Although I couldn’t stop using, living around Flobird and going to the meetings at her house was starting to enrich my inner feelings. Hope, something I wasn’t familiar with, started to bubble up within. After Flobird left, everything seemed empty again on the North Shore. So, after finding some friends to watch our house, Laura and I, along with our now nine-month-old daughter Celeste and our two German shepherds, boarded a plane headed for Maui to find Flobird. I had learned this much in my short time with Flobird: The spiritual search calls for willing seekers to take that crucial next step. We traveled with faith and trust pushing us onward.
We knew from her letters that she was living in the then-largely unpopulated area of Makena Beach. We started hitchhiking. The beauty of the area was breathtaking. There were many kiawe trees on this dry side of the island, and their huge green thorns appeared stunning against the blue sky and vast ocean. It took a while, but we eventually found Flobird living about five miles down a dirt road that ran along spectacular white sand beaches that seemed to stretch forever. Her home was a huge white house located right on the ocean, with only a few close neighbors. Ironically, several hundred feet away was a home occupied by Timothy Leary, who had played such a huge part in my early drug-using days. There I was with Flobird living in a house representing recovery, and Leary turning on and tuning out at a nearby house representing the ugly, addictive part of my life. The irony was remarkable, and I was mindful that it was like standing at one of the many crossroads of life.
Every morning I watched Flobird as she sat in front of her house, facing the ocean and meditating. Across the way, Leary also sat on his deck looking at the ocean, probably tripping on acid, since this was the path he presented to the world. As I watched, it almost looked like a standoff on the spiritual path.
Living in this house right on the ocean proved to be a time to deepen my understanding of the twelve-step programs. We were pretty isolated, being five miles down a dirt road, so I was able to stay clean the whole time. We had impromptu meetings most days, and I would never tire of listening to Flobird talk about the spiritual life. It seemed I didn’t have to even understand or grasp intellectually everything she talked about. It was as though her heart was talking to my heart. Something was deepening within me.
It was hot and sunny each day, and we would spend time on the beach swimming and playing. When dawn started to come upon us, I would find myself sitting on the front deck each morning. I was learning the discipline of being quiet. Doing a meditation before the day started was like greeting the day as it gave birth to the light. Each evening we would find ourselves on the deck again as the sun set behind a cloudless horizon. I would even find myself saying good-bye to the sun and thanking it for the beautiful day. This goodness within that I had felt the first time I met Flobird was starting to expand as each day passed.
After being on Maui for about a month, Laura and I returned to our North Shore house, but it began to feel uncomfortable, as if our time there had come to an end. So we started selling our things and gathering money to leave Hawaii and head back to California.
We found a nice little cottage to rent that was set behind a homeowner’s main house in Venice. The backyard was full of trees and plants, with an enormous pine tree right at the front entrance of our new house. It seemed almost like an isolated country home. It was a pleasant transition into the city from rural Hawaii. I got my hair cut and tried working a bit.
Laura got pregnant again, and I tried living a somewhat normal type of life, although my drug using continued. I felt I had enough understanding of recovery to monitor and stay on top of the using, thinking I could run on the fumes of what I had gathered being around Flobird. We stayed in touch with Flobird, and I even went to some twelve-step meetings while in California. I now knew I had the disease of addiction, but just could not seem to find a way to surrender.
Flobird had received guidance to leave Hawaii and stayed in our area for a week or so before heading to the East Coast. It was great to see her again, and I even managed to get a little clean time going. My friend Ronnie, the surfing and drug-using buddy who previously lived next door to me, came over and met Flobird. Like nearly everyone she met, his heart was touched, and he eventually got clean. He now has nearly thirty years in recovery. We continued to receive letters from Flobird, who ended up staying in Virginia Beach for a couple of months before heading back to Hawaii.
Later that year, another good friend, Tom M., had just been released from Atascadero Mental Institution for the Criminally Insane. We had used drugs together since the early 1960s, and I had always judged his addiction as much worse than mine. I used him as a dark measure of my own using and life, and tried to convince myself that I would never get that bad or go that far. He came over and we began smoking pot and getting high. He said he wanted to go to Hawaii, so I told him about the islands and Flobird (who was now living back in Hawaii), and the twelve-step programs she had introduced me to. In a sense, I was carrying the message of recovery to Tom. Since I was getting high with him, I don’t think I was very coherent, but nevertheless, it was my first “twelve-step call.”
At the time, Tom could barely talk. He stuttered terribly, and the behavior that resulted from his drug use almost made him seem less than human. I wanted to help him, so I told him, “The North Shore of Oahu is the place to go because all the young people are out there.” I also showed him a photo of Flobird and described her as an “alcoholic and addict,” which was strange because I certainly never used those words before my introduction to twelve-step meetings. In the hopeless circles I ran in, those words were never part of our vocabulary. Tom later told me that he interpreted my murky message as “There’s this weird woman, and if you get hard up you could shack up with an old alkie.”
Within a few weeks, Tom was off to Hawaii. He landed at the airport in Honolulu around 10 p.m. and began hitchhiking out to the North Shore, which is about forty-five miles away. He soon realized that Hawaii wasn’t a small island that you could ride your bicycle around. There were no grass shacks to sleep in. No beautiful Hawaiian ladies in grass skirts were welcoming him. He was greeted with the indifference of an empty moonlit highway.
Tom was dropped off at Sunset Beach, one of the many big-wave surfing spots, at about 1 a.m. He wandered down to the beach and fell asleep under the thick bushes and palm trees. When Tom awakened in the morning, reality set in. He had traveled to Hawaii, where he knew no one and had no money to buy dope. He realized he had made a huge mistake. He had found himself alone, broke, and strung out in paradise.
Sitting alone on the beach, Tom felt totally desperate and confused. Flobird, who was living in a house about a half-mile up the beach, was practicing her daily two-hour routine of early-morning meditation, writing in her journal, and waiting for specific guidance about how she was to live the rest of her day. She later told us that all of a sudden, she received this message: “Go to Sunset Beach NOW!”
Coming out of her bedroom, Flobird woke up several recovering addicts who were then living with her, the same guys I had hung out with when I first met her.
“Get the car started, I have to get to the beach,” she told them.
“Can’t you just walk across the street to the beach?” they asked.
“No,” said Flobird, her voice filled with urgency. “I have to get to Sunset Beach right now!”
Flobird drove a short distance down the highway and pulled up to Sunset Beach. She got out of her car, walked down to the ocean’s edge, and put her hands on her hips.
“Okay, God. Here I am. What’s up?”
Tom was what was up, crawling out from under the bushes in a state of extreme confusion. He looked up and saw the lady in the photo I had shown to him in California. He staggered toward her and began mumbling. She could not understand him, but said, “You are why I’m here. Put your stuff in my car.” It was December 17, 1968; Tom has been in recovery since that day.
I