IT'S BEEN A GOOD TWENTY-TWO YEARS

     We're back in the old neighborhood - on 42nd Street! Aspen and I met here in this neighborhood a little over twenty-two years ago, just two blocks from here on 44th Street. It's been a long journey since then, yet we've really only traveled two blocks.

      So, why are we back? What's different? How has the neighborhood changed? How have we changed?

      Well, for one thing, we're twenty-two years older now. Aspen's no longer twenty-one years to my fifty-two. Now she's forty-three to my seventy-four. We also have three sons now, ranging from big Callahan at eight years, through Jake at a good five and a half, to little Zane (getting bigger so quick!) at two years.

      How did all this happen? What have we been doing these past twenty-two years? And why are we back? All this is best answered by looking back over our trail that began here in this very neighborhood all those many years ago and ended back here again this past spring.

      At first, when we left here back then, we lived for awhile in a number of other houses in Boulder and Denver. Aspen completed her training as a Vet Tech in Denver. We both did a lot of odd jobs here and there. We gardened. We walked dogs. We cleaned office buildings. But it finally became too boring. So we put all our things in storage and left for a rainbow gathering in Wyoming. We came back here from that one all fired up for traveling. We bought a van, a Dodge, one of the best cars I've ever had. Then we set off on our odyssey, heading to the West Coast.

      It didn't exist anymore, the West Coast I'd come from. We tried though. We hung on in Eugene, Oregon for awhile. We rode our bikes everywhere. Eugene's the perfect bicycling town. We swam in the Willamette River. We worked, helping a lady with her garden. But as soon as we made enough money for gas, we headed down to Santa Cruz.

      Santa Cruz was interesting. We were broke. We parked, overlooking the bay in the daytime. We parked in the neighborhoods at night. Once I thought I heard a baby or a woman screaming in pain. Aspen said it was just a woman having good sex.

      We were going on to Dinky Creek in the High Sierras. Dinky is the most magical place in the world for me. I've healed myself there more than once. It's my real home in this world. I want to wander off alone there and get lost when I'm really old.

      Anyway, we were in Santa Cruz, and I was out of smoke. I wanted some for Dinky. I've always done medicines at Dinky. I always will. But it was really dry in Santa Cruz. Finally though, I found a young man standing on a corner off the main drag. I felt drawn to him. He and I talked, and I bought enough from him to have one hit a day for the next ten days. I figured that would be enough. It was.

      Dinky was magical. A hummingbird flew into our camp and hovered just in front of my face. A coyote came near at night. The nighttime sky was beautiful. The creek was just right. We swam in the big pool and dove under the falls. We connected again.

      I remember we started thinking about having kids then. Once we found a little island below the falls and made love, hoping that would bring us a baby. It didn't though. It was years later before we were really ready to be parents.


      We came back from Dinky to Boulder. It was fall, and we wanted to be inside and warm for the winter. We got stuck here though and stayed for almost ten years! However, we did take a fair number of trips and had many adventures during that time. We organized the 1992 rainbow gathering here in Colorado. We even went to the gathering in Vermont the year before to convince folks that it was time to come home (the first gathering had been here in Colorado, back in 1972.)

      We were at the Colorado gathering for over three weeks. We lived in our tipi and hung out a lot at Popcorn Palace. We visited with old friends we had met at previous gatherings or on our travels. We made a lot of new friends too.


     We finally did get free of Boulder six years later, in 1998, heading to another rainbow gathering, this one in Arizona. After that amazing gathering, we came back to Boulder and moved ourselves and all our things to Tucson.

      I loved Arizona. Aspen didn't. I could see why. There was no water. You couldn't garden at all. And God, was it hot, even in June. And it didn't cool down at night. I really loved the desert, but I loved Aspen more.

      So we continued on down the road, heading west again, this time to LA, where I started out many long years, many long miles ago. My son Jonathan lives there. It was so good to see him.

      After visiting with him and his family as well as my brother and his family, we tried to find a place to live out there. But nothing came to us. We were having fun there, but it wasn't home.

      So after awhile, we headed back to Tucson. Oh, and by the way, we were pregnant by then. We had conceived on Valentine's Day, the year before. We lived in Tucson for awhile, but it just didn't work out. And then my friend Wayne invited us to live on his organic fruit farm on the West Slope here in Colorado.

      So we moved once again. Our furniture was getting warn out just from being moved about so much. I did all the moving this time. Aspen was pretty ripe by then. The farm, White Buffalo Farm, in Paonia was just what we needed. A river ran by. There were trees. It was green. We were home.

      Or so we thought, but no, because after Callahan was born, when he was almost eight months old, we left for another rainbow gathering, this one in Montana. We never came back to the farm, except to move our stuff once again. Instead, we finally came home to Boulder.

      We were flat broke too. We'd spent all our money moving about. We house sat for awhile, until we were finally able to rent a small two-bedroom apartment, thinking it would only be temporary. By the time all three of the boys had arrived though, seven years later, that apartment was way too small. And we were all going crazy there.

      So we worked a small miracle, and here we are, in our house, back in the neighborhood.


      So what is different? I'd say we're a little wiser and perhaps a bit more compassionate too. We see ourselves as being here on assignment. We've wandered outside the law for a long time, so we must be honest, that is, conscious. Our work here is to maintain our wild, outlaw but honest, living on the edge natures, right here, right in the middle of Babylon. And we're still wandering, wandering through Babylon now, back in the Hood.

      Mostly, we've spent every day these past eight years, from early morning till late at night, sometimes through the night, being parents. Both of us, full time! Our two older boys are in a nearby elementary school. It's a good one, and, while the boys are there, we get some time off from active, here and now parenting. Except for Zane, who's always with us. We've had lots of serious illnesses to deal with, kids waking up crying from bad dreams in the middle of the night, and sometimes really bad news such as finding out that Jake has muscular dystrophy. We love being parents though. We feel truly blessed.

      We're just like all the other parents around here too, except I'm old enough to be everybody's grandpa. Everyone likes and accepts us, at the school and in the neighborhood too. I feel that they sense yet somehow accept our wildness, maybe they're even attracted to it.

      Probably the biggest difference in our lives is this: last year, we went to the rainbow gathering here in Colorado, we even crossed police lines to get there. They were trying to bust everyone for camping without a permit. We stayed for two weeks, camping out in our big family tent. We all loved it. And, we came back.

     We did come back - and we did move again, the pattern did hold, but just out of that tiny apartment and into this big house, with three bedrooms, a study, and a huge and wonderful backyard. We're home. Now we're plugging into the neighborhood and starting to produce something besides children.

      Basically, in our own quiet way, we're showing folks that they can take care of themselves. We showing them they can stop being afraid. They don't need to put up with a corrupt and dictatorial government. They don't need to kiss the boss's ass. We own this country, the government doesn't. Those fuckers work for us.

      Somewhere along the way though, all the folks, those who never got out of the cities, never let go of the nine to five life, and never woke up to who they really were, all of them lost their nerve. They let those lying politicians steal our country away from them.

      Aspen and I have spent the last twenty-two years testing and honing our nerve. We have followed the flow. We have lived on the edge. We have survived with nothing. We have always found work. We've stayed healthy. We have done well by our boys too. We have done poor very well. We are done with that now though. We want to do comfortable now. We want the boys to be part of the world we have reentered. We want to have enough money for them to enjoy this world.

      Our boys love this world. They like being part of the culture we're in now. They're enjoying it. They loved the rainbow gathering too. They aren't culture bound. And Callahan just hiked with me up to Blue Lake, above 10,000 feet. We hiked the six miles round trip and Callahan was right on the whole time. He's really high. When he and I go hiking, he doesn't want to go home until it's dark. He becomes so in tune with nature. And Jake is a wise old man in a boy's body. He's so in touch with his feelings too. I wonder why he volunteered for this life. I'm amazed by him, watching his life unfold. I'm also very eager to see who little Zane becomes. Right now, he's just non-stop primal.


      As a final thought, with regard to Jake, I do expect a miracle. I'm praying and dedicating every high moment of my life to sending him healing energy. I figure if a cosmic ray can blast into his Dystrophic gene and mess with it (the doctors say that's what happened,) then maybe I can ask for another one to be sent into that gene again, this time to straighten it back out. It can happen. When I was a boy, when I was so ill, I was told I'd never walk again. I didn't believe them then, and I'm still walking. I want the same for Jake. Reading Larry Dossey's book, Space, Time, and Medicine, has inspired me to thoughts like this.

     By Eugene Marks