We were the
Baby Boomers, the first Atomic Age children.
We learned to hide under desks, to duck and cover. I lived through the Cold War with fear in my
heart that there would be no fallout shelter for me. My mother was young, different. I was the daughter of a divorced woman, definitely not cool in the 1950s. I was cast adrift early, seemingly without
the moorings of the normal families around me. I bidded my time. I held my breath and hoped to be included in
someone's circle of play. I dreamed of
the Bomb. There was hardly a time in my life when there was no war, although
not real wars like WWII.
As
children, we were herded and channeled through school...lunch lines, lines for class,
lines for immunizations. We dressed
alike and talked alike. When TV became a
household fact, we all watched the same programs. Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, and Father Knows Best were our models for right living. Girls went to
college to find a rich husband, a boy with a future. Girls became perfect companions and
accomplished homemakers. If we
questioned this, someone reminded us of our place, or told us that we would grow out
of it. Sooner or later we would settle down.
On the
other hand, we were spoiled and pampered and given things our parents never
dreamed of having. Our lives were materially
comfortable with the promise of better things in the future, as long as we
didn’t ask too many questions or rock the boat. And some of us wanted more, something
else.
It wasn’t
long before the rips in the curtain became larger. The Civil Rights movement
got press on TV. Beatniks writing poetry
became the butt of sitcom jokes, but oh how interesting those people looked. There were vague references to a war and the
draft. Then we picked up copies of On the Road, Catch 22 and science
fiction paperbacks with lurid covers, passed surreptitiously from hand to hand,
often underlined with margin notes to make sure we got the good parts. There was folk music and art and jazz and none
of it was part of our parents’ world. Some of us slipped away on the weekends to
very different lives.
Via an
older boyfriend who played tenor sax and wore a trench coat, I hung out in the
jazz clubs of LA and started smoking pot.
He also told me about taking LSD, and warned me that it was very
powerful, that he saw walls move. Rather
than run away, I couldn’t wait to try it.
Then came my escape, 18 years old, hitchhiking up the highway to San
Frnacisco. It didn’t take long before I
was lost in the cosmic ozone. The Haight
was full of broken souls running from families that didn’t fit them, looking
for a better home.
We learned
new ways to be together in the Haight. We
got sick together and got high together, and had fun together. We discovered things at the same time, as if
we were taping into a giant over-mind; group consciousness. I had nothing but spare time so I read
voraciously; Gestalt, Jung, eastern mysticism, poetry, the Beats. Winnie the
Pooh took on a whole new meaning.
The
legalization of the pill in 1960 meant women could have sex without the fear of
pregnancy. For the first time we took responsibility
for our own bodies and our own sexuality.
We stopped being victims, no longer relegated to the chairs by the wall,
waiting to be asked. We experimented
with many types of love; women for women and men for men, group love, nothing
was forbidden. We changed partners frequently
and tossed around phrases like open relationship, group marriage,
non-attachment. In that tiny microcosm
of time, we experienced entire relationships in a few days. We lived every day as if it was our
last. Time was suspended. Food and shelter only distracted us from the
important stuff, the real stuff, the street, the intrigue. It was enough just to be; just to be on the
street, in some funky commune, dancing our crazy day-glo asses off, caught in
the music, the wild and rocking music.
The streets
of the Haight abounded with characters, little magnets that attracted and
repelled. We moved quickly from person to person, because it was okay to change
your name, your past, your story. The
pain and joy and sorrow of connecting and parting happened daily. Those feelings were so real and so intense
that they still call to me. I still hunger
for that power, the recognition of kinship and feelings of rapport. This was Family. To accept a person as someone you have known
for years because you have, but not for these years...these waking years...but from
previous incarnations because reincarnation was real. How else could we explain it? We tested our boundaries, our limits,
physical and emotional. How much can a
body endure and still carry its spirit through the night? For many of us the answer was not much.
No matter
how much LSD I took, my feet were set firmly on this path way before I took my
first puff of pot or my first psychedelic adventure. I saw these experiences as part of a great
spiritual journey. I wanted more from
drugs than escape. I was not escaping from something, but rather to something else, to something
more. I sought to enhance the ordinary
and suffuse it with divine enlightenment.
I longed for grand revelations and grander journeys. I wanted them to be magnificent,
profound! I believed that the endeavor
to become enlightened was the only worthwhile pursuit in life. It transcended everything in importance and I
believed that everyone in the Haight was on the same spiritual odyssey. I was wrong.
Many passed through that time and place untouched. Many of my acquaintances became the people I
despised and embraced the things I sought to change. I sought a deeper meaning, but I was young and
insecure and thought the people around me had it all figured out. They were smarter, quicker, and more
enlightened than me, they had all the answers when really they had none and
weren’t seeking any. Acid was a game for
them, a fun trip. They were just as
fucked up, just as confused as me, but they didn’t care. And while I had my moments of soaring delight,
I had a fair share of the Inferno. Where to sleep, what to eat, what to
do? Eating food wasn't the issue, you
know, eating life was much more important.
I learned to bite off more than I could chew, to wash it down with cheap
wine, wipe the excess off my chin and toddle on my way.
