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The Diaries

One year, five months and 27 days in (4 more nights to go, I hope): Meditating with the butterfly in the “house” parking lot near dusk, trying not to hope for home

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Good evening, mi-ta-qui-asi (the phonetic Sioux for “all my relations”). I am alternately calm, fearful and anxious – all those feelings trying to co-exist within this felon’s frame. I now feel what I have observed for these many months – the stretching of time and the flattening of focus so near to the front door of this “house”. If all goes well, in four days, I will be finishing my final outside visitors’ time with some of you in around 96 hours. And then I will lay down and try to sleep, without really expecting to. Tomorrow, one of the nicer dormies in the “grown men’s dorm” will leave ahead of me – a long-time north Nashville gangster, heroin and cocaine dealer, married to the same woman for all of his 30+ years, now going to church with her on Sundays and spending the rest of his time doing others’ laundry and taking handfuls of the 20+ medications that he now takes for diabetes, high blood pressure and who knows whatever else. A nice man, a bright man, a connected man – and one of only a few housemates to be invited to my farm on May 19. I look forward to all y’all meeting him, to recognize the humanity and the spark in this man. He is not typical of the folks who have flowed through here, but he is not alone in his value, his sense of place and his fiber.

The fear comes from not knowing whether something will yet happen to keep me from leaving this place or replacing this one with an even more restrictive home. The publicity on my case continues, with the nashville Scene running a follow-up piece (printed on a red background) entitled” The Belly of the Beast”, detailing my lock-down situation. The original article (“Marijuana Martyr”) now appears on 100+ web-sites, and has been reprinted in every weekly newspaper owned by the same corporation that owns the Scene. That means that your favorite felon’s sacrilegious face has now appeared in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans and all points in all directions. That fact – this saturation of one man’s story (a man who happens to be me) led to a call on Wednesday from CNN, and a 45 minute taped interview with one of their reporters on Friday, in anticipation of a two day visit by the reporter and a film crew this week. They plan to be waiting for me on Thursday morning, to film me leaving the halfway house early in the morning and then following me for two days (and maybe three) as I do what I want and need to do to get back into the real world.

At this point, what I plan to do is to buy a big cup of coffee at my favorite Starbuck’s (and to hug several of the waitresses there, since I have not seen them since the lock-down), to go pick up my gardening tools, chainsaw and lawnmower from Carla’s and show off the flower beds and other plantings one last time, and then to stop at the Turnip Truck to pick arugula and lettuce for Jonellie (and to feed the broccoli and cauliflower planted there for her and her boys) before heading to her house to mow her backyard and to run my hands through her flower beds one more time. Once those final routines of the last seconds of my urban minute are complete, it will be time to head southwest.

Though I don’t often do it, I will drive the Natchez trace home, to give the Atlanta film crew a preview of the life to which I am returning – the open forests, the lush green grass, the turkeys, hawks and deer. The short, slow drive home.

What happens thereafter is anyone’s guess. My guess is that we will walk the land, I will work in the garden a while, I will hang a double-wide Pauley Island hammock between two black walnut trees, above my garden and the small break in the bedrock that is my foot-high waterfall by the front porch. I will lay on the deck a while and let Duke and Annie have their way with me. I will haul water from the spring and – after walking and working a while – will bathe in the deep spot in front of that same spring, lathering up and rinsing off with cold, clear water. I will fire up the sauna, no matter how hot a day it is, and will keep it warm for my first long, timeless sweat before the long, dark, quiet sleep in my own bed. Though I almost never do this, I will likely invite the dogs into the bedroom with me so that I can reach over during the night and stroke their noses. 9My guess is that they will be so unfamiliar with that gesture that I will end up letting them back outside soon enough.)

If I am lucky, I will host a few community elders as the sun sets on the farm, gathered together to speak with the CNN crew about whatever they want to – again to share the sentiment and the substance of my country home with those city folks (from a city that held me in its traffic jams and pretensions back in 1990-91, when I was briefly a CDC official, the only one with a battered pick-um-truck and a big bumper-sticker that showed a syringe with the words “Bush/Noriega, 1988” inside. Before New Mexico called and the borders of my life changed forever.

Those borders always change, if we keep moving. And even if we stay in the same place, they keep growing if we stay alert and active and adventurous (and subversive). Rust never sleeps, a rolling stone gathers no moss, and the only thing worse than a hopeless romantic is a hopeful one. “May we live in interesting times” – did the Chinese really mean that as a curse, or simply a challenge?

As restless as I am feeling, three things have brought me peace and a sense of fulfillment. I received word in mid-week that the Tennessee medical marijuana bill is moving in our legislature, with passage out of the House Health sub-committee and testimony scheduled in both the House and Senate full committees this next week. My testimony is requested and I have requested permission to attend. Given the arrogance of my PO and the “house” director, I don’t know if even a summons from our state legislature will mean anything to them. If not, there will be other chances and plenty of work to do. But the ball is rolling now, when only a few weeks ago, it was stone-still. That is good, and makes everything worth it at this moment. People are standing up for compassion and common sense, they are swimming to the middle of the river, finding others there, and rejoicing.

Then yesterday, a friend (Ginny Welsch) who founded WRFN (“radio Free Nashville”) brought by a four CD set that is the recording of the “Save Bernie’s Farm” benefit – all four hours of it. And I got to lay in my bunk and listen to that music and those voices (including my own, for a brief moment yelling into a cell-phone in the “house”parking lot to the supporters assembled at the Belcourt), lay and listened to that protest concert in its entirety, twice, until the batteries in my bartered CD player (the first I have ever owned) ran down. Soaked it all up, holding the small earphones up to my ears until my forearms cramped – but not stopping until all the electricity of that “new” toy faded. Then passing on one of the CDs to “Old School” so he could hear the blues and soul that issued from that concert a short time ago. Watching him smile and sway on his bunk across the floor from me made me feel good too. We two old-timers – Old School and Big Man – reminding each other of what all we have in common.

And then this evening, sitting in the parking lot after the heat of the day had gone – serving as the landing place for a beautiful orange and brown butterfly that felt nothing to fear from me. And so it returned over and over again, to rest on my light blue t-short, on my chest and arms and then crawling on my hand. Small hairs covering its back, tentacles flecked in white, a long tongue unrolling to taste me and then to retreat. My Earth Mother not leaving me to feel alone, at this anxious time. Telling me – showing me – how close She is. As close as the nearest (beautiful) living thing. Reminding me of Jonell’s and Susan’s and Karen’s and Barbara’s and Grant’s (and so many of your) words:

“Let go and let Goddess”. The “house” is now closed and I must retreat to have my head counted once more – for four more days and then (pray tell) nevermore.

Until I write again (or walk out of here for the last time), keep breathing for both of us.

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