Mexico Bound-Our Story (Part 4)

Paula was coming back. I drove into East Sound and picked her up from the airport. (It was actually a run way where a single engine plane could land and take off.) I was very excited to see her after our time apart. I was dirty, dressed in my manly green frock, my hair was henna red and shaved into a long mohawk. Welcome home baby!

When she stepped off the plane I was stunned. She was radiante, with a short spiked hair cut, a fauxe white fur coat, a black velet hat and mini skirt. Remember we had been living a grungy life style there at Doe Bay. (It was the early 90's and we were just outside of Seattle) So seeing her all primped and pampered was breath taking. Thing's were looking good.

But romantic moments aren't made to last, except in books and movies. We went back to our love shack in the woods, back to the disfuntional. My sense of what was right and wrong was not completely gone. I knew that even though I was not planning on marrying this person, she was going to have our baby, and I must do the right thing and marry her. (I don't know why that was what I thought, but it was. I knew it before she returned.)

"Paula will you marry me?"

"No!"

What? You have got to be kidding me. It was like jumpping in a cold lake. I couldn't believe she was saying no. I was crushed. It hurt. I was not going to ask again. So that was it. We would be the babies Mommy and Daddy and life would go on. No worries. Except for the fact that life around us was melting down as Winter pressed in. The harder the conditions the worse everyone was treating each other and we were not pleased with it. P had traveled with the sun as she had been bouncing around and the cold grey of the Pacific North West was getting to her. It was time for a move. We needed to find a place to have the baby and it needed to be warm.

I had read a book about being a plant Shaman and had seen that there was a man in Mexico that I could study Plant Shamanisim under. For those of you who are not familiar with Plant Shamaisim, it is the spiritual practice of learning to commune and talk with the spirit of plants so that you can heal the plants and be guided by them.

We decided that was it. That was our plan. We would leave Doe Bay, head for Mexico so I could become a plant shaman, stop at my dads place in San Diego to earn some money, and P could have the baby down there. (Mexico is cheap) We had a gas card, about 20 bucks and a few cans of soup for the journey. We loaded all our stuff into her 1977 Chinook pick-up/pop-up camper. All of our stuff fit into 4 small cardboard boxes. It was raining as we left. (Rain in Seattle?) And the floor board of the Chinook was rusted out and covered with cardboard. So within an hour of leaving my legs were soaked up to the knees from water spraying up through the floor board. This was going to be a long trip. Wet pants, a sick pregnant girl friend, no food or money, and we were running out of illegal substances to smoke. It couldn't get much worse, could it?

NEXT MONTH: HOW DID I END UP BACK IN MY HOME TOWN?