Off the Grid

memoir of life as a writer off the grid

Years before I heard the phrase, I lived off the grid. We didn’t call it that. We didn’t even call it being part of a counter-culture movement back then. We called it starting a commune, liberating land, leaving cities behind to live the way many only talked about.

I was young, just turned nineteen, when I listened to a group of strangers talk about communes and new starts. They all knew each other, and most were ten years older than me, or close. Most were college graduates. I was enchanted by them, and when one asked, off-hand, if I wanted to join them, I said yes.

To that end, I dropped out of college, packed a few things in a new backpack, got briefly disowned by my parents for it, and took off with strangers for parts unknown. We planned, the nine of us, to meet in Colorado by a commune called Libre, then drive around and look for land. We traveled from East and West coast cities to the Rocky mountains that winter. We were happy. More people would join us soon.

Of course, we bought the first piece of land we found, not far from Libre. It took a while to finalize the purchase, and we pooled our money, bought old trucks, made plans to build a big dome. Then we camped in the snow at our new place, Red Rocks Canyon.

There was a little water piped down from a spring-box in the bordering national forest. We had no electricity except a generator. We had an outhouse. The dirt ‘driveway’ was seven miles long. The nearest town, with one grocery store, was thirty-five miles away. We had 240 acres almost surrounded by national forest. It was very cold, and marvelously wonderful.

Within a couple of years, we were an established commune, the Red Rockers. I contributed all the money I had; we all did. Mine was the rest of a student loan that was to pay for my education at UCLA. Instead, I learned how to live in the woods, raise a few farm animals, garden, and help build a large geodesic dome that we all lived in. Until we didn’t live in it anymore. Then we lived again in the woods, in little houses and tipis and trailers. The outhouse remained. The dome was a gathering place. We still had no electricity, no phones.

We had what we considered new ways to do things, even if they were very old.

"Off the grid" is a kind of strange way to live, and a different way to be.

I lived off the grid, one way or another, for a number of years. For a while, I lived on a half-section of land in Oklahoma, with a large family of Native Americans, Arapahos. I married into the family. I still went back and forth to the Colorado commune. The Indians had electricity and plumbing, several brick houses in a rough circle, a few tipis, but we often had no money at all. Life was busy, sometimes hard, even hungry, but it was an adventure.

The commune was always home base. When I had to leave that marriage and eventually ended up with a man in wealthy Colorado ski country, the commune remained home base. I still traveled back and forth between skiers and hippies. I was often still happy. I still never saw television and didn’t have a computer or a phone, even where life was easy financially. We were still off the grid in many ways.

When my half-Arapaho daughter left home for college and I had my own place in California, I decided to learn how to use a computer. I didn’t have one yet, nor a TV, but I went to a computer class in a school for adults, and I learned a lot. Practice, once I had a used computer, taught me more.

Yet for years, I had no idea how to copy and paste. I made notes and transcribed them when needed. I could type pretty fast. I only learned how to copy and paste a few years ago. I’m sure I still lack lots of basic computer knowledge. I consider them to be rather mysterious.

But I always loved to write stories, and sometimes I made close-to-enough money as a writer. I sold work as a staff reporter for several years, and once as a ‘produced’ playwright, and as one of the gazillion writers who get paid to see their work in magazines and other print media. Then I wrote for free online. It’s all been fun.

I remain surprised that I did so much published writing, because of my home base, the commune with no electricity or decent plumbing. Off the grid, living with a large ‘found’ family, I filled notebooks with stories, took part in readings and writers’ groups, learned the craft. I wrote in Indian Territory, and I wrote among the rich people who owned ski resorts.

I couldn’t stop. I still can’t. I no longer seek print publication, though I like to share. I still have no TV and am sorely lacking in knowledge about popular culture. But I know other things.

I know the phrase ‘off the grid.’ What an odd jumping-off point to begin maximum communication with the written word. I guess I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to fill my first and second childhood dreams -- to be a writer and to have ‘adventures’ to write about.

If I was superstitious, I’d say the grid sometimes welcomes off-the-grid wishes when a person is lucky. Very lucky. Grateful as well. I still write stories and make notes about everything. The commune remains, though less populated. I’ve been there as a visitor. And it appears that I’m always still pretty far off the mental grid -- a writer.