My Years with Thomas

Thomas was a very good person. We got along great. We were like two little peas in a pod. The only problem was that I wasn't in love with him, although I didn't even understand anything about that yet. Also, I wasn't ready to live with a man like that. I was still more like a kid. But he was a very good person.

I met Thomas on my 22nd birthday. I was beginning to think about spiritual seeking type of things. I was in a yoga class, I was attracted to Eastern Philosophies. I was reading Ghandi's autobiography. That sort of thing. That was one of the problems for me about Thomas. He wasn't spiritually minded, and I somehow quit the yoga class and the reading the books.

During this same time, I was walking down the street, and lo and behold, who do I run into?? My roommate Rose from Syracuse, from the first house I ever lived in, after college. She was the one who was the single mom. What is amazing about this, is when we were roommates, we both wanted to go out west. We made a pact that we would go together. Then we got into a bad fight, and stopped talking to each other. Here we were, 2 years later, and it turns out we both are out west, and moved to the same town. So, we decide our fight is over, and we should be friends again. I take her to my place and she meets Thomas and everything is good.

Well, a short time after this, Thomas and I, decide we want to move out of town into the country. He says we need to pack up our stuff and put it by the front door to get ready. It seemed a little crazy, but we do it. Power of positive action once again. I am not kidding. It was like 15 minutes, and there is a knock on our door. It is Rose asking us if we want to move to her new place in the country with her. She lives in an old schoolhouse, about 20 miles south of Eugene. We say yeah.

So, we moved and now we live in the country. I never actually lived in the country before. It was nice. We spent the winter there. The most eventful things that happened there was we met a woman who was hitchhiking and ended up at our place. Her name was Sarah, and ended up being my best friend for 12 years. Also, we had a roommate, who had spent the year before in Hawaii, on Maui. We spent the winter listening to him, talk about Maui and how wonderful it was, all winter.

The next spring, I was getting restless. Living at the schoolhouse was ok, but I kept thinking about the incredible summer I had the year before. I wanted to get back on the road. So, I convinced Thomas and we set out.

We hitchhiked all summer around Oregon and California. We even made it back to Kirk Creek in Big Sur, where I had met Doc and the hippies on the cliffs. When I look back at it, it was an amazing time of being with nature. But somehow, it just couldn't follow the magic I had with Doc, and it seemed lukewarm in comparison.

So we hitchhiked around and went to beautiful places. Then it was September, and time to think about winter. I guess Thomas had been very impressed by our roommate in the schoolhouse talking about Maui all the time. He said he wanted to go to Hawaii. I didn't actually feel moved to go. He said he was going with me or without me. I guess he wanted to go really bad. By this time, my relationship with Thomas was the foundation of my world. We had been together for a year, and didn't live anywhere. He was basically my security and home. I went to Hawaii.

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