Dogs On The Land

"All right," said Oak's soft voice, "when you have crossed over the magic bridge, and rejoined us in the here and now, slowly open your eyes."

I blinked twice, and Susan's pretty ceiling came into view. She'd painted a sky-scene on it, fluffy clouds rolling across a soothing blue background. I sat up slowly -- after years of these guided-visualization things, I knew how to lake care of my back.

The art supplies were in a loose heap on Susan's moss-green carpet. Most of the women in the circle were still stretched out on their backs, but across the way Randi was already busy, sketching with an ordinary No.2 pencil. She looked op from her drawing, gave me a little smile, and went back to work.

 I considered watercolors, but decided colored markers were less dangerous and splashy. I picked out a blue-violet marker, then pine green, indigo, and red. After a moment I put back blue-violet for someone else to use, and pulled my sheet of newsprint close. As I filled in a few trees in one corner, the other women in Susan's living room began to sit up and gather art materials. Susan was the last to sit up, and I looked up over my glasses to make sure she had something to draw with. All the crayons left were earth tones, but there was also a set of watercolors, and Susan seemed content to select a brush and begin.

She was the last to finish, but the first to share her vision. She propped the limp sheet of newsprint against her chest, and looked down at it from the top edge. Her perspective was perfectly appropriate, since she had created an aerial view of a village. The roofs of all the buildings were not quite round, but spoked like umbrellas. A ring of mountain ridges protected the building. The middle building was largest, twice the size of the olhers.  The other structures looked like offspring, huddled close by their parent's sheltering eaves. "This is where everyone eats," said Susan, pointing to the large building's roof, still wet with paint. "And the garden is behind there." She laid her drawing on the carpet, took a pretzel from the pretzel bowl and crunched into It.

No one spoke for a minute, then Oak looked at Susan's face carefully. "Did you want to say anything else?"  Susan shook her head, smiling around the pretzel.

Oak's turn came next. During the guided visualization, she had seen rainbow clouds of light. Her sheet of newsprint was folded in half, and the pretty image didn't even fill half of the half-sheet. Inside a neatly defined circle, Oak had used felt-tip markers to shade in delicate changes in hue. Looking at the picture, I felt as if I'd just read all of Lynn Andrews' books straight through. "I'd wanted to make room for possibility," said Oak. "I don't know why I put this blue around the edge, but the green is for growth and the purple is for spirituality."

"That's really nice, Oak," said Susan.

Oak laid down her sheet of newsprint, and Vanessa quickly put the final touches on her vignette. A happy woman (probably Vanessa herself, since her brown hair was very curly) was lying in tufty waves of grass. She had stretched out comfortably on her back, and now surveyed a gorgeous sky. The picture had mountains too, I thought at first, then I recognized them as dwellings, pueblos with doorways at different levels.

My turn came after Vanessa's, and I grabbed the top of my drawing and held it up. 1 was wrinkling the picture and as I held it, the sides folded forward and almost met in the middle. "I can't see it like that," said Randi.

"That's all right," I said. "It didn't come out too well anyway."

"No, come on, hold it so we can see it," said Randi.

What I'd drawn looked like a poor imitation of Susan's umbrella-roofed village. I hadn't stuck with an aerial view, like Susan, but changed my point of view several times while I was coloring. The houses along the top edge of my sheet looked like they'd been viewed from an airplane, but the buildings in the bottom right-hand comer looked as though I'd stood very close, maybe on the front step. This house was tall and narrow, pine-green with a red, steeply-peaked roof. I'd drawn this house last and put in many details: a hanging plant, a curve of curtain behind a window, a set of stepping stones through the side yard. An indigo cat tiptoed through the yard, moving between the stones.

"So that is where you live?" said Oak, pointing to the narrow house on the corner. "The one that's kind of away from everything else?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Where do I live?" said Vanessa. "In the house with you, or do I have another house?"

"This is yours," I said, showing her a pine-green square house close to the narrow one. The indigo oat, walking in between the slopping stones, seemed to be headed across the yard to Vanessa's house. Evoryone nodded, and I put the picture down.

I'd put in the hanging plant and the cat to fake myself out. I wanted to fake out everyone else, too. When I was lying on my back on Susan's rug, visualizing an ideal environment for a lesbian community, what I saw was Camp Sycamore.

My ideal lesbian community was a summer camp, where tanned, healthy counselors would schedule our days for us. They would make sure that food came into camp and waste went out. Perfectly-inflated volleyballs would sail over correctly-strung nets. Social activities would be scheduled for the evenings, and chores would be distributed equitably.

My attention had wandered, and everyone's focus had shifted around the circle to Randi. "And this is my house," she was saying, pointing to her pencil sketch, "and this is Ginger's little house."

Vanessa said, "Ginger, huh? When did this start?"

I said, "How come she gets the little house? I hope it's far away from yours if you're going to try your non-monogamy routine out on her."

"No, my German Shepherd and I are strictly monogamous," said Randi. "Ginger pitches a fit if she smells another dog on me."

"Dogs," said Oak. "There's something that goes on the Issue List." She reached for the clipboard and added a word.

"Oh, come on," said Randi. "We've all got dogs and cats and stuff. We have to have dogs."

"I'll be really happy to talk about this when we get to Issues Clarification," said Oak pleasantly. "Do you want to finish showing us your picture?"

I was scared about Issues Clarification, so I was glad we were putting it off till after lunch.
I assumed that we'd be ordering pizzas, and I organized my vote in my mind: one pizza with extra cheese, mushrooms and black olives, and one pizza with onion and green peppers. But Randi and Oak went out to their cars and came back with covered dishes, and Susan produced an enormous fruit salad from her refrigerator.

I looked at Vanessa. "Is this a potluck? Shit, did you know that?"

"No," she said. "Nobody said anything to me about it."

I went into the kitchen, where Susan was taking forks out of a drawer and dropping them handle-down into a plastic glass.

"Vanessa and I didn't know this was a potluck," I said. "Should I run down to the convenience store and pick up something? Or is there a deli --"

"Here you go," said Susan. She reached up and took a pan down from the top of the refrigerator. I looked into it and saw fudge brownies.  "I figured somebody would forget," she said. "Nice of you and Vanessa to bring brownies."

"Thanks," I said, and carried the pan out the dining room table. Susan followed me out, carrying her fork bouquet.


***

Issues Clarification started right after lunch. Oak, as facilitator for the day, picked up her clipboard. She said, "The topics have been alphabetically arranged—"

"Oh, no," I said. "We have to talk about boys first thing?"

"We're using the term 'men'," said Oak. "Some of us have male partners."

"That's their problem," I said. Oak looked at me and made her lips very tight. I said, "Just kidding, just kidding."

"Okay," said Oak, looking down at the clipboard, "Our first topic is Dogs."

"How are we doing this?" said Randi. "Are we just saying what we think?"

"That's what we said we were going to do," said Oak. She held up a miniature hourglass. "This egg timer goes three minutes. No cross-talking, and we move around the circle. Do you want to start, Randi?" She turned the egg timer over, and the sand began to sift down.

"Uh, what?" said Randi, startled. She stared at the sand grains slipping down into the hourglass base. "Well, this whole thing is silly, I think. I mean, why do we need to sit here trying to make rules about dogs? We need to be talking about real stuff, like money, land, cars and trucks." She glanced at Oak, who was watching her with interest. A third of the sand in the glass was gone already. "Okay, so dogs. Are we doing cats, too? Both of those, dogs and cats?"

Oak reached for the clipboard, but Randi said quickly, "Okay with everybody, we do dogs and cats together?" Susan and I nodded, and Randi rushed on, her eyes on the timer. "I just feel like this dog question isn't necessary. That's a personal right, having a pet. Everybody should just have
whatever they want, a cat or dog or whatever they want. They have to take care of their own, buy their own food, unless a couple of them want to—"

"Time," said Oak. She was the person to Randi's left, and everyone was looking at her. "Okay, we're going this way?" She gestured with the mini-hourglass. "So, here's a couple of things to think about. One is, Third World nations-- "

"The timer," Susan and I said together.

"Oh," said Oak.  "Thank you." She turned the timer over and began quickly. "Third World nations are struggling for daily necessities, and I'm not sure a policy of feeding household pets is consistent with our concerns for the poor.  Americans feed their dogs and cats with resources that need to be directed to areas that are drought-stricken and so on. Second, there's the question of allergies. Many people are allergic lo the hair and to the dander of domestic animals, and they will be affected by the pet policy." There was a short intake of breath from Randi, as though she was going lo say something.  "Even if dogs are kept in restricted areas," Oak continued, "The hair and dander will travel into communal areas on the clothing of the owners." She looked at the timer, and said, "There are other questions, such as licencing, leashes, and so many other concerns that it just makes sense to adopt a humans-only policy." The last grain of sand dropped.

Oak handed the baby hourglass to Susan, who said, "I like dogs," and handed the hourglass to me.

"Is that it?" I said.

Susan looked down and stretched her skirt over her knees, then let it drop. She reached for a brownie. "I haven't got anything against dogs."

I held out the hourglass, but Susan shook her head. "That's all, I guess." She took a bite of brownie.

I turned the hourglass over and stared at it. "Well, there's got to be a way for everybody to coexist," I said. "Maybe we need to divide the community into zones where dogs are allowed or not allowed." I looked around, but couldn't tell what anybody else thought. "Maybe we could set a limit on the number of pets at any one time. I just hate to see this community torn apart by such a little issue. Maybe there could be a committee, and we could draw up some proposals." I looked at Susan, who nodded. I felt better, and went on. "We could bring the proposals to the next meeting, and then pick out four or five to vote on. I don't know if we should go with a majority vote on that, or consensus, or what. It just seems like we're all capable of reaching a compromise, finding some way that everyone can live together peacefully." I looked around. "I just need for us to have peace in our own community. I mean, out in the world people are killing each other. In our own community, why can't we agree and get along?" I still had a little sand left, but I handed the timer to Vanessa.

"Getting along isn't the same as agreeing," said Vanessa. "Probably, whatever we decide, one or two of us won't agree." She paused to gather her thoughts. "This isn't something we can have both ways. We could try and fool ourselves by trying to make a policy that allows dogs but doesn't allow dogs." Everyone laughed. "But, folks, either we're going to have dogs or we're not going to have dogs." I caught myself nodding, and stopped. "On something like this, consensus is impossible. It's a majority-vote issue, keeping the rights of the minority in mind." Everyone was looking at the floor. "I suggest, Oak, that we call for a vote. Will you facilitate?"

"All right," said Oak. "We'll go around and everyone will say if she wants dogs or no dogs. I'll start. No dogs." She made a mark on the clipboard.

"Dogs," said Randi.

"No dogs," said Vanessa.

"Dogs," I said.

Susan stretched her skirt over her kneecaps, tighter than a trampoline, "No dogs," she said in a very small voice.

"Shit," said Randi, and we all looked at her. "I guess that's it for now. If we get more people, though, can we vote again?"

"Yes," said Oak.

"I can see her now," I said, reaching for a brownie. "Standing in front of Arlington Pet Supply, passing out flyers to strange women. 'How would you like to join a lesbian community and vote Yes on the dog issue?'"

Oak picked up the clipboard. "Okay, the next item for Issue Clarification is Environment. This will include the recycling policy, and whether or not we will install electrical lines."

Susan left for the kitchen. I put my head in Vanessa's lap.

"How are we going to live without electricity?" said Randi, disgusted. "We have to have electricity."