Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I had been growing the herb for a couple of years. It was a process of sustained panic to grow it outside where any police helicopter could see it. One time I was in Jamaica and I had to take a short flight from Negril to Montego Bay. We flew low, at about 3000 feet. From that altitude I could see the herb patches clearly. They are an electric green that pops out of the landscape. You can't miss them. It was a horrifying realization.

So after two growing seasons of trying to conceal what was in plain sight, I decided to go underground.

One day I was driving in my pickup on one of the back roads around my five acre plantation, when I happened upon a county worker who was pulling a back-hoe. It was a Saturday and he was 'off duty.' I asked him if he would like a side job. I told him I wanted to build a swimming pool on my property. For twenty bucks and a case of beer he agreed to come and dig me a hole.

The guy was a real artist with that back-hoe. He dug a twelve-foot deep pit with perfectly straight sides. The next week I built a barn over the pit and constructed it such that there was opaque fiberglass siding covering the pit. It looked like a seed bed or greenhouse about three feet high. What you couldn't see was that it was actually fifteen feet deep.

I grew some of the best herb I have ever smoked in that hole in the ground. I never showed it to anybody but three people.

On the first year, I had a twelve foot plant that looked like a Christmas tree. When the flowers came out it was almost white and redolent with resin. In the mornings, dew would settle on it and it would glisten. Every morning I would take my flute and play to the plants. I would play I Enjoy Being A Girl from Oklahoma. Cheesy song, I know, but they loved it.

This is a beautiful little strain of melody in itself, LR, arabesquing like Poe out of the depths-- in this case, the tourmaline shimmer of the Caribs.

Thanks for a lovely prose poem, which nevertheless unwinds from a clockspring ( cockspring?) of narrative.

--Z


( fun note: from "Gemstones"):

"Tourmaline"

Tourmalines are precious stones displaying a unique splendour of colours. According to an ancient Egyptian legend this is the result of the fact that on the long way from the Earth’s heart up towards the sun, Tourmaline travelled along a rainbow. And on its way it collected all the colours of the rainbow. This is why nowadays it is called the "Rainbow gemstone”.

However, the name "Tourmaline” has been derived from the Singhalese expression "tura mali”, which translates as "stone of mixed colours.” The very name already refers to the unique spectrum of colours displayed by this gemstone, which is second to none in the realm of precious stones. Tourmalines are red and green, range from blue to yellow. Often they show two or more colours and are cherished for this parti- or multi-coloured appearance. There are Tourmalines which change their colour from daylight to artificial light, others display chattoyance. No Tourmaline exactly resembles another one: this gemstone shows many faces and is thus excellently suited to match all moods and tempers. It does not come as a surprise, then, that ever since ancient days it has been attributed with magical powers. Tourmaline is supposed to be an especially powerful influence on love and friendship, lending them permanence and stability.

I was a jeweler in one of my earlier incarnations. I did cast work. I never was a great stone setter. That's clerical work. But I always loved what are mysteriously called 'semi-precious' stones. My favorites were the opal (especially the Mexican variety) and the tourmaline. Both stones are mutable and constantly changing according to the light and angle.