GROWING UP “FREE TO BE YOU AND ME” — A REVIEW

Nothing captures the spirit of a social movement more than stories told in the voices of those who were there. And in these essays from “girlhoods in the counterculture,” we can visualize what it was like and hear the songs and the beat of this unique subculture.

With a foreword by Moon Zappa and essays from various daughters of the “hippie” movement, such as Chelsea Cain, Rain Grimes, Diane B. Sigman, River Light, and others…we can almost experience their lives along with them.

In the case of Chelsea Cain, she had the opportunity to revisit that time period by attending an event touted as one of the last bastions of sixties-style counterculture years later: the Rainbow Gathering. What she discovered, of course, is that you can’t really go back.

This is what she shared in her story:

“In 1972, I was a naked flower baby on a farm commune in Iowa. My mother spent that summer sanding sixty years of thick white paint off the kitchen window frames…By fall the four frames were natural wood again and she began another project: sewing my father a green felt Robin Hood shirt (I have pictures of him smiling sheepishly in it). My parents were both on the run: my mother from society’s expectations for women at the time, my father from the draft and the war machine. My memories of this period are pure and sweet: love and music, dogs and garden vegetables, sunshine and songs….

She describes occasionally meeting someone named “Summer” or “Star,” and after an exchange of words that identify a common “hippie” childhood, knowing right away that there is some basic part of each other, some true thing that connects them.

She goes on to say: “When I first heard about the Gathering, I expected it to be like that—a big family reunion, a living memory—something like those half-remembered evenings listening to the Dead through kitchen speakers on that Iowa farmhouse porch.

“But it wasn’t like that at all. Like so many holidays, the celebration itself has evolved into a celebration of a celebration rather than anything specific.” She details how many of the people who attended were not part of the core group from that long ago time. They were just there to party.

The other women share similar experiences, but mostly we can see how each woman’s unique situation formed her into the person she is today, with the core values born in a unique time in history.

And no matter what each woman’s story is, the bonds of that time connect them and inform their lives in the present.

I can relate to some of the stories in Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture, especially the ones about people living the “counterculture” lifestyle in suburban homes, rather than on communes, with food coops and organic gardening to show our ideals. Shared values connect us all, despite the surface differences in how these values are expressed.

I enjoyed reading and feeling the beat of a time that is no more, but that will always be a part of me. For me, this was a five star read.

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