A Good Doobie: The Lovable Man Behind The Cloud of Smoke

"Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love." --Rumi

I once briefly dated a man who I later learned carried an expensive engagement ring everywhere with him, wanting to be good and ready if the right woman came along. He scared several women away with his impulsive wedding proposals, myself included. He was a sweet guy, but his gaping need to find a partner felt like a bottomless wound, one so deep that no woman could possibly fill it without losing herself.

One of my favorite characters in Clover Blue is a softhearted pothead called Doobie. (Okay they're all my favorite characters; I'm their mom so I love them equally, nudge-nudge, wink-wink). We don't know much about how Doobie ended up at Saffron Freedom Community but it's implied that he drifted northward from Haight Street in San Francisco sometime around the Summer of Love. What we do know is that he is a lover in the true sense of the word. He's openly affectionate and loves everyone, and yet, like that man I once dated, he's the one member of SFC who finds romantic love the most elusive. 

From the outside, Doobie is the most "typical" hippie in the family, sporting long hair, dirty clothes, and a ready joint tucked behind one ear. He's always first with a smile, a hug, or an offer to share a smoke when one of his brothers or sisters are feeling down. Doobie loves weed; smoking it and growing it. He cultivates marijuana in the community garden, concealing the plants between rows of sweet corn. But you can't help but feel a little sorry for the man who wants so badly to find a partner to receive all the love he has to give.

It's not that Doobie has never enjoyed the company of women. He and former member Gaia

used to be lovers before she abandoned the commune (and her daughter) to follow The Grateful Dead. Later, Doobie sets his eyes on a runaway called Rain who joins the community in the fall of 1974. It doesn't take long for Doobie to realize the new girl is already under leader Goji's spell, and his chances with Rain are zero to nil. As Clover Blue's story progresses, we learn that Doobie has developed a mad crush on Stardust, a tarot card reader who lives in town and occasionally buys a dime bag from Doobie. Stardust is in a relationship with the controlling owner of the head shop where her readings take place, but Doobie hopes to woo her away from him.

Deeper into the story, Doobie falls in love again, this time with an older woman who flees her rural farming life to live at Saffron Freedom Community. But, you'll have to read the book to see how that turns out. ;)

We've all know people like Doobie. They're sensitive guys who wear their hearts on their sleeves. Women are initially drawn to the silliness and charm, but eventually go looking for a more "challenging" relationship, one that doesn't feel so lopsided. When this happens to our Romeo Doobie, he slinks away, heartbroken. And yet ever the optimist, he continues his search for the one woman who will open her heart to receive the gift of love he so desperately longs to share. 

What about you? Have you ever known someone like Doobie? I hope you'll share your story in the comments. And if you haven't already, I hope you'll consider pre-ordering CLOVER BLUE, now just 23 days from our launch date of May 28!

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Willow and Wave: The Surfer and the Yogi

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. --Rumi

When I was a young girl I slipped out from under a blow-up swim ring at the lake near our home. I panicked, flailing and gulping water until a nearby adult grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to safety. From that point on, I was terrified of drowning. Despite a number of swimming lessons throughout my life, I'm still not a strong swimmer. That childhood experience, and the accompanying emotions are as fresh in my mind as the day it happened.

When I begin to write a new book, one of the first things I do is trace a line backward to a source of fear or pain in each new character I create. Relatable human beings, not just flat images on a page, are what draws me in as a reader. I want to know why Sirona took up midwifery, why Coyote takes lone walks at night, and why Goji traveled to India to explore mysticism instead of becoming a lawyer. I expect you do, too.

We are all molded through the nurturing we received as children. But that form is malleable, shifting shape through a litany of experiences, some that leave indelible scars. In the case of Wave, conventional parents mocked his teen-aged longing to become a singer. He left his home in Fresno and headed for the ocean, where he honed his musical skills and learned to surf. But his ambition and bravery were eventually curbed by the practical aspects of the music industry and the unpredictability of Mother Nature.

In the following scene from my forthcoming novel, Clover Blue sits in the woods with Wave, who is teaching his young mentee to play guitar:

When I ask how he first came here, Wave traces the scar on his thigh and smiles. “After the shark attack I gave up surfing and spent most days outside a coffee shop in Bodega Bay, singing for tips.”

“I don’t blame you for being afraid of the ocean after that.”

Wave slowly shakes his head. “Respect, not fear. It was a good lesson and I don’t need to learn it twice.” He strokes the neck of his beat-up guitar. “I taught myself how to play when I was your age. I had big dreams of becoming a famous singer either by myself or with a band. In the sixties, everybody and his brother was a folk singer so it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”

We later learn that Wave eventually joined Saffron Freedom Community, where he met his soulmate, Willow, a yoga enthusiast. Willow is tall and strong and disciplined in her daily practice of yoga and meditation. From the outside, she appears solid and unwavering in her status as the group's alpha female, often delegating chores to the other sister-mothers, though she is the only woman who remains childless. 

When a new girl (Rain) arrives at the commune, she asks Clover Blue to help her get to know the others. This is how he describes Willow to her. 

"Willow holds her thoughts inside. She keeps us on track with things like homework and chores. She taught me to read by the time I was four."

What neither Blue nor Rain can possibly know is that Willow's deep focus and intense discipline is steeped in the chaos of former experiences. Beneath her strong exterior, she harbors a deep pain that grows into a hardened knot, one that no asana can ever unwind. Willow can try to control herself and the people around her, but eventually she must allow herself to be vulnerable or risk becoming the knot itself.

Jumping back to my own childhood swimming trauma, many years later my young son and I signed up for a river rafting expedition while on vacation near Moab. The trip was overbooked, so Jacob and I were put in an inflatable "ducky" kayak and instructed to follow behind the larger raft. I was nervous, of course, but my son was so excited I couldn't back out. Besides, we were wearing life vests. What could go wrong? A few things, as it turns out. 

Being an inexperienced kayaker, I paddled too close behind the large raft. When the back end of the big yellow raft lifted out of the river rapids, I over-corrected to keep from nosing under it. The ducky flipped and dumped my son and me into the rapids. While seasoned company employees rescued Jacob, I found myself stuck under the kayak, unable to right it.The river current sent me hurtling into yet more frothing rapids. Terrified, I was seven years old all over again, certain I was about to drown.

And then something shifted. I stopped panicking and accepted my situation. I remember thinking, "I'm going to drown." I was taking water into my lungs, and yet I relaxed. It was the most peaceful moment I've ever experienced, almost blissful. I could see light shining through the blue plastic of the duckie, like a summer sky. And in that serene moment of acceptance, a voice in the back of my mind said, punch the ducky one more time. So I did, and it flipped off and away from me.

I tell this story because so often we react from a place of past fear, guilt, pain or unmet needs. It's human nature to try and fix the past by attempting to control the present. But control is an illusion. Eventually Wave will need to choose whether to face his fears and ride his board into the surf again. Willow will choose whether to confront her past demons as well. It's one of life's biggest questions: Do we let the past form us or inform us?

I hope you'll lose yourself in CLOVER BLUE's world, surrounded by all these unique characters as they make their choices, good and bad. Only fifty more days to go! You can pre-order the book from amazon. Better yet, pre-order CLOVER BLUE from your local bookstore here.

Join me for the exciting book launch of CLOVER BLUE and the paperback release of THIS I KNOW

Upcoming 2019 Dates:

Loutit Library

407 Columbus St, Grand Haven, MI
Thurs May 16, 7:00 PM

The Bookman

714 Washington Grand Haven, MI
Sunday May 19, 1:00 PM

Barnes & Noble 

894 Marsh St. San Luis Obispo, CASaturday June 1, 2:00 PM

Mystery Monday Dinner Adventure

18512 McArthur Blvd, Irvine, CA
Monday June 3, 6:00 PM

The Book Loft

1680 Mission Dr. Solvang, CA
Saturday June 8, 1:00 PM

Carlsbad Library

1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad, CA
Sunday June 9, 2:00 PM

Chaucer's Bookstore

3321 State St., Santa Barbara, CA
Monday, July 29, 7:00 PM

Books Inc Palo Alto

855 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA
Thursday, August 1, 7:00 PM

Copperfield's Books

138 N. Main St, Sebastopol, CA
Friday August 2, 7:00 PM

Out On A Limb: World-Building From The Ground Up

Sanya Nanshan Treehouse Resort | Shi Huai Xun

When I was a young girl I envied our neighbor's adorable playhouse, a miniature home with tiny windows and a real roof, set back among the trees in their back yard. The little house had long been abandoned by their grown daughter but my sisters and I were not allowed to trespass on their fenced property. That didn't keep me from admiring the secret hideaway from our side of the barrier, which seemed more like a wall than a fence when you're a small child. 

What I remember most about the playhouse is the ache of jealousy I felt. I've always been a fan of cozy places. I used to love building forts under sheets draped over tables and sofas or between bales of hay in my friend Paula's old barn. I often hid in the linen closet on the second floor of our five-bedroom parsonage where I crawled between the shelves and wrote secret messages with glow-in-the-dark Play-Doh on the board above my head. One of my other favorite places was the small space between the washer and dryer where I would drag a blanket and let the warm rumbling and churning lull me to sleep. I also loved to hide in closets, a habit that helped inform young Grace Carter's visits with her deceased twin in my debut novel about a clairvoyant preacher's daughter, THIS I KNOW.

Fast forward to my teens when my dear dad gifted us with the best thing ever, an A-frame tree house nestled into a huge tree on the east side of our new house. At first it was a novelty to my younger sister and little brother, aged eight and twelve, but they quickly bored of it. Not me. I practically moved in, covering the walls with square carpet samples donated by Burcon's Furniture Store, coincidentally owned by the same family who'd lived beyond The Great Wall of our earlier home, the one with the forbidden playhouse and teenagers frolicking in an in-ground swimming pool, also off limits to my siblings and me. At age fourteen I carried my guitar up the rickety ladder of the tree house and sang Joni Mitchell songs and wrote a few aching love songs of my own. Mostly I sat  with my legs dangling off the edge of the plywood floor, scribbling bad poetry, my fort swaying as the branch yielded to moody Michigan winds. 

Given my love for trees and hiding places, it likely comes as no surprise that as a volunteer  

My Backyard Writing Shed

screener with our local film festival, I fell in love with a 2009 documentary about a group of free-spirited young people who formed a coalition of independent island-dwellers on the north beach of Kauai. I've long been fascinated by the revolutionary 1960s, the communes, the sloughing off of traditional family structures in favor of tribal life. I've fantasized about living in an intentional community. 

At one point I turned my empty-nest home into a sort of boarding house and filled the rooms with young women who needed a safe place to live. My "girls"  christened our house The Urban Oasis. They've long-since moved on, some now with families of their own, but those young women will always be remembered as part of my evolving tribe. I now live in a tiny converted garage next door to that house, what we call a granny unit here in California. I recently built myself a "playhouse,"  that serves as my writing studio under a Yucca tree in the back yard. Okay yes, it's my grown-up fort. It even has a hanging swing chair.

It's been almost a decade since I first began to conjure a story that incorporates my love of cozy places with my curiosity toward communal living. In about twenty weeks that story will hit bookstore shelves. In CLOVER BLUE, the members of Saffron Freedom Community reside among ancient live oak trees, the largest of which supports their many-roomed tree house. They live free from the weight of cultural norms. Free of clothing, if they wish. Free from overcrowded classrooms. Free to raise their own food and treat illness with herbal remedies rather than Western medicine. But as in all civilizations, freedom requires self-regulation, lest people begin to treat their claimed liberation from society's rules as a sense of entitlement. This concept is the moral challenge I sought to pursue through the eyes of a young boy who grows up dedicated to the precepts of his idyllic community and the tribe he loves. That is until he begins to question everything he's ever learned in his quest for truth, beginning the day the family midwife is preparing for a communal birth.   

I want to be excited, but I'm a little freaked out. I'm worried Jade's baby might not survive, just like the baby goat that got sick and died. Goji forbids doctors and hospitals. We believe in natural medicines. Sirona probably knows what she's doing, but what if she doesn't? What if none of them know what they're doing? --Clover Blue, age 10

I'm counting down the days (145!) until y'all get introduced to young Clover Blue, his best friend Harmony, and the rest of this ragtag clan of tree house dwellers. In the meantime, tell me about your favorite hiding places, your dream oasis, your sacred spaces. Where do/did you go when you need(ed) a quiet place to dream?

Book Trailer for CLOVER BLUE by Eldonna Edwards

I'll leave you with this delightful Shel Silverstein poem from his book, Where The Sidewalk Ends.

A tree house, a free house,

A secret you and me house,

A high up in the leafy branches

Cozy as can be house.

A street house, a neat house,

Be sure to wipe your feet house

Is not my kind of house at all- 

Let's go live in a tree house.