A Lewisian Year

Presented in partnership with the Lewisia Communications Board and Lewisia Public Library

Sponsored by The Historical Society

Hello, readers, listeners, and psychic osmosizers! Welcome to A Lewisian Year, a monthly showcase celebrating the rich culture here in the Lake Lewisia district. Each month, we'll highlight some seasonal events, local celebrations and interpretations of national and world holidays, and historical tidbits.

FEBRUARY

Everything Old is New Again

It's midday at Wagonwheel Field, and it looks like all the town is there. Certainly, almost all the available controlled explosives already are. Those were carted in just as soon as the tables had been cleared. Gone are the morning’s offerings to the sun. There were plates piled high with ginger cookies, triple-strength cinnamon rolls, and chili-mango buns. If it’s spicy, warming, or brightly colored, it was here. While not on the same scale as the Grand Picnic or the Great Potluck, February first’s Feeding of the Sun is a sort of bonus feast to get us through the lingering tail of winter. By now, you’ve eaten your fill of the offerings, and thanks to the spices, you no longer feel the cold of the day. And if by chance that isn’t enough to do the job, there’s plenty of work to do to keep you warm.

It’s not every year, after all, that you get two celestial festivals on the same day.

The clock is ticking to clean up the morning’s festivities to make room for the evening ones. Today is also Lunar New Year. Tonight, with the moon dark and the Year of the Tiger prowling before us, we’ll set off fireworks and dance under the stars. We will eat moon cakes and moon pies and crescent cookies. Lucky charms and tokens of good fortune will be passed around. One of the great pleasures of having a multicultural community is that we get several new years to choose from and there is always an excuse to have a good time.

The happy accident of cosmology that gives us this combined celebration does so just in time for Founders’ Day. All the original protections have been maintained since first the town became a modern settlement, and many from even earlier inhabitants. Each year, we restring boundary markers, chalk wards anew, raise bells and bury glass. These are our magics for secrecy, and also for calling. To keep out those who would harm us and to draw in those we might heal. But that work is done. Now, the simpler, more mundane work lies ahead of us of cleaning and preparing.

Work and play. Sun and moon. New and old. This is the balance we seek each day. This is what it means to live in this place.

Valentine's Day

On a lighter note: have you chosen your Valentine? While by no means a major celebration, Lewisians are happy enough to use this imported holiday as an excuse for a bit of frivolity. Fendler’s Sweet Shop offers a dizzying array of candies suitable for gifting. From sophisticated chocolate assortments to sour candies that induce mild visual hallucinations of hearts and sparkles, you’re sure to find something to woo your beloved, amuse your friends, or just satisfy your own sweet tooth. This year’s special creation is a mirror-glazed candy apple, in the reflection of which you can divine the face of your true love. (I’m told the definition of true love is broadly interpreted by this particular enchantment, so those without romantic inclinations will still enjoy the prophetic snacks.)

However, I was asked to please reiterate the store’s policy against distributing any kind of candy containing love potions.

Did you know, true love potions are exceedingly rare? The majority of commercially available “love” potions instead induce fascination, obsession, lust, or servitude, any of which can pass as sudden-onset love if you are given to wishful thinking and limited observational skills. Most recipes for brews capable of inducing actual love require one or another component derived from unicorns. While unicorns are hardly uncommon around these parts, only freely-surrendered unicorn substances—mane and tail hairs, tears, blood, and so on—function as intended. As such, collection is done only by experts (or the almost suicidally foolish and astonishingly lucky), and so the substances and the potions remain largely elusive.

The Historical Society has a lovely display, kindly set out in the front windows of their headquarters where it can be seen by passers-by, of antique hunting bows and arrows. And by lovely, I mean a slightly grim and gory display, albeit one very much in the more aggressive spirit of the day. This should offer relief for those who otherwise find the holiday unacceptably twee.

Music on Mill Street

This month will see the return of Music on Mill Street, our annual music festival and competition. With a full schedule of performances over the course of a weekend, the festival is a showcase of local musical talent, as well as musicians from a number of sister cities. Popular bands who do well at the festival often go on to represent Lewisia in the Pancontinental Musical Exchange over the summer; visiting musicians who enjoy their time here likewise find excuses to add Lewisia to future tour plans. But unlike individual tours or the massive endeavor of the Exchange, Mill Street offers a comparatively small, friendly venue for amateurs as well. And with plenty of acts willing to share a stage, it’s a low bar for entry for those not yet ready to present a full set.

It is also a delightful chance to hear new music, even if you only appreciate it as a listener instead of as a musician. Lewisia’s music scene is known for its rich vein of fusion music. Owing to its unique blend of locals and immigrants, humans and creatures, the immortal and the dimensionally displaced, we have more than enough influences to share around. Some musical acts have an established brand with easily identified elements. Others change styles and instrumentation from one song to the next. For some, these influences shape the music alone, while for others they shape a broader aesthetic or thematic choice. A fun game to play while listening to a Lewisian band--provided you are fairly well-versed in music theory--is to try to pick out individual elements by ear alone and identify their source culture. Is that an actual shamisen, or a re-tuned banjo imitating one? Is that just a xylophone, or is it one of the tunnel folks’ stalactite chimes?

And of course, we mustn’t forget the Sing to the Lake Monster Contest, which is good fun for everyone, particularly the lake monster.

This Month in History

In January 2021, a certain woman not yet in a black hat came to Lewisia…

Well, that’s one place the story could start, anyway. This month, I thought I would address both a subject of reader questions and a rather unfortunate public service announcement. The question has been: how do I know what will happen on a holiday that hasn’t happened yet this month and which I, a newcomer to Lewisia, have never seen before? Even when my column was scheduled to come out on the first of the month, I knew just what would be happening and what it would be like to be there.

As partial answer, I will say yes, I was responsible for the rash of headlines and full articles in the Lewisia Herald that appeared to have been plucked from papers originally printed decades prior. I got myself in a bit of a tizzy over my deadline—I am not, in fact, a professional journalist, year-long column notwithstanding, and apparently insufficiently cool under pressure. In that state, I made a few minor miscalculations and accidentally scrambled up the time stream specifically related to Lewisia Herald local interest pieces.

As far as temporal anomalies go, it’s hardly the worst one the area has seen. And I for one quite enjoyed the look at some of the more mundane historical events that so often get overlooked. I am sorry, though, particularly to the hardworking journalists whose pieces from this time were unceremoniously preempted.

The reason I came to Lewisia, the reason I became one of the Women in Black Hats, the reason I first found out about places like Lake Lewisia, is that I am a time witch. I don’t normally change time (not yet, anyway). I see time. And just like you can choose to focus your gaze on something six inches from your face or six miles off in the distance, I can choose where in the flow of time my attention settles. So for the past year, I’ve snuck glimpses into the celebrations about to take place. I’ve looked into a forest dressed in autumn colors even while the heat of summer was still on my back. I’ve even known ahead of time what new baked invention Mx. Lopez-Nam would unveil at the Grand Picnic.

The applications of such a skill in serving the town go far beyond such charming parlor tricks. I’m only a novice, though, and I needed the practice. And, truth be told, even in a town as welcoming as Lewisia, it is hard to be the new person. It is hard to know and be known by no one, newly Unnameable and trying to find belonging.

But a journalist, like a child, is allowed to ask all the obvious, awkward, ridiculous questions we adults tell ourselves are best kept quiet. A journalist is allowed to just go talk to people and listen to what they have to say and tell the story of it. Thank you for allowing me to ask, and thank you for always answering with kindness.

That's a taste of what a year in Lake Lewisia has to offer us. See you in the next year, and all the years going forward, when we make our lives together as a community, one day at a time.