I was on "tumblr" for about 5 minutes not long ago; in that time, I acquired a several followers, which was pretty cool. One of these particularly struck me. She's Girl11Eleven or "girl11eleven.tumblr.com," as you prefer. As with the several others, I ran across her just surfing links. She immediately sucked me into her world. Not because she's a good-looking woman (although she is) nor because we have so much in common (we don't,) or because I want to meet her (I don't) or any goofiness like that.
It's because I knew her, probably five or ten years before she was born, or at least girls/women like her. And we were, in some incarnation, her parents. She describes them, her real parents, as hippies - they named her "Crystal Dawn." Which is a really beautiful name, one of the few from those days of kids named "Dharma Sunrise," and "Echo Blu," and "Free Breeze."
Her mother still grows marijuana, she says.
We were children of revolution, summers of love, guerrilla actions, and jungle war, insanely adrift, making it up as we went along; a wandering tribe, fading, clueless, spoiled whitebread posers, legacy of Kerouac and Cassidy. And like our heroes, we were dissipated and intense, and we were oh so fucking sure we were going to change everything.
And we did, too.
But then some of us - me - I - had to grow up, and crossed the great divide, the battlefront, and took up my place in The Establishment which, after all the rhetoric and bullshit, I finally recognized as that which provided the structure that allowed these hothouse flowers to survive in the first place in the cold world.
And now she's here, this living echo of those days, spending her life on the road eight months of twelve, camping and hiking, and taking pictures of the places she is and was, having adventures and love and heartbreak and writing joy and pain. No romanticism; rough, raw edges, a lot of it...
I told her I couldn't follow her because she'd break my heart, and break it in more ways than she could know. Because as I read her, she is who I thought I'd be and who I thought I'd be with back in those days, even the crazy and bad parts. And I went a different direction and had a different life, more different than seems possible. It's been a mostly good life, or, more accurately "interesting," in the Chinese sense. But I wonder if I had it to do over, knowing what I know and where I've been, and what I've seen, and how much of my soul I've given up, what I would do; and, really, what good is that?
I'm not old enough yet to get lost in my past nor start grieving things not done and paths not taken, nor have this of a brilliant flame of time cast shadows over my now. So I moved on.
But I check in now and again.
ΔV
In Our Next Episode: Less hippie metaphysics, more real physics, which is a big wad weirder.
You're probably one of those people who has some thingamajig that tells you how much coffee is left in my mug and the position of the sun relative to my neighbor's trailer whenever I land on one of your posts, so lurking seems foolish. Just here to say I'm glad to see you're back.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of spoiled hippie children who are now pushing thirty end up in the Burning Man org's Department of Public Works and live in the desert for months at a time driving around in Mad Max castoffs, drinking incredible amounts of PBR and exchanging sex partners every few weeks. I'm now at an age where I don't regret missing that turn-off but a year or two ago I was somewhat enthralled, especially by the rare beauty in that crowd whose tattoos could not hide a sensitive and poetic soul. Actually, I'm romanticizing. Bad habit. I doubt any of them are as eloquent as Girl11. But there are people like that out there, and yeah, I sometimes view than like the cager who hides his envy behind a scowl as the bikers go by.
ReplyDeleteHope: Thanks - that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in awhile. Been checking your place - when are you going to put something up? You're very good you know.
ReplyDeleteDon: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. But it turns out that the hard part to deal with is less discovering that I once made a choice or choices to walk the path I did, and more that I'm no longer capable of redirecting the old Chakra back to the garden. I've utterly lost the capacity, and that worries more than the fact that I wouldn't anyway.
I've been busy gaining weight and losing my temper, but I'll come back around some time. Life's been happening at a greater density than usual. Thanks for wondering.
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