The Snow Globe Escape Artist

written by Faith Twardzik | illustrations and layout by Zoë Vikstrom

It was something about the way they held each other.

They were in another world, where the unrelenting banality of everyday life had been whittled away to nearly nothing, drowned out by the deafening white noise of their lover’s embrace. It was in the way one pair of hands perched lightly on her lover’s waist – not so lightly as to suggest hesitation, or the crossing of some line in the sand marking what level of intimacy they had yet to reach. No, it was another sort of light touch, a touch that preempted not only a promise of more, but also a reminder of what was. A reminder that these fingertips had held between them this waist many times before. There was a sort of tenderness, familiarity even, in the gentle touch that no heavy-handed, lust-infused embrace could have ever emulated. It was an embrace that said, “I can touch you like this because at least for this solitary, frozen moment in time, you are mine and I am yours, without condition or exception.”

It was stark. It was an omission from the norm – a landscape writhing with debauchery, corruption, youthful ignorance and inconstancy. It was beautiful.

But something was amiss.

One lover’s hair glowed ghostly blue under a waning moon, cropped close to her head and bleached the whitest of whites. The wisps danced a willful little jig, the wind their unpredictable puppeteer.

Her arms were linked lightly about her lover’s neck, her head drawn forward, the better to hear her lover’s words or speak her own. The figure opposite her was bathed in shadow – dusk had drawn across the western world quicker than usual, it seemed, dragging murky coattails in its wake – and so, perched on a stone outcropping, the lover was obscured.

Forced to pass by them on my way to some destination of critical import, I drew closer and closer.

And it was then that the niggling little insight, bouncing about at the back of my brain, always just out of reach, whispering wicked accusations, pointed out just what it was that was amiss.

Before me were two hers.

All of this, of course, transpired over the course of a few seconds, as I tramped briskly down the sidewalk, a package filled with cat food and Botan rice candy nestled under my arm.

I saw them. I drew closer. I took stock of the beauty in their intimacy. Then I saw them. And I looked away. I walked past. I forgot.

1,714 miles east of here lies a little town in a snow globe. Civilization is a mystery, because the denizens there are quite content with their little lives. Perhaps the town’s foundations are shaky, perhaps it lives under the constant, battering pressures of the East and the West and the city, the absurd concepts of tolerance and identity and fluidity and freedom that those liberal hubs seem to preach with such excess. But the little people in this little town don’t let those finicky social experiments bother them – why fix what isn’t broken? Why test again a system tried and true? And so they live on, their minds closed, too content in their bliss to realize their ignorance.

That’s where I grew up.

But I tapped the glass. I shattered a piece, just large enough to fit through. I slipped away. I came here and I came out.

Because this is nothing like that place.

Palm trees glitter against an empty sky, rolling mountains cloud the northern horizon, the sun’s rays warm your skin even in the depths of autumn, the moon dawns pink in the face of ash-laden clouds and billowing, blackened smoke. Nowhere is there the striking chill of November in Chicago, the oaks and maples fiery, light snowfall layering the ground in white.

But there is much more to the contradiction than climate.

Without pomp and circumstance, without grand gestures or appeals to uniqueness, the people here are completely, irrevocably themselves. I’ve seen masculine figures in vivid frocks, strutting down the sidewalk, scarves flung around their necks, eyeshadow a complementary hue. I’ve seen feminine figures in blazers and high-tops, their hair cropped to the base of their necks, their poise colored by nothing less than absolute swagger. I’ve seen formless figures thriving as a synergy of two extremities – shaved heads yet red lips, androgyny in every feature, high heels yet a low voice – not for the sake of style, but for the sake of identity. I’ve seen everything in-between, on a spectrum wider and more fluid than I could have ever imagined.

And it’s absolutely amazing.

You can chalk it up to whatever you like – perhaps the unrestrained diversity in gender identity and sexual orientation here are simply a result of the temperate climate and laxness, the devil-may-care Californian coastline culture. Perhaps it has something to do with the ethnic diversity, acceptance of which naturally transferred over to sexual orientation. Perhaps it has something to do with being in such a blue state, where liberal ideology always seems to be at the forefront of the social and political scene.

But to say that the sheer diversity here is a result of any of those factors, I think, is horrific oversight. It prevents us from realizing that the boldness here is not about making a statement. It isn’t about art. It isn’t about social commentary. It is, quite simply, about nothing other than being yourself. This place was built by the people who sought nothing more than to be themselves, in whatever vibrant versions.

The dauntlessness of those who came before us is the sheer foundation upon which we now live freely. They built this place into a safe harbor for those following in their footsteps. They – all those who are themselves without recourse or remorse, accepted without seeking acceptance – are my heroes.

The air here is different. It isn’t so fragile, nor so charged with the fear of stepping on a landmine and blasting your reputation into little flying chunks. The air here is warm. Nonchalant. Free.

I breathed this air for a few weeks and something strange occurred. I met an amicable fellow freshman in a dining hall. We talked and talked and talked some more. He said he planned on joining the Lavender Health Alliance, because he’s gay. I said I had applied to OutWrite because I’m bi.

I realized it was the first time I’d said those words out loud.

I wondered why it had taken me so long. Then I remembered a patched-up crack in a far-away snow globe. I remembered boys in heels and girls in blazers. I remembered bleached hair in the dusk and a featherlight embrace. And I knew that I didn’t simply have personal growth to thank for my overdue epiphany.