I'm embracing my inner Hippie, because it's 2020

I’ve always felt like I was born in the wrong time. On my 10th birthday I had a 60s party. Everyone had to dress like a hippie. We burned incense and did seances and ate raw cookie dough and watched the Woodstock documentary, my latest obsession. I shushed them all and told them to focus on the best parts! We had a blast. 

But no one truly got it but me. This was MY ERA. The voices from 1968 through the early 70s essentially raised me. I felt most comfortable in their embrace. I remember memorizing a song called ‘Joe Hill’ that Joan Baez sings at Woodstock. It’s a protest song. I had no clue what it was about. But you better believe I rewound that tape over and over agin to write out each word and memorize it.  I listened to it and sang along constantly for an entire summer. It’s a long fucking song. I never even listen to it anymore! I would make my tired family members sit in the living room and listen to every. single. damn line. 

This song, this voice, these people, the spirituality, the anger, the fluid surrender, the freedom, the revolution…this moment in time…has always felt like home to me. I have escaped into this world so often in my short life. 

I was born in 1981. The biggest crisis for my generation (at least the privileged kids) in the 80s and 90s was divorce. So many of us went through it and our parents had no fucking clue how to do it. A lot of Gen X and cusp millennials were teens and preteens when their parents’ split up. We were sort of free-falling through our most formative years. We did not have a romantic idea about the American Dream. 

But nothing was really that “hard” for the nation. And with this statement I mean for white, privileged, middle class, cis, straight Americans like me (back then) and my family. (Every single minority community was struggling in a huge way. A HUGE WAY.) But I can mostly only speak to my experience. And white people were doing pretty good. We were making money and had macDaddy Clinton and the Bushes in the White House. We didn’t know American unrest yet. 

Our grandparents had all served in WW2 in some way or another. They were a badass generation. The most patriotic generation of the 20th century maybe. They loved their county and they were loyal to a fault to it. 

The boomers retaliated against that, and the sexual revolution started. Once the crisis and upheaval of the 60s had passed, America sold out to capitalism. They preyed on people’s fears and distracted them with shiny things. We were bribed, essentially.  By the time my generation could talk, our country was about Money. That was the beginning of this destructive cycle. 

It’s been snow balling since. By 2001, our twin towers fell before our eyes. We saw the crack in the wall, to quote “Hadestown.” The symbol of our success came crumbling to the ground and thousands of lives were ended and destroyed in just a few hours. The nation was rocked. We knew that everything was going to change from that point on. 
We had a few days of amazing unity. I remember crying while Jon Stewart gave his first speech on The Daily Show, post 9/11. He sat in front of the camera and sobbed with us. Our hearts were broken and we were scared. 

We had hope for the future and Obama and Michelle came into our lives. We believed in them. We thought it meant a new day for our country. 

What we didn’t realize is that during the 8 years we rested in our liberal bliss, what was percolating under the surface would incite years of racism parading as leadership, meaningless wars, fascism, the worst president in American History, and a wars in our own streets. As the nation became more and more divided, living in America got less and less safe. Our marginalized communities were now not only in fear for their lives. Kids weren’t allowed to play outside anymore or Treat or Treat in the dark. We lived in fear. And for good reason. Kids walked into schools and killed other kids. People bombed black churches. People bombed gay clubs. People got murdered in shopping malls, college campuses, and SCHOOLS. All the time. 
We got numb to it. 

Then the cops started killing black people. A lot of them. 

And Covid-19 starts spreading around the world. 

And we white people realized that the cops hadn’t started killing black people. They’d been doing it all along. It was just on video now. 

These realities and realizations are not just unnerving, they are revolutionary. 

So here we are in summer of 2020, and I realize as I smoke a bowl and look up at the trees swaying in the breeze… that we are all connected. Seeing past the division and pain and death and upheaval of our nation, and finding the cord that connects all humanity and all life. 

There is a reason that the flower children smoked pot. They were desperate for that connection. The had no control over their fate. They had no model to follow for the present times, they knew they couldn’t survive with the state of how things were, so they rejected it. The hippies dropped out and dropped acid. They used mind altering drugs to find the truth beyond the chaos in life. They found love, goddess, source and sex. They connected with each other and clung to their generation. 

I guess in a way I was preparing for 2020. I knew that this connection to a time gone by wasn’t for nothing. I studied the people and music and philosophy and political revolution and spirituality of the late 1960s. Hell, I read an actual artifact book from the 60s called “Hippie” that I found at a Goodwill. I knew I would need to know what to do when the world fell apart. I think all intuitive people knew. 

Well this is what all my studies of hippies has taught me: you need to let go, you free-fall with the world, you release comforts, identities and beliefs that used to serve you, you untether yourself from the status quo, you change your scenery and your status and your purpose, and by embracing the movement of the “apocalyptic moment,” you land safely on the new ground with what’s left of the earth’s remains. There will be a lot of casualties. There are already too many. But once you emerge from the storm, you will be left with the truth that was “uncovered” by the mess and you are able to accept it, evolve and survive. Those that can’t won’t. To fight for the plateau during an upheaval is to give up on life. The fighters will adapt and learn and transform. 

This is a long, round about way to describe my surrender these days. I am embracing my inner hippie - the activist that has been sleeping for so long - the musician and poet - the lover - the flower child - the optimist - the butterfly. 
It’s not exactly comfortable, but then again, this is the place I always hoped I would come to. Let the summer of Love begin! 

1. Watch the Woodstock documentary IMMEDIATELY if you have never seen it.

1. Watch educational movies about civil justice Black America’s impossible road to freedom (I can’t wait to dig into the collection on Netflix.)

1. Listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Listen to Join Mitchell. Listen to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Listen to Janis Joplin. Listen to Jimi Hendrix. Listen to Cat Stevens. Listen to Country Joe and the Fish. Listen to Richie Havens. Listen to Jefferson Airplane and Sly & The Family Stone! 

      There are a thousand more artists I could mention. But I’m going to immerse myself in the music from the generation that carried this country through hell. They knew what they were doing. I will let the youth of this era lead us. And wherever they go, I’ll follow! 
PS. Tonight I listened to a song that has been one of my favorites for a very long time. Every time I hear it, I stop and really listen. Sometimes I sing and sometimes I cry. But I’ve always known this song was meaningful to me. But I’ve never understood it, really, until now. 
Like Rock & Roll and Radio - by Ray LaMontagne