Hippy Dreams

Sometimes--a lot of times, actually--I wish I were a hippy.

I don't know why, exactly. I suppose because the media glamourises it and plus I have these gold-tone memories of my very early childhood in the 70's, which, being that they're gold-tone, are, I guess, sort of glamorous, too.

Maybe being a hippy is not possible if you don't smoke weed and have "free love," and I don't want either of those things. Well, usually I don't . . . Anyway, I don't want to be that kind of hippy. But still. I feel like I would like to be one.

I have one or two or maybe even three skirts that could be considered "hippy skirts," but sometimes I wish I wore home-made, hand-made clothes all the time, that I designed myself, made out of scraps of fabric leftover or recycled from other things. I wish I knew how to wear bandanas and scarves so they didn't look goofy or pretentious. I wish I went barefoot all the time. I wish I actually made the jewelry I envision out of the pieces of driftwood and stones I collect in old tea tins during my rambles.

I wish I were a hippy with money (somehow) so I could get a diesel-fueled car and have it converted into a Greasecar and have a house powered by renewable and efficient resources, like that house at Seeds of Solidarity in Orange. Actually, I kind of wish I were those hippies (except they probably smoke weed . . . and grow it, too), and had a big organic farm that I knew what to do with. Or at least I wish I knew what to do with the defunct garden bed my parents started at the front of the house when they lived here, so I could grow stuff I could eat and also enjoy looking at. I wish I would make a rustic stone wall around it, out of rocks and boulders I dug out of the ground myself.

I wish I decorated with "found objects" more, and I wish I had tons and tons of wind-chimes and sparkly things for the sun to shine through, and outdoor furniture made out of gnarled pieces of wood, and I wish people would drive by and think I was super-New-Age, but anyone who stopped (because people would, for some reason, even though they don't, especially in New England) and hang out and talk and find out that actually I'm crazy about Jesus and am just trying to live out His Kingdom on earth by taking care of my part of it.

I wish I were informed enough to have really strong opinions about what's going on in the world, so that I could make statements like this young couple down the street who put a shopping cart with an American flag sticking through it, on top of their chimney. The Milk Guy (who knows about hippies) suggested they were saying that American capitalism is sending the country's money up in smoke. Probably. Anyway, I wish I were informed and opinionated and creative enough to make statements like that.

I wish the youth group from New Church would come over and we'd hang out around the fire-pit that I don't actually have but wish I did, and they wouldn't smoke either (even though a bunch of them do) but they'd play their guitars and we'd all sing songs under the stars and the trees and worship God.

Sometimes I wish I were a hippy.