Letters from a Lost Girl #5
Luzern, Wednesday, August 3rd 1960
I have been meaning to reply to your earlier message about learning, but have been so busy. Peter fell ill and we were all very concerned. I first suspected him of wanting to avoid going to the swimming pool. The weather has been splendid and I was trying to convince him to join us. There are several public pools in Lucern, one of them for women and girls only, but we never go. Now I think about it, that’s rather odd as I quite like swimming, having been brought up near the sea on a small island.
Apparently Peter hates swimming pools. So I decided to tease him, saying I had a one-piece swimsuit in which he’d surely look good. I realised immediately I’d made a mistake. He was very upset. I apologised, but to no avail. It hadn’t been my intention to suggest he reveal his maleness – is that what you can it? – for all to see. That’s how he understood my taunting. He’s reiterated several times he wouldn’t be without without it, but, at the same time, I suspect it’s an embarrassment to him.
But it turned out to be neither the pool nor the swimsuit that made him ill. Jorg called a doctor from town to tend to him. It was odd, if not worrying, watching the man at work. First he stuck a length of glass in Peter’s mouth, apparently that allows him to measure the temperature. Then he pulled out his watch and grasped Peter’s wrist for a time. Finally he listened to Peter’s chest through a tube. I know the situation was serious but I had a hard time not laughing. How can he possibly know what to do on the basis of such rudimentary information? As you have read our story, you will know that Peter and I developed a completely different approach to healing. We go inside the person’s mind and body with our thoughts. Well maybe I should say ‘spirit’, because thoughts can’t get inside someone else, at least, not in the way I mean here.
I imagine you are wondering, if we are so good, why don’t I heal Peter? It’s not so easy. We lost much of the ability to travel to other minds and to heal after my old body was cut from its spirit. Now we’ll have to relearn, especially as we have ever more people coming to us for healing.
Got to go, we’ve got choir rehearsals. Will write again soon.
Love. Kate.
More about the Boy & Girl Saga
Boy & Girl – Twelve-year-old Peter secretly dresses as a girl. Imagine his delight when he finds himself in the head of a girl. Yet, despite his wild hopes, that girl is not him. She’s Kaitling, the daughter of a mage in a beleaguered world. Peter has his own problems when a vicious new girl at school threatens to reveal his girly ways. Becoming friends, Kaitlin and Peter join forces to do battle with those who oppose them.
In Search of Lost Girls – Dressed as a girl, Peter sets out in search of his soul-mate Kate who has been ripped from his arms and kidnapped. In his quest, he is hounded by fanatics bent on eliminating those who mess with gender. Meanwhile, Kate has been dumped in a nightmarish girls’ orphanage where she emerges as a decisive figure in the rescue of her fellow orphans. Will the two ever be together again?
We Girls – Retain his androgynous ambiguity or say goodbye to his girlish self, such is the existential choice that besets Peter. Circumstances, however, force both him and Kate to take up other challenges. By straddling the line between child and adult, between carefree creativity and weighty responsibility, between play and work, they find imaginative ways to confront far-reaching problems on which adults persistently turn a blind eye.
Colourful People – What happens when a boy who dresses as a girl, but has no wish to transition, is confronted with a boisterous crowd of transgender youth in a desperate search for a safe haven? The fierce will to be themselves despite the determined opposition of society is common to both the Lost Girls and the Colourful People. Not surprising then that they join forces and advance together. (Currently being written)