Episode 13.11: The Iris Special (Patreon)

Hello world, my name is Iris Novak.

Let me tell you about myself:
I'm originally from Greenland, though I haven't been back for many years.
I like hiking, fishing, cooking what I catch, and reading.
My new home of Svalbard offers me plenty of opportunities for all these things.

OH, AND I'M GOING TO MARRY LINDA!

I never dreamed I would be part of such a family as the Vault Coven.
When Linda first told me that she was ALREADY married to Kari, I burst into tears!
Linda quickly explained the arrangement.

I'd heard of Line Marriages before, of course, it's not so rare.
But it's not the "happily ever after" plot featured in the Pre-Collapse books on my bookshelf.

Linda shared with me two books where the characters are in a polycule of some shape, but none in a line.
The books were rather meandering, not my usual favourite, and focussed  on the complications of the branching polyamorous relationship.
No-one wrote about the comfort and peace you can find with such a family.
Kari and Val are more like mothers and grandmothers, for me.
They've welcomed me into their home and family.

Linda teases me sometimes and tells me I'll find a younger partner one day, and to make sure I choose someone cute!

I'm open to the idea, but presently I am just excited to marry the woman I love.

Greenland is the fishing capital of the Novamediterra.
With access to the Arctic trade routes, Atlantic Ocean, and the wide  Davis Strait, between Greenland and the Nunavut archipelago.

I was crew on fishing boats for much of my adult life.
I started at 18, mostly to get out of Thule, and away from people who knew me.
Or thought they knew me.
Or decided they knew me.

As a young girl, I wanted to live on the ocean.
I read stories of adventure on the high seas in the small stockroom that counted for our school's library.

It was the nomadic lifestyle that I was attracted to.
I watched local people spend so much time building their houses,  painting them in bright colours, and filling them with things they  loved, books, comfortable chairs, and artwork on the walls.

To leave your haven every day for work, or even more strangely, leave  town entirely to visit friends or enjoy a trip or holiday, seemed  madness to me.

I wanted to sleep in my own bed every night AND ALSO to see the world!

I thought that working on a fishing boat would be the first step into this world.
Literally learn the ropes, and then I'd buy or build a little boat of my own.

But as the weeks turned into months turned into years, the dream that I was chasing began to slip out of view.
Routine will do that to you.
If you don't put in a tiny step towards your dreams every day, they get lost.
And you don't even notice it.
I didn't even notice it.

Until I met Linda.

The Vault Coven, Linda's family, welcomed me into their home with open arms.

Val Noor, the eldest, is so sweet.
She's a tiny old lady, but moves with surprising hummingbird energy, always up to something.
She has known the Vault longest, and taught me about its history.
Early in the Collapse, the far-sighted Norwegian government built the  vault as insurance against the ongoing global extinction that began  during industrialisation.

Plant and animal species were disappearing at a growing rate, and  though not yet at the heights it would be, the signs were clear.

So the Vault was built, deep into the mountain overlooking the  Adventfjorden bay, and though it's hard to imagine now, deep in  permafrost.

Before The Collapse, nearly all the Novamediterra was frozen, year-long.
Ideal conditions for our precious seeds!

It's not like that any more!
Our job now as caretakers is to keep the seeds as cold as we can.
Deep in the mountain it's still relatively cool, but no longer frozen.
Some of the most tenacious seeds germinate now and then, and so we plant  them around the vault, and then harvest the seeds THEY produce.

The resulting Vault Garden is wonderful.

I first saw it as Linda told me about her family's secret  responsibility, walking the road from Longyearbyen on a bright, hot day.

Finally rounding the corner of the mountain path, I didn't at first  notice the entrance to the Vault, the ugly rust-streaked slab of  concrete jutting out of the ground.

My eyes were drawn instead to the burst of light on the surrounding hillside.
Flowers of every colour exploded all around the Vault!
Deep green shrubs, and young trees, and berries and fruit.
It is a paradise!

Linda laughed when I told her, she said it was a LIABILITY!

Meeting Kari that day was nerve-wracking.
We both loved the same woman!
And worse: Linda has loved Kari far, far, longer than me.

Any conflict, as it transpired, was all in my head.
Kari hugged me in welcome, and took my hand and pulled me around the garden.
"You MUST see the Yerba Mate crop!" she said.

Lunch was like nothing I had ever witnessed, or even read about in my little library.

Living surrounded by a literal garden of Eden means that the Vault Coven, the Noor family, eat the most varied diet imaginable.
It's not all coherent, as they have little control of what seeds will germinate, and therefore need planting.

"I'd LOVE for the apples to germinate!" Linda joked over a plate  piled high with berries, delicate leaves, young bamboo shoots, sliced  fruit and vegetables of all kinds, but no apples!

I've come to realise that it was so easy with Kari, despite my misgivings because Kari is also married to Val, and has been for longer  than she's known Linda.

She's had years of this life, knows its rules and bounds; it is completely natural to her.

Linda, too, seems perfectly at ease, though she has confided in me that it has taken her a lot of time to become so.

Perhaps I will feel the same when I'm Iris Noor, not Iris Novak.

Even saying that name makes me giddy!

I thought I'd be alone forever, sailing the world in my boat, never parting with my books and my own bed.

The old Iris is like a foreign country to me now: I can't even  imagine wanting that life any more, THIS is where I belong, with Linda  and my new family.

I may not have a boat, but I now have a nicer bed and someone I love to share it with.

(END-TRANSMISSION)