Family • Dissertation • Poetry • Fiction

Gaby’s Lists

Gabrielle’s been spending quite a bit of time since September 11, 2001 sending out emails with political information that most people don't have access to.  She started by inundating her students with them at the time we were bombing Afghanistan.  Now she's pulled back on the general list and sends out a “local stuffs” list to friends and acquaintances mainly in Hawaii.  This list includes notices of local events, political and otherwise, interesting global information, discussions about the ongoing U.S. occupation of Hawaii, GMO issues, which are huge in Hawaii, parallel experiences in other military occupied territories—Iraq, Puerto Rico, Aotearoa, Australia, Okinawa, Guam, for instance, and so on.  These lists of information are collected at her blog, greenwoman's dream.

Fiction and poetry and MySpace and family stuff

She's also working, more desultorily, on finishing her novel, Dora, of which you can read extracts.  She's put up a Myspace page and has been uploading old poetry to it in the hopes that she'll be inspired to write some new poetry and get it published.  She'd like to get a chapbook published sooner than later.  She also worked very hard, while she was visiting her son Tolemy for his high school graduation, on organizing the photos on her Picasa webpage.  These include the Welford and Sanford family tree and timeline photos she and King put together last year while they were staying with Gaby's mother in Weston, MA.

The MEC

Most recently she has started working with King on a revival of the Mendocino Environmental Center newsletter.  She has uploaded a copy of her report on Patch Adams’ visit to Ukiah.  You can read it here.

Paula Gunn Allen and Jenny James

She's also been visiting Paula Gunn Allen in Fort Bragg every now and then and wants to visit more often.  Paula is sometimes bedridden and both of them enjoy the chance to exchange readings and laugh uproariously about the insanity of life.  Another old friend is Jenny James who started a Reichian based People Not Psychiatry community in London in the early 70s.  Gaby lived there for two years from 1975 to 1977 and has been in contact on a fairly steady basis ever since.  The community, Atlantis, is now based in Colombia, where they have a farm, and in Ireland, where they have a seagoing boat.  Jen puts out a series of news and reports called the Green Letters, which can be accessed here.  Jen may come to Ukiah to visit later this year.

 Yurt, garden and home at Round Mountain

Apart from all these involvements, Gaby's been beginning at garden at Round Mountain Ranch, where she and King are living.  This is a nice earthy metaphor for her slow and rather painful ripping away from Hawaii and settling in to northern California over the last couple of years.  King is helping her turn the little yurt she's renting into a space they can both use.  King’s friend Suzy has given her a bunch of trees, roses, mint to begin a garden round the yurt.