Some new thoughts for a new beginning

I have recently completed my graduate school program and currently have some time on my hands which leaves me pondering - should I go back and work on my Ranch blog? Meanwhile, my good friend refers to a mention of this blog on his blog and an extremely damning and somewhat mostly true article appears in the Oregonian. (http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/) So, I have decided to go back again and work on what I started.

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I have read articles such as the one listed above with detached amusement over the years. One of the things that always surprises me most is the shock and anger given not to the guns, illegal wiretapping, or even poisoning of officials and townspeople (which was real) but to the supposed sex orgies, nudity, and salacious nature of the Commune's inhabitants (which was not). I would like to set the record straight on that score, as well as I can.

Sex was openly spoken of and encouraged as an act of love between consenting people. I knew more about sex by the age of 8 than most high school graduates in the US know, but not because I had seen or even experimented with it, but because it was so openly discussed. I was not grossed out, freaked out, or sickened by it. I was curious. But I did not experiment with it until later (unless you count being taught to french kiss by my older brother's best friend - I'm sure that is shocking to those of you who have forgotten what it was to be 9, 10, 11 years old anywhere).

Also, by the age of 8, I knew more about the transmission of STD's and how to prevent them and how to prevent pregnancy. I knew what a condom was and how to apply it to a banana. I had been tested for AIDS. I am certain all this shocks and dismays many in our society, but I am also certain I will teach my daughter all of this information when the time comes so that she can make her own choices in life.

That brings me around to the other thing I have been pondering of late. I touched on this in a previous post - but it is what has kept me from going on with this blog. When I started documenting my experiences on the Ranch, I hadn't had my daughter. I could look at my childhood with my own memories and value judgments without the veil of the new moral compass given to me when I became a parent. I have felt ambivalent about continuing because I thought that my worldview had changed so much as to make my continuing memories seem disingenuous.

I realize now, after much consideration, that the opposite is true. I now have more to draw from. The experience of being a parent makes me question more to be sure, but it also forces me to accept that though I wouldn't do it the same way with my daughter, I didn't just "turn out OK" in the end as people often say, as though I need just put it all behind me, forget my past and move on in regular society. I am more than that - I not only see my past through the morality of being a parent, but I see being a parent through the magnificent and unique experiences I have had and that makes me better for her, more accepting, more able to see that it doesn't just turn out OK in the end, but that I have more to give for having done things differently.

"I worked on the airplane engines when I was 9," I can tell my daughter, "and learned to fly one on a simulator."

"I gathered eggs and candled them to check for cracks. But I learned to stay away from the guinea fowl, they were MEAN."

My best friends were from Italy, India, England, and Australia. I learned German and spoke with a perfect accent.

I lived in a vibrant and loving international community. That is what is unique.

I lived my childhood under a corrupt dictatorship. That part is not.