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A few days before she died, I got a letter from Willow.

Willow was my neighbor and one of my best friends as a kid. We grew up in the redwoods outside

of Sebastopol, California. It's about 60 miles north of San Francisco. And even though we were just

through the woods from one another,

we had very different childhoods.

Willow was part of a commune, or what they called it, a collective.

It was a group of maybe 30 people, and it was called Tender Hearts.

It was one guy, really, the leader, Elric, and then women and kids.

That's Sheriff Maldonado.

He was the sheriff back in the 80s and the 90s,

so he ended up dealing with the tender hearts

when neighbors would complain or if kids got into trouble.

It was hard to wrap your head around.

It was nature and trees and praying.

I guess what would be called meditating today, and drugs. It was pot,

mushrooms, masculine. Willow's mom was a founding member of Tender Hearts, so she lived there with

...