Returning from Socorro to Eugene

In 1973 I lived briefly in a house on Cross Street across from Chef Francisco, near the switching yard, where the great behemoths of train engines sang their unknowable questions and answers, their giant greetings, into the night. It was a house shared with my son Rock, my daughter Wendy, my partner Wayne, his daughter Sandy, and our friends Pam and Mark, while we prepared to move onto a piece of unimproved land near Cottage Grove. We'd come from Santa Barbara, California. I read Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion to familiarize myself with this new land, the Northwest.

Our farm was a miracle--the work of our hands and our hearts--an expression of love. We lived there 5 years in a home we built from materials gleaned from the demolition of the old Cottage Grove Hardware Store, on a foundation of pilings that had been railroad ties. We cleared brush and scrub, grew an acre of garden, ground wheat berries purchased from a neighbor, raised goats and chickens, ate from the bounty these all produced, and sweetened our food with feed grade molasses from Lane County Feed and Seed on 5th Street in Eugene. Others who lived with us, a dozen of us for a while, found us through the Eugene Youth Hostel, or just heard about us--we put out the word. Despite the craziness that occurs among randomly gathered humans, the years on our farm were some of the happiest of my life.

Over the three decades that followed my arrival in Oregon, I lived here most of the time, returning to Eugene when the farmhouse was burned down by an angry drug addicted man. And again when the beautiful house we rebuilt there was also burned (as promised incidentally.)

After a short sojourn in California a few years later, and then three years back in South Dakota with my family of origin, I came back to Oregon with my three young sons and a promise to stay while they grew up. We landed then on land southwest of Dillard on Rice Creek Road, later living in Dillard, and then in Roseburg, during the last year of my youngest son Andy's life. When he died, of cancer, I left Roseburg and came to Eugene to the U of O, with the intent of going beyond my RN, to become a clinical psychologist.

That goal was never reached and my life just went on, in typical single mom style, inadequate income, inadequate social life, inadequate expressions of my arts and skills, until I got fed up and disoriented and just wanted out from under the trees--dripping rain during the major part of the year, and pollen during another significant period of months. There were moments of course, visits to the coast with Day and Arlo, Shumba, contra dancing, Healing Touch, getting my bus, writing a newsletter back to y'all from our bus trip across the country, the spirit group and our visits to Edison Chiloquin's land, celebrating this and that, dancing in the street, hugs from friends. Still, I had to go, I had to get away.

I thought about going back to South Dakota, yearning for open sky and sunshine, but my dreams showed me places that had to be in the canyon lands of New Mexico and I felt myself drawn there. I explored several towns, worked as a traveling nurse in Gallup, visited friends in Arizona, didn't really wanna come back but got called back to a good job and had not really figured out how I would support myself in a new place.

Eventually in a period of work stress exhaustion I stopped working, went on Social Security, and started living with various grown kids. Day, in Parrishville, New York. Rock in Winchester, Virginia. I had got back together with my bus--the Purple Bus--and had an idea that I'd get it back on the road and it would take me to New Mexico. Progress toward that end was made, the bus has a new paint job, and work has been done on the brakes and the engine. But it wasn't fast enough for me. I wanted to go to New Mexico.

I just took off and drove there once, summer of 2006, and blew up the little car I had before I arrived in Albuquerque. I stayed in Albuquerque 3 months and loved it actually but never got to where I could actually afford it, didn't seriously look for work, then did look for work and found it but sabotaged my efforts by making a false move to Carlsbad, New Mexico to pursue a relationship with a man I didn't know--I was there less than a week before I was on my way back to (you guessed it--Eugene!) Hey its not my fault. Two of my sons were going to be here during that winter, and there was a big annual gathering with their father (Wayne)'s family in California and I decided to be part of that whole scene. So I was in Eugene again, and even worked, taught a little class at Pioneer College. I did really enjoy being with my sons and my daughter in law and my grandchildren. It was nice. But the contrast of that winter of 2006 after leaving southern New Mexico...Oh my god! In April of that year I started back to New Mexico, but was sidetracked by the suggestion that the bus might be ready to go, and I landed in Virginia again instead. I spent about four months in Virginia growing increasingly dissatisfied in the steam heat of that summer, and then got wise and did what had to be done.


[Click photo to enlarge]

With divine guidance and the encouragement of friends I took the necessary steps--visited the town I chose from my research--visited twice and found both a job and place to live. I moved to Socorro, New Mexico, last October--October, 2007. My work was with a State of New Mexico program to prevent tobacco use, and encourage cessation. Based in a small office at Socorro Mental Health, my work took me also to the village of Magdalena--26 miles up the mountain, and out to the Alamo Navajo Reservation, another half hour beyond Magdalena, and also out to a community center of almost entirely Spanish speaking people--Veguita. Besides planning and in-office counseling for people trying to quit smoking, my work involved education and resource tables at community events like fairs, rodeos, and sports; participation in community meetings--health coalitions, mayor's anti-drug force, and such; and participation in statewide organizational and educational meetings. Having work that involved out of office events and networking was much to my liking.

I like the size of Socorro too, liked walking to the library and the grocery store and seeing the same people. There's a university there too--New Mexico Tech. The town is mostly dusty and dirty and full of tumbleweeds. Lots could be done with native and sustainable plantings and gardening. I expected to do that sort of thing and spread the idea. But got no chance to more than just begin making friends and getting involved with my new town before I faced this latest challenge.

(to be continued...)