Hippies never age, we mellow. All that peace and love wore us out like the line from a movie says, “how much sex, drugs, fun can you handle?” I remember the sixties and most of the seventies.
I was that skinny girl with long brown hair in the “maxi” skirt swaying to the music. I would escape my family, go to Himmel park, and sit until I was joined by a few cool people with strong bud and we would talk, listen to someone play guitar and make connections. This was my own private world. I’ve never shared it until this moment, written as it were in precious stone.
I burned candles and incense, read High Times and Rolling Stone. I had black lights and plants everywhere. I remember seeing the movie “The Sand Pipers” and thinking I wanted to live there, on a cliff in a cool two story beach house surrounded by art and music.
Funny, I would still like that.
Because my life was rather transient recently my house had a low maintenance feel. Now that it seems I will be here for a couple more years, at least until I can move to a colder clime things are taking on some of the old energy, including me. I have starting wearing the long skirts again, my hair is long as before, but now the plants, candles and incense are coming back.
I love fabric and textures. Smelling old books or plants whose leaves are bumpy or fuzzy. Words that bathe you in feeling whether read or sung. Sensory impact.
A few of those hippie memories are not pleasant. I was taken advantage of for being rather naïve and trusting causing a few scars but for the most part it is treasured in my mind. I was young, open and free, then life intruded and expected conformity and compromise which I gave. Now the circle is almost joined. Open and free are in my line of sight. Instead of being a hippie I have decided I will be a pixie.
-N