then light green, then dark green again. Pulling into the laneway, I park the truck, pick up my duffle bag, and go inside.

I fill the kettle up with water, light the element on the stove with a match, and set the kettle down on the ring of blue flame. A warm September draught floats in through the window I open over the sink. I climb the ladder and go into my bedroom. I change into my army shorts and white tank top. I flop onto the king-sized mattress that Jonah and I bought when we first moved in together, looking up at the ceiling. I remember how he came to visit me one night at Rebecca’s and how we sat in my tent in the backyard. And how he cried when I told him I was pregnant. And how I cried knowing I had hurt him. Knowing I had been selfish and reckless and had messed up both of our lives for a while.

Climbing down the ladder, I walk over to the stove, remove the whistling kettle from the flame, and turn off the gas. Pouring boiling water into a green clay mug, I toss in a peppermint tea bag and flip on the black AM/FM radio sitting on the windowsill. Looking for something worth listening to, the radio hisses, crackles, and hums as I turn the dial. Then, an Ani DiFranco-esque voice and a funky energetic bass line emanate from the small speaker. A woman is singing about food security, animal rights, and pesticides.

What station is this and who is singing? This is not mainstream radio. I am amazed that I can get music like this way out here on Wildhorse Creek Road.

The song ends.

“That was Ember Swift with ‘Include My Food’ from her 2002 album, Stiltwalking. I’m your host, Tom Coxworth and you’re listening to Folk Routes on CKUA Radio in Edmonton on this beautiful Saturday afternoon.”

Wow! A folk music show in Edmonton? I think to myself. How does this station in Alberta make it all the way to my little cabin on Wildhorse Creek Road in southern British Columbia?

I turn up the volume, walk outside, and stand on the porch, leaving the door open.

Taking a sip of tea, I think about the songs I’ve written, wondering if I could ever write songs that really matter to people. I wonder what it would be like to be a real musician, one who records albums, tours, sings for audiences, and gets paid to play music.

I walk down the porch steps with my mug and out to the grove of aspens in front of the cabin. Lying on my back at the foot of the trees, I place my mug beside me. My tired, sore body sinks into the soft bed of yellow grass. I look up between the branches and survey the blue afternoon sky above me. Jonah’s face appears in my mind, and then, Miles’. Shame simmers in my chest but I take a deep breath and feel the earth, solid, under my body, cradling me. The shame seems to drain from my flesh and down into the ground underneath. Jonah and Miles’ faces recede.

I think about being a lesbian.

I wonder if I will ever feel comfortable in this lesbian body.

I wonder what it might be like to live my life with a woman. To come home to a woman, make dinner with her, sit by the fire, and talk with her about the day. To curl my body around her every night and breathe with her as we fall asleep. To love her and feel her love for me. I wonder what it might be like to face my fear and put effort into writing more songs. A lot of songs. To stop letting fear rule over me and start singing my songs in public, in front of people. To take a risk and start living the musical life I had imagined in my mind.

My chest heaves up and down as I sob.

Off in the distance, I hear a dog barking. Two Stellars Jays, perched side by side on the rooftop of the cabin, chit-chat to each other. Towering overhead, like protective, soundless companions, aspen trees stand around me. A warm breeze picks up and their leaves tremble against the blue sky. Breathing in the golden sunshine, my muscles soften into the ground, and I unclench my hands into the grass.

I have to use my fear as fuel. I think to myself. To propel me forward. This is the only life I’ve got.