I was a child of the 6o's, too young to attend Woodstock, but attracted to the hippie life.
As a teenager I would come home from school, lock myself in my room, read and listen to music. My taste in books and music was eclectic and ranged from Led Zeppelin to Cat Stevens from Herman Hesse to Richard Brautigan. One of my favorite books on hippie life was Home Comfort, it was a day by day experience of a group of hippies in their own commune in Vermont, I still have that book, it has great recipes in it, pumpkin pie sweetened with maple syrup being one of them.
In my mother's day the girl's ambition was to get married and have a family. My dreams consisted of backpacking across Europe and joining a commune. But alas, as John Lennon sings, life is what happens to you when you're making other plans.
I went to Monhegan Island, worked there for awhile, came home, had no job, no plans, went camping, ran into a guy I had known for awhile, Fred. We stayed up all night talking, he asked me to move downeast with him, so I packed up my knapsack and guitar and moved into a camp in the woods. No electricity, no running water, but a nice waterfall that came in handy as a shower and a river and scrub board, a great way to wash clothes. It was an adventure.
We eventually moved into an apartment in Camden, but the following summer we would pack all of our belongings, putting our bigger items in storage, each of us packed a knapsack of clothes and started hitchhiking to Florida. Stopping in New York City to visit a friend of Fred's halted our plans to go to Florida. New York City is where we stayed for awhile, Fred could find work everyday by simply showing up when the temporary jobs were assigned. He did everything from moving vending machines to loading gold bars into armored trucks. It was the 70's and New York City was something else, something wonderful, an adventure. We were young and carefree, no ties, we were only bound to one another by our love.
After New York we moved back to Maine, tore a barn down and built a small house with an upstairs loft to sleep in. Sometimes I'd stay up all night reading if I was into a particularly good book.
A few years down the road I would get pregnant with my first child, Adam. I would hold him close to my heart. He had a sunny disposition, always happy and content, we lavished our love on him without measure. About three years later our daughter would be born, Erica. She was more frail, sick from the start. We were more vigilant over her because of her health, but she thrived and grew. When you become a parent you are always a parent, thinking of your children, wanting what is best for them. The natural progression of life is that your children grow up, they live their own lives. But, speaking from the perspective of a child who recently lost a mother and the perspective of a parent with children of my own, loving means you are always bound to those you love, no matter distance, time or death, these things can never erase the connections you hold to loved ones.
Quite a few months ago I was inspired to write a poem, dedicated to my husband, Fred.
Us Two
Hanging on my wall is a picture of me and you,
When we were young, first married, it was just us two.
A few years down the road another picture was hung,
Of you holding our newborn son, now it was us two, plus one.
One picture remained to be placed with the others,
A sister for our son, now a big brother.
Two plus two, many pictures taken as our family grew,
But I will always remember the one,
taken when we were young, first married, just us two.
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