Most likely I take after my dad, whom I’ve never met but who is someone—or something—called “Wolf Man.” The only thing Mom ever said about him was that he was good with the herb and a real hit with the ladies—probably in the parking lots of Phish shows. Whatever.
I’ve never missed having a father. That’s because I grew up on Rain Catcher Farms, a communal organic farm north of Mendocino, and that place is always crawling with people. Some of them come in for the harvest, but others, like my mom and me, stay for years. And I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to stay forever. It’s awesome. I’m a big reader, and I don’t use words lightly, so when I say awesome, I mean that the place, when seen, elicits true awe because of its beauty. The farm is in a small, lush valley, with gold-and-green mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Everyone eats and hangs out in the Main, a pretty, old carriage barn filled with books and plants and hammocks; beyond the gate, a mile-long white-gravel road leads to a stretch of pristine, wild beach.
Mom and I lived in a cabin in a grove of redwoods near the Sanctuary, the root garden she created. She was the RC’s root doctor. People came from all around for Rain Catcher tinctures, and our products contributed a nice amount of money for the commune. Her garden, a lush, quiet, magical spot, was hidden from the world by a high wooden fence. It was the sweetest place anyone could imagine. The walls were covered with vines and flowers so thick they were woven together, like pretty knots of unkempt hair. Inside you were only allowed to talk in a whisper, as it was her theory that plants grow better in the quiet. She was always saying that the ground is alive—that one must work with Mother Earth and not just use what she has to offer. Sometimes Mom would simply sit under the trees, listening to the leaves rustle. “They’re whispering to me,” she’d say. To her, the life cycle of plants stood for the connection between the living and the dead.
As soon as I was old enough to crawl, I started working in the RC fields. Instead of Sesame Street songs, I learned the ins and outs of how to grow organic broccoli, kale, potatoes, beets, even bananas—basically anything that comes out of the ground. As I got older, Mom let me participate in what she called her “rituals.” Mostly, these were homeopathic medicines and treatments. For instance, did you know that red-onion root is a sure cure for early colds? Or that gingerroot tea will make your period come if it’s, as my mother would say, “stuck”? We’d make soaps and tinctures and tonics to heal anything from fevers to warts to depression. My mother’s fingertips were always stained green. She smelled of grass and cloves.
She had other remedies, too, that seemed to require more than just herbs and berries. For instance, when I was seven I developed a terrible wheeze. We went all the way to a doctor in San Francisco, who said I had asthma and gave us a bag full of inhalers and pills. I remember that when we came back, my mother put the bag on the kitchen table in our cabin and looked at it a long time. Then she picked up a knife and led me outside by the hand and had me stand next to a young eucalyptus tree. She took the knife, put it over my head, and cut a hole in the tree that was even with my hairline. After that, she cut a lock of my hair and put it in the hole. She closed her eyes and began mumbling and singing, rubbing the rough stone she always wore around her neck. As soon as I grew taller than that hole, my asthma disappeared.
She kept many of the recipes secret. She wouldn’t say why exactly, but I guess that some of the effects were too powerful for just any old person to be able to access. Nor would she ever tell anyone where she had learned these skills. All sorts of theories floated around the RC—that she’d studied in China and had a PhD in botany, for example. But whenever anyone asked how she knew so much, she would answer only with a dazzling, mysterious smile.