ARISTASIA FORUMS

When I first left the Pit for Aristasia, I immediately took up residence in Kadoria. There was no doubt about it, that was the right province for me. I drew from all provinces, of course, but I knew that Kadoria was my proper home and it was where most of the music, films, and pictures I collected came from.

After several years, without warning, I found myself suddenly more drawn to Trent and Vintesse. I started to study Art Deco.

Scarcely had my new province begun to manifest in my hestia, than I find that the streamlined shapes of Vintesse, which I previously had found so bracingly beautiful, suddenly seemed cold and, well, faddish. Well, new-fangled things do tend to seem faddish, don't they? Art Deco is still beautiful, to be sure, but now it seems to me to lack depth.

No, now I find myself drawn to Arcadia. The pictures on my walls, the music I listen to, the literature I read, even the social rituals I approve of, are now drawn from the various regions of Arcadia. You know, in the most Westrenne provinces, young pettes are more on their own, which naturally appeals to newly racinated Pit-refugees. Not so much because of the exaggerated reverence for autonomy in the Pit, but because we are a great deal on our own, trying to make a racinated life for ourselves with the Pit on every side, often with few allies. As guides, we need role models such as Miss Bette Davis, or Miss Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle, young women who fended for themselves in a world that did not look after them. (The very first scene in Kitty Foyle shows Arcadian gents rising punctiliously when a lady got onto a streetcar, and then Miss Foyle being buffeted by the crowd on a Kadorian streetcar. Still far more civilized than the behavior on Pittish conveyances, but clearly a decline!) But after years of struggling like this, I find myself rereading such books as Gone With The Wind or Sense and Sensibility and admiring the wisdom of Arcadians in their social customs. It would never have occurred to people of those eras that young ladies should be set adrift on their own in the world without protection or guidance. Some pettes were, but this was because of particular bad luck in their cases, not because anyone thought this was a good idea.

I can only assume that after a few years in Arcadia, I will find myself at the borders of Amazonia.