Watch the trailer of the classic lesbian movie, Desert Hearts (1985), adapted from Jane Rule’s novel
“Always historicize!” Fredric Jameson insists. And so it is important, in some ineffable way that is nonetheless of significance, that I was there, yesterday, in the South End Hall, on Galiano Island, for the Jane Rule Memorial. The event was singular. That memorial, on that day, in that place. Discourses of mobility and virtuality seem to shift our logic of location, and of being, such that the material seems to vanish into thin air — logos becoming code. And yet, I was there. Time and place coincided in only one set of coordinates.
The hall was cold and damp. It was full to the rafters. Mostly Galiano islanders had come that day to the Hall that hosts so many Island events, to commemorate the life of just one of its celebrated citizens, Jane Vance Rule. In case you don’t know Jane Rule, her writing is very important to many generations of queer folks the world over. Rule’s work opened up a symbolic imaginary for queer readers to see themselves mirrored in the pages of a novel where people lived lives, loved, worked, died and most importantly of all, existed with visibility and passion.
July 12th, islanders had packed the Hall, as they so often do, to participate and celebrate Jane Rule’s receipt of the Order of Canada, presented by the BC Lieutenant Governor, with pipers and Mountie in tow. And on that same day, I was, if you recall, at home, elsewhere, being taken care of by Sz, a friend who lives on Galiano, who had come to hold my hand while the visiting nurse removed the dreaded chest drain tubes. I couldn’t be on Galiano that warm summer day. I was, then, very much in the grip of breast cancer’s ferocious hold on my life.
And so yesterday, I had to be there, on Galiano, an island off the coast of Vancouver, that holds so many extraordinary memories of other times, other days, other lives. The people who rose to speak at the memorial talked not so much about the cultural and social and political significance of Jane Rule’s writing, but about an amazing gift of a life that touched others’ lives to the core. Jane Rule had invited them to live a better life, to reach for human relationships that seemed beyond their grasp, and to love fiercely and proudly. That is worth fighting for. That is why I travelled to Galiano yesterday; because I had to be there. Just being there, on Galiano, was worth fighting for, in much the same way that it is so very important to be there to carry on insisting, as Jane Rule did so very effectively, that a democractic life – a just public – is a public space, and a form of sociality, that values singularity. Your life, in that place, at that time; you had to be there.
