misplaced mama

We’ve crossed the threshold.  Somewhere north of San Francisco the rain started to fall and it hasn’t stopped.

We camped about 10 miles north of Wileta, CA, Ganga-country, on the cusp of Humboldt County–where marijuana is The Crop, hidden deep inside these redwood forests, cultivated and harvested.  I can feel its powerful presence and I wonder what it’s like to live in a place where most people see this plant as a plant, not a drug, but a versatile and sustainable crop. I think almost every person we have seen walking around has had a massive set of dreads, a shaved head or long crazy curls.  No straightening irons in this country.  From 18 years old to 60, people were just wild by sight and in heart, which has made us look clean cut and conservative even in our stinky camping attire. The camp we slept at was managed by a couple of helpful and lovely women who may very well have overcharged us 13 dollars for the site, but we didn’t mind.  We rolled in around 10pm and I think we may have interrupted some serious intimacy between them when we knocked on their RV door, so we were happy to pay a little extra.  At least someone is getting something, B mentions.  Not easy to get it on in a camper an arms length from your little ones.  And something about Humboldt Co., the scent in the air, the mystical herb, the layer of rain and fog, makes ya wanna just get it on.  Perhaps that’s why I see litters of kids, dready little kids in tie-dyes running around everywhere. 

***

The pounding rain on the fiberglass shell of the camper kept me up all night.  Not in a bad way, instead it lulled me into rhythmic trance where I would catch moments of deep and heavy sleep, but only for moments, the rest of the time I was lucid, but not completely rational.  I’d sit up in bed, startled after sleep would allow the noise to come back in to me, my eyes would pop open and I was coherent enough not to sit up and smack my head on the ceiling of the camper, but I was still in a state where the pitter patter of the rain was not rain but had to be little creatures running across the top.  At first thousands of little fairies scattered about the top of the camper trying to catch a glimpse of the girls through the windows, giggling and sneaky, I could feel myself get pulled into their world and I would pull back.  I’d have to  blink my eyes, tight, letting them adjust to the pitch black, and realize it was just rain tapping above me.  I’d go deep, then the same cycle would happen again, over and over all night until the color of morning made its way through our curtained windows.

Somewhere in the darkness, between sorta sleep and no sleep,  I felt drops of water fall on my forehead.  A small leak perhaps in the roof, but most likely condensation  because it wasn’t consistent.  It felt good to have the rain hit me like that, in my half-awake state.  The camper gets hot, muggy almost during the night, we all seem to kick off our covers and the girls wake up stripped down to their panties/diaper by morning.  The clean cool of the rain wiped any of that warm discomfort away and I welcomed the occasional drip-drops on my face.  It was a reminder for me that I am now entering the rain forest of the West.  I have indeed crossed over. 

And with all this rain, we are getting dirty.  Filthy.  Muddy.  The dogs are knee deep in mud and their white and black coats, so clean from the sea, are now crunched with mud.  The perfection of their coat sheds the brown away within an hour, but during that time they create a mess.  Our floor is a slippery and wet, scattered with mud plops. The bottom of my pants are soaked through and dragging. The soles of my shoes caked with mud.  But we could care less. I have these rockin’ boots; black and white polka dot, sexy-ass rain boots.  It’s brilliant to feel this clean and this dirty all at once, a perfect balance to my dual nature.  I don’t care of my hair is nappy and not washed for days, as a matter of fact, I like it better like that. But I absolutely cannot stand dry dirty feet, dirty feet are the worst, and my boots and thick wool socks leave me with soft, clean feet every night.  This kind of dirty, the cool, damp, sea, rain, cloud, muddy kind…is sexy.  Dirty is good.

King Tubby’s Dread Satta Version echos and drips, melts and reverbs through the air as we drive up past Klamath, CA, through the majestic Redwood Forest.  We travel through a tunnel of age old trees, protruding with knobs and twists and eyes that seem to follow us as we look through our foggy windows.  They are covered in moss dripping with greens, fuzzy branches, soft enough to cuddle even the weariest traveler, while the laser beams of sunlight pierce beyond the any mortal visions. The road winds and ascends to a mountain pass and with a glance to the right it almost seems like my eyes are playing a trick on me.  But I am not mistaken.  Some of the largest waves I have ever seen crash only feet from our cruising truck.  I have met my match.  Ocean meets mountains.  There truly is nothing in between these land mass formations and the foam gray of the sea.

How could anyone ever think that this land is all in jest, it is here to use and manipulate, consume and tap its resources because this is just temporary, just a place before a heaven, before some kind of manifestation of a bullshit Armageddon?  The earth is not a bank; She is not an instant teller where we can subtract from her account.  We are in Her debt, there is no doubt and we owe big.  Our relationship with this land should be symbiotic but my heart cries to me that we are not.  We are takers.  I long to see us all take care of, making that shift in consciousness is my hunger, my craving.  We have gotten to a point in this particular culture, this western United Statian culture of excess, where we have so much we are bored and lazy and even if we don’t necessarily rape the land ourselves (personally), what are we doing to take care of ? I don’t pull my pants down and shit a perverbial crap on the Earth, but what do I do to take care of, deeply and actively?  I climb down my Ladder of Green and realize not a whole hell of a lot. Alice Walker once said something about how the Earth does not pick and choose those who love her and those who don’t. She doesn’t care.  No.  She’ll cleanse us of all in the long run.   I think that if and when we start to take care of each other, as humans on a deep heart level, then without even thinking about it, we will take care of our ripe and lush home.  Or vice versa.  Maybe even at the same time, all at once.  I do have hope.  My eyes have been seeing things a bit fuzzy these days.  That can only mean a good change is right around the bend.

***

I chose to get married in the forest.  There is something so protective and surreal about it, enclosed and captivated, I almost feel other-worldly, utterly untouchable when I step down into springy earth.  And now to have the ocean crash against the edge of the rocky land while I get lost in the forest realm, almost like it captures me and won’t let me go. Sometimes I think I can get stolen forever in this dark and cave-like womb of green and brown.  Dragonflies the size of birds wiz by me.  Time becomes non-linear.

The girls wear little leather pouches around their necks, bought at some tourist spot or 2 bucks.  Inside each of the hold a special stone the found on the banks of the Klamath River, the place were we slept last night.  The finger their bags, happily and a bit anxiously.  I don’t think they are yet sure what is up ahead for them on the road.  As Sula said to me the other day, “What IS Washington?”

Next stop: Oregon, just a bit up the road.  Three nights there; 2 camping the coast and 1 in Portland. California, as usual, has been good to us.  Watching the coast evolve from The Beach to The Shore to The Cliffs, what a diverse and amazing state.  If you have never driven up the Left Coast, do it. Do it.  Do it.  I love to travel and will cross the oceans and explore land around the globe, but there is nothing quite like following the merging of where the ocean meets the land and mountains.  I mean, I look to the left now and I realize that the next piece of land is probably like China.  I am on the edge of the earth and the next stop is China.  It makes me tingle all over.