Now the thought of going to Lost Valley without her filled me with dread. I’d be alone, walking into a situation with complete strangers. Going solo into an unknown situation was one thing, but this new reality I found myself in, where people I had never met knew who I was, added an extra layer of anxiety and discomfort that I wasn’t sure I could reconcile. Lost Valley, the course, the space, that time disconnected from my current ways, was something I craved, I wanted to push through my silly little fears and go.
“My keys are always in my pocket, that is what I tell myself,” explained Drew. “If I’m not sure, if I’m hesitant and scared, I simply remind myself that I have my keys in my pocket and I can leave at any point. You can just leave.”
A pretty straightforward suggestion, but one I had not considered. To this day, I will say this to myself, and it still helps.
I flew into Portland, where I changed planes, and continued on to Eugene. I arrived the day before I was to show up at Lost Valley, so I booked a room in a motel. My nerves had calmed somewhat, the travel complete, but stress crept back in, social anxiety mounting even while alone. I plunked down on the bed, the top blanket scratched my elbows. Grabbing the remote, I rolled over and turned on the TV. E.T. was on. I grinned and almost winked, as if to say, I hear you. I love synchronicity, regardless of what it means, I notice it and roll with it.
E.T. is one of my favorite movies of all time, I even have EP PHONE HOME tattooed on my arm. I probably watch it once a year, and never have I not bawled my eyes out. I wished so badly to be Elliott when I was a little boy. For my first Halloween after I came out as trans, I donned a red hoodie and by chance already had sneakers that looked just like his in the film. I dressed up as Elliott, hit the streets of Manhattan with some pals, and had the best Halloween ever. Wishes can come true.
When I awoke in the motel the next morning the air was moist, fog loitered in silence. I soaked it all in. I did not have very much luggage. After having traveled for a month throughout Eastern Europe with only a backpack, I’d learned how to keep a bag pared down. My cab arrived and I plunked my bag in the back seat and got in.
This was my first time in Oregon. I stared out the window as we sailed down the highway, ever since watching E.T. my nerves had thankfully diminished. Passing churches, gas stations, irrigation services, and mechanic shops along the way, it reminded me of Nova Scotia, a certain aesthetic in rural spaces that immediately jolts me home. The driver took a right off the highway onto Rattlesnake Road. We descended into a new world, swallowed into the forest, slaloming through. Trees, all trees, with creeks roaming and meeting and splitting. He took another right onto Lost Valley Lane. I said thank you and goodbye as he dropped me at the foot of the property.
People welcomed me with big smiles and warm eye contact. I was directed to where I would be living, a building that had been the former sleeping quarters of the all-boys summer camp that existed there before. Wooden bunks were separated by thin walls that did not reach the ceiling. Next to the lower bunk was a bedside table, and instead of doors, curtains hung. I unpacked my things, leaving my cell phone off and behind. The washrooms were shared. We did not use toilets to pee, just to poo. Urinating happened in a bucket next to the toilet full of wood shavings (a carbon source) to minimize the smell. When the odor inevitably made its way through, we would take the bucket and dump it on the giant compost outside. Urine is an excellent nitrogen source. You can absolutely compost your shit as well, it’s just a tad complicated and takes more planning.
Other students coming to take the class arrived throughout the day. We all introduced ourselves, getting to know each other. People were there from Oregon to Malaysia, from South Korea to Indiana and Nova Scotia. There were about a dozen of us in the course. Lost Valley itself was also a permanent community with a dozen or so people living there at the time. I had never been to an “eco village” before, it was in many ways what I had imagined. Biodiverse, dense gardens curled and reached and overlapped, none of that monoculture business. It produced more food than I could fathom, an abundance from such a compact space. Different plants worked together, looking out for each other. Chickens ran around in their coop, picking at the compost thrown in for them to eat, munching and digging and scratching and pooping until the chicken coop is moved a few yards away to another location, leaving the soil underneath fresh and ripe, closing the loop.
The food at Lost Valley was mostly from the property or nearby. The freshness, the colors, the smells, it was like living in the Halifax Farmers Market. Those vegetables were some of the best I’d ever had. A bite of kabocha squash forced my eyes closed, no words, mouthwatering with the roasted elephant garlic from the yard that I smooshed with my fork … the earthy sweet melted in my mouth, filling it. I was patient, it soothed. Nourishing on every level, harvested one hundred feet away. I could feel every cell in my body screaming THANK YOU when I ate that food. Before dinner that initial evening (and every lunch and supper thereafter), all of us would circle the spread of food, hold hands, and close our eyes. Taking a moment, we joined as a group to express our gratitude, our appreciation for one another, for the earth, for how lucky we were to sit down and consume life-giving plants and grains and water. It was a moment to breathe, to connect and ground, to remind ourselves. An easy thing to roll your eyes at, but I really liked it. A similar but different way to say grace. I told myself I would keep up the ritual, but it’s unfortunate how easily these types of epiphanies slip away when we are thrust back into society.
I was comfortable. No one seemed to be fazed by the Juno business. If anything, I figured they would like me less due to my occupation and therefore would not be interested in it. Hollywood does not exactly go hand in hand with permaculture. But that first evening after we had all eaten and spent time getting to know each other, someone put on music. “Anyone Else but You” by the Moldy Peaches, the song that ends Juno, came out of the speakers. I felt a sizzle of embarrassment, unintentionally pressing my eyelids tight. I had wanted so badly to escape it, that time, how people saw me, but perhaps it was needed to break the ice. We spoke of the film briefly, and then of acting for a bit longer, and then that was that, I could just be me, whatever that meant at the time.
The group was full of warm, supportive, and passionate people who cared about Earth and our collective future. I had been mostly dismissed in my friend circle in Los Angeles when I spoke to these issues, or bought books for them that they would never read. They’d giggle at me in the you’re being dramatic way, when I would discuss resource exploitation, the climate crisis, how quick it was coming, how it would affect the most vulnerable first, how the consequences would be unthinkable, the impending collapse of our society and our role in it.
“I think you’re overreacting” was a common response.
“You lesbian hippie,” another pal said.
I’d get frustrated, feeling disregarded and dispirited by the lack of concern and empathy. The opulence urged entitlement, and the entitlement required ignorance. But my self-righteousness and judgment were means to alleviate my own guilt, my own life of unnecessary consumption in Los Angeles.
It was invigorating to be at Lost Valley, to be engulfed in such a wealth of conversation, immersed in a common focus, to gain knowledge, to be humbled. I’m lucky for that, most people can’t take a month from work and travel to Oregon to take a course.
I always woke up with the sun. Roosters sounded the alarm, a chorus of birds and insects serenaded my hazy rise to consciousness. I slept on the bottom bunk, no one slept above me. Usually one of the first up, I’d get changed and tiptoe down to the bathroom. Squatting, I’d pee in the bucket, maybe I’d need the toilet post-coffee. Washing my hands and my face, no mirror to glare at, a break from that nuisance. Breakfast was the only meal of the day without a group circle before. It let people take their time getting up, have silence if they needed. I enjoyed tucking away somewhere, perhaps the little library, a moment alone with oatmeal and an apple, a little quiet before the chatter. The day began in the classroom mostly. We would cover everything from gray-water systems to water catchment to garden design, composting to medicinal tinctures, fermentation to building a cob hut, and on and on. The amount of information was overwhelming, or rather, it was overwhelming how little I knew. It struck me as sad, I should already have this knowledge. Instead, my mind had been shaped and plugged into a system that makes us sick while we make the planet sick.