Gathering Of The Tribe

A year ago on Valentine’s Day, my work-exchange tenant Dee moved back to Los Angeles to stay with an ailing friend, and my experience of living off-grid in the redwood forest in Philo changed.

When I moved here from the suburbs of Los Angeles to this remote Philo property we call Dragonwood in 2019, I brought a menagerie of animals and people. My good friend Morris and his wife, the aforementioned Dee, were my property managers and helped me with the small animal rescue called Pixie Dust Ranch that I run from my backyard. I brought a large pony, goats, felines and canines, and a random traveling peacock with me when I moved in. Since then Morris has passed away, Dee stayed on in their RV, and we have had a few property managers take a crack at it, so most days, there have been others here. Until February 14, 2023, when I found myself suddenly living alone in the woods.

Thoreau was not far off when he famously wrote in Walden: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach …” Of course he said more than that, but I found myself mirroring the experience of learning what I hadn’t had to learn before, when “back up” people lived here and could help me out when needed.

Living alone in the woods proved challenging mostly because of having to feed the animals twice a day without said “back up.” In the winter, that sunset at 4:45 p.m. made every trip to town feel like an emergency as I hurried home trying to beat the darkness, since Rad the Peacock won’t eat dinner after sunset. (More about Rad the Peacock can be discovered in the September 2021 AVA: https://theava.com/archives/164475. )

Also, coming through the main gate after dark is no fun either. You know nighttime is when the big cats and bears come out, right? Getting out of the vehicle to open and close the gate in the pitch darkness always has me imagining every killer-in-the-woods horror movie I have ever watched. But once I get past the gate and back in my car and drive the dirt road home to Dragonwood, I always feel safe (especially with my 120-pound-plus guardian dogs protecting us all from such night-time beasts).

Over my year spent alone, I enjoyed the solitude, and I did grow used to the quiet, and could appreciate hearing only the familiar sounds of the ravens and blue jays, the chortling creek, the wind in the trees, and even, the sound of silence.

I had time to write, and to deeply think. I took on a few extra work projects. I communed with the trees, sun, sky, moon, and stars, and all of the local wildlife, and of course the rescue animals on the property. We all shared a sweet, peaceful existence together that I soon grew very used to. But with everything on the entire property becoming only my responsibility, I realized that this phase of my life had to be temporary. Even leaving the property for more than an overnight trip was a challenge. I enjoyed the serenity, but was no longer as free to come and go as I was when others resided here as well.

In late spring 2023, my boss Ken, who was also my friend and mentor, passed away, and I lost my main job. Things looked bleak. Ken’s life partner is my long-time business partner Gin, and both of us found ourselves under-employed and struggling with such a huge loss. I found myself in a type of “walkabout” almost losing Ken made me realize that I also hadn’t fully mourned a flurry of other losses. I found Amanda, an excellent and supportive grief counselor through the Anderson Valley Health Center, and finally was able to dig into the emotions I hadn’t released about losing my mother in 2018, which spurred my move in 2019 to Philo. Since then, I also lost most of our very elderly resident animals one-by-one over the past half decade: the potbelly pig, three goats, my favorite best dog in the whole world, and the big red pony.

While attending grief counseling sessions, I also started to see an acupuncturist for the first time ever at the same Boonville medical center. I was a tad bit skeptical at first, mostly because I was concerned about the idea of needles being inserted in my skin, and I didn’t know much about that ancient art. From the first session, I was impressed that while the therapy was subtle, my temporomandibular disorder (TMJ) from an old jaw bone injury was softened and less painful. Subsequent acupuncture appointments twice a month soon proved completely beneficial to my entire being, and missing a session once due to a fallen tree in my driveway showed me how steadily my healing was going via acupuncture, by how I felt when I *didn’*t have it done. I’m a huge acupuncture fan now, and so grateful for Melanie’s professional and insightful ongoing care.

Meanwhile, I found that being here alone in the deep woods was incredibly healing in other ways too. I had time to reflect without interruption. I watched self-help seminars and learned more about positive thinking and affirmations, and learned a lot about self-care, including yoga, breathing, restful sleep, and even “slugging” (a moisturizing regime). I became a bit of a recluse, writing my novels surrounded only by trees, nature, and the ranch animals. I didn’t have a lot of visitors because I was mostly staying in my private studio cabin and not utilizing the Aframe “community house,” which meant I wasn’t building fires or cooking big meals, but just keeping to myself for the first time in my adult life.

In January 2024, I heard from Dee that her friend she was caring for had passed away and she was coming back home in February. She moved back in mid-February, a year and a day after leaving in 2023. By that time, I was feeling emotionally healthy again and my counselor and I mutually decided to end the grief therapy sessions right before Dee returned. At the same time, another impending tenant, Terese, who has been setting up an RV at Dragonwood for a few months, worked out her living situation here and also moved in. Meanwhile, another old friend I’d met in Mendocino in the mid-90s, who we called Mendo Jen, was facing a housing crisis of her own. Though she isn’t “country tough” (yet!), I extended an offer for her to move onto our schoolbus guest RV, with many warnings and caveats about country living culture shock (the bus is the same “Flaming Green Pickle Bus” mentioned in AVA in December 2019:

https://theava.com/archives/114914)/ . So Mendo Jen and her elderly cat she’d gotten years ago through Pixie Dust Ranch also moved to Dragonwood after a 25-plus year absence from Mendocino County, the same weekend Dee and Terese moved in. I went from being alone for a year to having three badass female work-exchange tenants join me at Dragonwood within 72 hours. It was downright magical.

Everyone is still getting settled. I call myself the Drill Seargent, not because I bark out orders and get people to do pushups, but I am “training” everyone all the “ins and outs” of living on this unique deep-woods property. Our last few days have been hopping; Dee getting settled into the Aframe while she gets her RV ready to move back in. Jen and her elderly cat getting situated as she gets used to “bus life,” and Terese like the perfect guardian angel helping everyone and making sure all have power, generators, lighting, firewood, etc.

The animals are loving this new transition. The Aframe stripey cat Cleopawtra is ecstatic; she’s mostly lived alone the past couple of years in that big hard-to-heat 60 foot tall house, but now has someone to sleep next to, and four women who all want to pet her. The guardian dogs have “Dee the Treat Lady” back, and couldn’t be happier as well. Rad the Peacock has always loved Dee and is excited she has returned. Rad is content watching all the activity from his perch in his “winter apartment” built in an old wood storage structure. Dee talks to him and gives him bites of her PB&J sandwiches too. What more could a peacock want?

It really hit me how different things are at Dragonwood the other day as I walked into the Aframe from my studio: It was warm from a fire I didn’t build, and there was food cooking to nourish us all that I didn’t prepare; the women were all chatting, and I was even offered a much-appreciated alcoholic beverage made with booze I didn’t buy. The next morning when I went in to get the Aframe coffee pot going, I noticed the daytime kitchen light I remembered turning off the night before was on. Puzzled, and upon further investigation, I discovered there was a freshly-made pot of hot coffee ready to go. I could hear the Hallelujah chorus in my mind. Coffee! Coffee that I didn’t have to make myself! A feeling of contentment has washed over this whole place. There is a new sense of “gathering.” Dragonwood is a community once again.

There is a definite vibe here now I jokingly call *Green Acres Meets Golden Girls*, but in reality, that’s not too far off: though some of us started off as “city slickers,” I also lived in the country in Comptche before electricity was brought to the south end of Flynn Creek Road in the early-90s, and have experienced my share of off-grid, outhouse-journeying, getting-water-at-the-trough-on-Comptche-Ukiah-Road type of living. But like Eva Gabor’s character, I also have enjoyed living the city life in LA , including being a part of the underground music scene, and spending weekends dressing up and going out to clubs, (which is probably why I now dress up just to go to Safeway). Like in a twisted combination of those two old TV shows, we are a conglomeration of women living together, and making it work.

Dragonwood feels like a warm and welcoming home once again. With everyone pitching in, I still have time to write and work remotely, and I can worry less about the property details since I have help again. When I returned home past sunset from Fort Bragg earlier this week, the animals were fed and in bed, thanks to Dee. Jen is acclimating with wise Terese’s counsel, and we are all making plans together in the “real world,” starting with Jen and Terese getting a local hair cutting appointment together, with Dee driving them there.

We are all distinct individuals with differing personalities. But for now we are experiencing a comfortable end-of-winter together, and like those vibrant spring flowers about to pop all over Mendocino County after these challenging rains, we too will likely bloom in a beautiful way as we figure out our individual places here. As we unfurl, I believe we will continue to respect this unique environment, thrive and especially, heal, as we all move forth, just a tribe of women creating a new life surrounded by a forest of trees.