from lush to lush

woke up remembering when i visited the intentional community called twin oaks after moving away from portland the last time i left. wonder if i will keep repeating this until i die: move to portland to start a new life, or at least experience a different version of myself, write hundreds of poems that almost no one hears or reads, grow frustrated & disenchanted (but how & when did i ever get so enchanted in the first place & when will i learn my lesson?) i spent a week at there learning about the community. one of the founders picked me up at the greyhound terminal. people were surprised as didn't normally do that. i had read her book "is it utopia yet?" and liked her. she was very real & salty, which reminded me of my mom. i was 28. i remember being aware that it was my saturn return, that the planet saturn returning to the position in the sky it was located at the time of my birth, which it does every seven years or so. the 28th year being an especially momentous phase. i remember the lush virginia woods. i remember going for a canoe ride down the james river which flowed nearby, followed by a gregarious irish setter who swam & swam alongside, worrying us. i remember them telling us you could only be naked around the community after nine o'clock. i remember hitting it off with a wizardly, gypsy looking guy from new york, drumming beside a fire in the dark. we were gonna do a spoken word & percussion collaboration for the visitor's talent show at the end of our stay, but his girlfriend broke up with him and he was too despondent to play. i remember waking up everyone in the visitor's cabin with claustrophobic nightmares. i remember applying to become a member of the community, which required each applicant to tell their life story for an hour to a visitor's committee, which was daunting for me because it doesn't take too long before my story enters terrible pain. i woke up wishing i had a recording of that story. 

http://www.twinoaks.org/