1976

I am 30 years old. Michelle turns 11 in December. We live in the white farmhouse in Lakewood, though this is our last year here I believe. One day soon the owner, who lives next door, will come and give me the news that his oldest daughter and her family are returning to Colorado and will want to live in this house. But of course. Who wouldn't? It's a sweet little place, came to me by magic. That is, I had searched and searched for a place to live. Then I gave up, I consciously just let go and left it up to the universe. That day an old friend called and said her father had a place to rent that just came available. That I consider some of my early spiritual teachings. At any rate, Michelle is 10 and Beth turns 7 in May. Michelle enters 6th grade in the fall; Beth is in first grade. Beth wants to run away from home, a statement I consider cute and encourage. She does run away once, but only goes a short distance. Just like the cartoons. I don't look deeper into what might be going on for her.

My brother Jon died the prior winter, though I don't remember the exact month. This was the summer that Claudia, Marci, and Becca stayed with us. I had a wonderful time this summer. We had a neighbor who got a bit weird on us, but it merely added some drama to our lives, didn't touch us deeply. He was an attorney who lived way across the pasture. But he got fixated on us - two single women with four children all living together. We had a huge canvas tent in the backyard for all the toys. I suppose looking at us there was room for suspicion. Though, while I would take this situation at face value if I saw it (there are many that I don't), this man saw much in us that wasn't there. He became obsessed with us, with finding out something wrong with us. He called the police on us, he called social services, he snuck around our yard and watched our comings and goings. One night we had some friends over (two men, oo-la-la). We stood up abruptly when they were leaving at 10:30 apparently. At least too abruptly for our neighbor to get his tail out of the driveway before I opened the door and turned on the porch light. Oh my God. I was so mad. I followed him down the road screaming obscenities at him, telling him I better not ever see his mf a-- anywhere near my house or I'd have his mf a-- in jail. But that was the only time I ever really lost it with him. We mostly just ignored him and shook our heads when the police or social services showed up - as they did also: "Sorry, ma'am. He seems to have a fixation here. But we have to follow up."

So the summer ended. Claudia et al returned to the mountains to live I believe, and I went back to college in the fall. These were good years, with the exception I suppose of my continual and eternal gypsyness. Interesting that I had spent my entire growing up years in one small mountain town. Now all I wanted to do was move, move, move. One day I'll have to try to remember all the places we moved to and - most importantly - why!?!?!

We move from Lakewood to Denver, to a big two-story house. Michelle and Beth began going to Catholic school. Heh-heh, now there's a keen idea. I'd probably strongly advise against it if they were to suggest it for their kids. I could now ride the bus to school and even work. I did not have to have regular daycare anymore as I could often arrange my schedule to be home when they were. I also had roommates. Some rather odd ones to be sure. OneAfrican-American woman - beautiful, smart, studying pre-law. In those years she had all the opportunities. Not long after she moved in I realized that she was selling drugs of some sort. She had a steady stream of "friends" who would stop by for a short time. I also discovered that she was bi and enjoyed going to drag bars or something. I don't know. She didn't stay long. At any rate, one of the ways I afforded my college - aside from the loans and grants I got, and they were good in those days for a woman in my situation - was to cut down on my expenses and rent the upstairs. I continued working for Dr Gander, though on a schedule that worked for me. He was very sweet to me and very encouraging of my desire to return to school and get a degree.

I don't remember any men in my life at this time. Perhaps Jeff. He and I had a nice long-term relationship and perhaps it extended into this year. Though since he attended law school in Louisiana we only saw each other in the summers. Little did I know I was his summer sweetheart only. His fiancee lived in Louisiana. I found this all out when a mutual friend told me of his engagement. Well, it was a blow to my ego but not to my heart. I wasn't really in love with him. He was nice to us and didn't demand much of me and we had some good times together. I entertained ideas of marriage occassionally but there was no real energy or desire behind the thought. During this period my circle of friends were Tom, Gary, Claudia, Mary, Sherri and a few other odd souls. All of these relationships were platonic. All revolved around our mutual interest in exploring spiritual matters. Tom taught a visualization class. We had weekly discussions around Seth Speaks, Sherri aspired to be a channeler, Gary talked of meeting aliens and was indeed capable of "traveling", we took EST in the summer of '76.