What's amazing to find out is, after all these years, that...mota, grass, dope, marijuana, what have you...is still just so freaking wonderful. You would expect that a guy coming up on the glorious age of 60 would think "nah, grass is not for me anymore, that was a young man's game", But instead of just reaching for another glass of Merlot I have been rediscovering the joys and challenges that marijuana can bring into the life of a white haired guy. At first it was somewhat like the feeling Alice must have felt, poised and ready to fall, right at the edge of that rabbit hole: a sense of wonder, awe, trepidation, joy and just a touch of paranoia all rolled into one. Too many years in the public sector left me with skin a tad too thin, with a warning system always on alert, one that felt those eyes watching, one that left me wondering and waiting for the man to come around with a pee jar in hand.
But when life transferred me to Mendocino County a few years back I found that mota was not something to worry about anymore, but rather, something to celebrate, to indulge in, to navigate around, to rejoice over, to contemplate and to open my heart to. I found that I didn't have to be coy about it anymore, that I could discuss it openly, seek it out without skulking, easily walk into a dispensary and talk to a knowledgeable person about it and not have to worry about, well, worrying about. I could use sightings of dope being smoked openly on the street as an antidote during interviews. I could be surprised about, but not so much awed over, knowing that guests could show up at dinner parties bearing jars of cannabis as a host gift as easily as they could bring a bottle of Napa's finest. I could be jolted at first by findings of nice sized baggies of bud on the street, and then after awhile on not be so surprised at all, finding out that cannabis was such a normal commodity to hold that finding those lost baggies was not so much different than finding a dollar bill on the sidewalk.
I found that many folks were immersed the in the grow culture, that many of my fellow citizens either knew someone or were personally involved in the cannabis trade, that much of the local infrastructure and economy depended on the dollars that cannabis generated. I felt sometimes at first that the seasonal trimmer travelers, the smoke shops, the dispensaries, the unrepentant hippies, the aged tie dye, the business signs hawking trimming shears or turkey bags were just a bit too much, a tad too stereotypical, but then found that, when they were gone and out of my life, that it was all, in a little ways, missed.
So here I am now in Colorado, immersed in a different kind of cannabis culture. The mota world here is state sanctioned, even if on the Federal level we're still all outlaws. I still work for a government entity but do not feel the weirdness, do not perceive the eye of the state bearing down on me as I once did years ago during the Just Say No era. I feel I can take my CBD tincture in the morning without fear, use a salve on my skin to take away pain and not fret, peruse the Denver Post at work and read the Cannabist and not have to erase my internet history right afterwards. I am finding that with marijuana being so open that for many it really is not a big thing anymore, but, when I pause and contemplate what is on the other side of that coin, know that in a conservative state like this one must still not flaunt what, for many, is a still a dangerous drug.
I know that what I experienced living there in the Emerald Triangle was a good reentry into the world of grass but that it was a dream world in compared to the one that I am dealing with now. Somehow the game has changed and that takes a bit of getting used to. It feels normal and I just haven't been able to wrap my head around that idea of what normal is. Too many years of prohibition can do that to a man. I find it grand that I can walk into a dispensary now without a doctor's note and not think anything of it. Show an ID, walk through the security door and peruse the stock.
It feels strange and yet somewhat liberated knowing I can look at flowers and oils, edibles and hash, talk about strains and styles of extraction and get solid answers to my questions, just as I would at a liquor store if I walked up to an employee and asked about a good bottle of brandy or a new batch of gose from a local craft brewery. Sometimes it bothers me the way that folks just treat mota as if it were the given, not taking into account the struggle that it took to arrive at this level of freedom, or to imagine the struggles that many folks still go through daily, running the gauntlet, worrying their lives to the bone, waiting for the man to take that life giving plant away from them, but worse than that, taking away their liberty for indulging in one of the finest medicines ever to grace this planet.
So then, what about this blog? Will it be just the ramblings of another old guy rediscovering the joys of pot again? Sort of. I left blogs behind a few years ago but lately have missed the ability to drop into a culture and write about it openly, freely and with that touch of passion I feel about things I love. I have touched on film, food, life and relationships in this format and have missed being able to patch folks into those worlds and share my stories, my thrills with you. Let this be a place where, the librarian in me can share news, links and updates about what is happening in the world of cannabis. Let this be the place where the explorer, the aficiando, the goof, can share with you what I have found while wandering the world in search of a good dank bud.
It is beyond time to liberate the plant, but more, liberate my soul. Come take a toke with me and let's talk about old times, but then let's get up and wander about, find our way into the world with a nice buzz on and see what we can see.
Salud!
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