Time Travels

If you had a time machine and could go back to any place or time period, where would you go? Or, would you go?

Assuming we could always have a look at the future later, I would like to go far back and see women through the ages. Those first women who lived in caves and (so they say) had a tendency to be dragged around by their hair. I'd like to see how the ancient women really lived, what their life was like. Of course it was far shorter than our standards today. I bet they looked a lot different. Not even counting the neanderthal-ness. There were no doctors, bandages, not so much as a splint or needle and thread to sew them up in case of accident. If they got broken they pretty much stayed that way, if they survived. I don't imagine cave women were all too concerned about hygene either.

Somewhere in time women were matriarches in their socities, tribes, families. I'd like to see that too. How did it all work out? How were the relationships between men and women then. How did families work together. How was the tribe governed and was it so much more peaceful, as we are told by some historians.

If the Amazons were real, as I tend to think they were, I'd like to see them too. Really see who they were and how they lived as opposed to the usual fiction and assumed facts. I don't believe that stuff about them cutting off one breast in order to use their bows and arrows better. I don't believe they killed off any male children or fed them to wild animals or just left them to be found by other tribes. Women, in general, are not the ones to abandon or hurt other people.

Then I'd like to see the Witches. Not those poor women burned at stakes and tortured to confess to dancing naked with the devil and so on. I would like to see the women who taught themselves about the herbs, how they best grow and are found, how to harvest them at the right time of year and day/ evening, how they should be used to help people. Not for spell casting, but for healing and helping. Those women (and likely some men too) really had knowledge which is lost now. Like the masons, blacksmiths and other skilled people from so long ago, so much of those old arts and crafts have been lost. They couldn't (or chose not to) write it all down. Keeping information accurately from person to person doesn't work very well. Things are lost, scrambled or kept secret intentionally.

Then I could skip some time. Although I like the fashions and jewels of the ages between the wise women and the pioneer women, I don't really have a lot of interest in seeing it. Likely it all looks (and smells) better seeing them in movies, books and so on.

So, skip ahead to those pioneer women who came from so far to so near, now. I'd like to see those women who came over as brides of the king, I forget the French term for it now. I used to know, even wrote about them. They had a lot to adjust to, coming from all kinds of lives (not always country girls who were used to working so hard on a farm). I'd like to see all the work they did to break ground in a new land. I'd like to have a real appreciation for all they did, the fears and loneliness they experienced and all they learned as they became the pioneer women we see in movies these days.

Overall, I'd like to meet women who did things in the arts too. Women who sewed, painted, gardened and so many other things which may be unknown now. I think women did far more in the past than we do now. In spite of how advanced and modern we think we are.

Anyway, what would you go back to see? Is there anyone in particular you'd like to meet?