THE TIME I COULD HAVE BEEN OUTLANDERED

There’s a hiking trail head on the Gunflint Trail road that leads out to Magnetic Rock. Magnetic Rock is a 60ft natural monolith with magnetic properties. Any thing you read online about the rock suggests that you take a compass with you to hold up to the rock to witness the magnetic properties. The evening we drove the length of the Gunflint Trail, we stopped at this trail head with the intent of making the hike out to the rock. My head started hurting the closer we got to the trail head and by the time Michael parked the truck and we were dousing ourselves with bug spray, my head was throbbing. I said nothing about my discomfort. This was not just about seeing a magnetic rock. This was also an opportunity for a moose sighting. But ten steps into the woods, we quickly realized that this was not the hike for us. The trail path ahead was either slippery with thick mud or underwater. We turned around and hopped back into the truck, taking a cloud of mosquitos with us. We spent the next ten minutes smashing mosquitoes on the windows and the dashboard. I trapped two of them in the sun roof. As Micheal drove us away from the trail head, my headache started to decrease in intensity and was down to a dull ache by the time we reached our cabin.

Michael was not surprised by my headache. I am a walking compass, a super power that makes for a great party trick. Michael likes to joke that there’s a magnet in my brain. Maybe it has something to do with the iron in my blood. A doctor’s never told me that I have too much iron. They usually only say anything if you don’t have enough. It’s most likely genetic. My dad could do the same trick…until things went wrong inside his brain. So, for my future caregivers, if I suddenly can’t point you in the direction of North, you’ll know that there’s something terribly wrong with me. How ever I came about this superpower doesn’t really matter. I don’t know if magnets are a kryptonite. I’ve never tested this by rubbing magnets on my head. I did have a thought that this superpower makes me susceptible to things and that my headache saved me from being Outlandered.

Mom, my sister and sister-in-law and I have all been reading the Outlander series probably since the first book came out. What usually happens is that one of us will buy the book and then just pass it around. The four of us are all pretty vested in this story of a woman who has been transported back in time and the love affair that ensues. Each book contains anywhere from 850 to over 1,000 pages and it is the very reason why I switched over to eReaders. I’m not normally into romance novels (not since my teens), but these books are a less romance and more historical fictional SciFy. Though the sex scenes are decently steamy and it is nice that the leading heroine is open and bold about her sexuality. She is also not the typical romance heroine who sits back and waits for the man to save her. I am curious about the physics of her time travel, like what she can and can’t take with her. Here’s what I was wearing on this hike: hiking boots, overalls, tank, long sleeved shirt, rain jacket and the usual underwear. I had a water bottle in the long pocket of my overalls and my camera looped over my shoulder. I’m pretty sure my wallet was in one pocket and my cell phone in another. I was holding Josephine’s leash. Would all of those things travel with me, including Josephine? Would Josephine survive time travel or would I get to the past holding a leash with an empty harness?

I don’t think I want to know the answer to that last one.

While I find the stories entertaining, the very idea of being whisked back in time to before women’s right to just about anything does not sound remotely appealing or attractive. Life in general was pretty difficult and filthy in the 1700s but life for a woman in the 1700s feels more than difficult. It was fucking dangerous. I am sure that within my first two hours of being transported to that time, I would indeed be burned on a stake. I would probably beg for it because I would have no idea how to proceed in that timeline. Can I build a fire? Sure, if I have matches and newspapers and oil soaked dryer lint. I might be able to prop some sticks and limbs up against a tree to make some sort of structure for sleeping. I could forage some. I know what a wild onion looks like and dandelions are edible. I wouldn’t poison myself, but I am not ashamed to say that I am material girl, living in a material world. I should rephrase that. I am a modern girl, living in a modern world. Maybe I could endure the never ending labor of day to day living in the wilderness and the immediate danger of rape and or murder if there were was hot and cold running water and I could be clean.

That’s really the only difference between now and then, right?