The Wait

“You are American?” the Thai custom agents asked.
“Yes,” I said somewhat cautiously not knowing how the Thai felt about the USA these days.
“We love you,” they echoed each other. “Yes, we love Americans. And we love New York.”

After untold hours in cramped jets, days in airports, thrust into a time warp where space and time collided, to hear I was loved from total smiling strangers was striking a celestial chord within. I love Thailand. I love Bangkok. I gathered my things and went off to seek shelter and shower, happy to be back in the land of the friendly, even if only a twelve hour layover.

Fifteen minutes from the airport the Regency sounded like a royal night of slumber, however, my body wasn't understanding where it had been dropped into - sleep escaped me and the roosters next door crowed non stop from 5 a.m. - the airport would be the better place to hang out until my 2 p.m. flight to Nepal. I had been warned. Royal Nepal airline is not the best for schedule. I could relate to that, not having a propensity towards keeping to schedule myself.

If you're going to be stuck at an airport, Bangkok is the place to be. I was ready for Thai food and didn't care when my flight to Kathmandu was delayed a couple of hours. Questing for my favorites, green curry and Thai iced tea, was easy since there are so many culinary delights at the Bangkok airport. The airport is multi-level and layered with shops that sell everything from dried fish to new camcorders and Chanel perfumes. There are even massage salons and after the food frenzy and a two hour out of body massage, I thought I was ready for anything.

Royal Nepal Air gets to their ticket counter whenever they damn well please. When it finally opened, the line was expectedly long with well-traveled people, mostly aroma-ripened Euro-youth, some brightly dyed and dreaded, who had obviously been backpacking across the planet since they could walk. Two more flight delays and seven hours after the scheduled departure, the jet taxied off into the dark. But the flight is a party plane, packed to capacity with laughing, chattering, diverse languages. Cheap synthesized music plays old movie themes and the stewardesses aren't seat belt gestapos. The cabin smells of musky stoutness and urine, and there's a river on the bathroom floor that you have to step around carefully. The back dozen seats are filled with dark skinned men joking and gesturing. My window seat, carefully chosen to maximize the view of the Himalayans, showed only the pitch blackness of sparsely populated regions. The plane finally rattles its way up into the night for the three hour flight.

At the Kathmandu airport, the customs agents push luggage through a non-functioning scanner. They don't even bother pretending that they're looking for anything, they just take your $40 visa fee and send you along to the throngs of hawking taxi drivers and hotel screamers. Fortunately, the kind people from Hotel Karma are there to greet me.

Through unlit streets we weave – dark glimpses of cattle scurrying through open doors in narrow passageways, cars, motorbikes and pedestrians vie for position and dogs own the night. An impossibly large bus is trying to navigate its way through a narrow corridor where electric wires and lights are hung for tomorrow's contrived World Tourist Day celebration. My driver refuses to budge in his futile attempt to get by the bus blocking the road, where the oncoming traffic has the right of way, while onlookers are imploring him to please back up. Finally, he decides to comply - the plug removed things progress through the tightly curving city. The air is acrid as we arrive at the noisy center of Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu, where the hotel is located. A band is playing next door, motorized vehicles and rickshaws are honking, people are yelling and there's a faint smell of urine in my room. I pull out my sleeping bag and cocoon into dreamless sleep, knowing Kathmandu will be waiting in all its squalor in the morning.

High Road

By the time you read this I'll be gone... trying to sleep in some unlikely quiet corner of the Bangkok Airport after twenty-four hours of plane changes, airports and squished knees, awaiting a flight to Kathmandu in another twelve hours. But it wasn't easy. Packing was far more difficult than I had imagined, even though I knew I didn't need things like Italian boots, leather jacket or lipstick. The panic stemmed from not knowing what to anticipate on a trek in a fourth world country, hiking for weeks along narrow yak trails between teahouses at very high altitudes. Unlike hikes through Italy where there was the promise of a hot shower, fabulous food, and succulent wines waiting after a glorious walk through medieval countrysides... and you knew which shoes to bring. Teahouses... the name sounds so civilized. British formal tea with scones and clotted cream. Japanese tea ceremonies. New York's Russian Tea Room.

“You need to bring your own linens,” a friend recommended, “because none of the teahouses have sheets or blankets. And you'll want to pack your own toilet paper too.”

I once guffawed about the story of a woman hiking Everest who took her espresso machine along. At the time it seemed absurd, however, as caffeine is one of my main daily staples it started to look more reasonable after realizing that there wouldn't be good espresso, let alone a plain ol' cup 'o joe until I return in a month or so. Intentionally, I had bought only a small backpack considering the length of time and various climes I would encounter. Certainly not enough room for an espresso pot. In fact, it was looking minuscule as things started accumulating in the corner reserved for the pile of possibilities where any item that came to mind as remotely necessary would get tossed into.

I hadn't been camping in over 30 years. I didn't even own a sleeping bag. After five summers back in the Butte, I was the proud owner of a condo, a cat and a ‘72 VW Bug, three and a half townie bikes, four pairs of skis, five down coats and thirteen pairs of hiking boots... but no sleeping bag. Like Dracula taking the dirt of his homeland along for survival, I felt it was imperative to buy a local bag instead of in Nepal.

“You have to get into the bag itself to see if it feels right,” Ryan at the Alpineer suggested. I wondered, what does a right sleeping bag feel like? I tend to sleep thrashed across an entire queen feather bed with two down quilts and high thread-count sheets so a confined space where I can't move my toes feels claustrophobic. Ryan assured me the bag was specifically designed for a woman's body, which is why they must have manufactured it in dirt sucking pastel blue instead of a disguising dark color. I now finally owned a sleeping bag that would take me to new levels of snore induced nirvana upon the sheetless teahouse beds along the Annapurna trail.

Bogged down with the normal work load crammed into a compressed time frame so I could leave earlier, coupled with my habitual routine of procrastination, time was not on my side and was rudely moving towards the departure date with increasing velocity. I still hadn't ordered half the things I thought I would need as a traveling journalist – light weight cameras, video equipment, solar chargers and a herd of batteries and memory chips.

“So, you're going to Nepal with a sharpei? Those dogs know how to guide you on the trail?” my mother had asked. “Aren't you afraid or worried about being so far away with strangers?”

“No mom,” I chuckled, “I'm going with a sherpa not a sharpei. They're the friendly native guides there.”

It was then that I recognized that I really had everything I needed for this trip – namely, a sense of adventure. A few days before the planned departure, I had pretty much eliminated everything except minor toiletries, underwear, a camera and charger, mini netbook, a handful of buffalo jerky and my new sleeping bag. It's about a new experience seen through the first exposure to a wondrous new environment, untainted by someone else's interpretation. And the certainty of knowing I'll be returning home to one of the most incredible places on earth with the anticipation of another Butte-teous, deep powder season. Wishing you who are on the road wandering a safe journey…

Rhythm of Life

It could be the combination – the uncatalogued uniform of the traveling musician in tight black jeans, leather jacket, guitar bag draped across a shoulder and some hip-funky, long, fluid hair worthy of shampoo commercials – that triggers an instinctive reaction spiraling deep into the labyrinth of inner cochlea. I secretly become Goldie Hawn's character in The Banger Sisters. It's not just because at heart I'm really a groupie – the gypsy road gig warrior in me is envious. I want to schlep my guitar across the universe and get paid for being a bohemian troubadour songster again.

Coolly moving to his own beat down the airport's people mover, he steps in time to my ipod blasting John Cougar Mellencamp's “Hurts So Good.” Osmotically, music speaks in an invisible language of the air. We are connected. I sigh, thinking he's probably going to some fat gig in New York or California and head to my own gate that flashes “Tampa/St Pete NOW BOARDING.”

The seats are packed with retirees, young tan bodies, and a few excited Disney bound kids who are already bouncing off the non-existent space between seat backs. As we reach cruising altitude, a stewardess is frantically looking for the traveling partner of an unconscious woman in the bathroom while 3 medically related passengers head to the stern to help. The captain turns on the seatbelt sign, announcing that we're heading into thunderstorms as Tom Petty wails about “Free Falling” in my sequestered world of rhythm oblivious to sharp, bumpy drops in altitude, calamity gawkers and screaming children.

Three hours later the Florida gulf coast comes into the port view. The captain says broken clouds and 90 degrees. I start peeling off the Colorado layers; the thick air drenches my desert skin as the palette instinctively craves an iced refreshment – a minty mojito in hand, I head down to the sand for the daily ritual sunset celebration. I'm thankful it's an evening solar party and not morning, although there were long nights we sat on that same beach as teens watching “the sun rise from the bottom of the sea”… even though we were on the wrong coast for that. But it didn't matter. We were experienced.

My mother's 80th birthday party was to be somewhat of a surprise. You just can't pull the wool over mom's eyes. She's also experienced. She’s seen it all at this point, heard every excuse in the book and saw right through every fabrication of why you're home after her dictated curfew. By the time my four younger brothers came of age, I had already ruined their chances of getting away with anything.

What mom didn't know was that we were arriving at her door in a 15-passenger stretch limo stuffed with her grandkids, best friend, champagne, chocolates, flowers and me. I would later swear I had been drugged to have agreed to ride shotgun-chaperone, confined in a throbbing disco-lit padded cell on wheels with all those hyped-up kids. Mom looked thoroughly surprised and somewhat confused to find herself cruising the beach in a pimp mobile. It was after the exquisite dinner for 30 of the immediate family that we realized a surprise party for an 80-year old, who was already exhausted from constantly caring for the 90-year old relatives, maybe wasn't such a good idea – although we're pretty sure she enjoyed the limo ride more than the ambulance.

Hospitals have so many unnecessary rules that shouldn’t apply to large Italian families of musical and theatrical persuasion.

“It's ok, we're with the band,” one of my musician brothers nodded in his best stage smile to the nurse who was reciting regulations governing how many people were allowed into the emergency room with their mother.

“Wait... she's in the band?” the nurse's suspicions were justifiably tweaked but by that time the entire entourage had slipped into mom's room, closing the door behind. Musicians have a back stage pass to the world.

Hours later, and a battery of tests seemingly unrelated to any of her symptoms, mom was declared perfect and we left with her.

“Don't worry, we'll send you the bill,” the desk nurse smiled and waved and then added, “What's the name of your band?”

The clan of bleached and dyed haired, leather clad attendants in tight jeans clung firmly to their mother and smiled back, while the bass player brother of the family shot a sideways quip, “You didn't give them her real name and address did you?”

Old Standards

What is old supposed to look like? At one time I thought I knew but, as you discover later, at 17 you know less than you think. I simultaneously laugh and shudder when someone starts out with, “at your age you should...” From the time I turned 35, the music industry was telling me I was too old to rock. A few weeks ago an online opinion article, probably written by some teenage girl, snidely demanded that no one over the age of 30 should be seen in the latest fashions... mini skirts, tie-dye tees and bathing suits... as if anyone under that age was around the first time those fashions were flaunted back in the 60s and 70s. I still wear the originals. One click away was another story about how Elton John, Madonna and Mick Jagger, along with all the others who paved the road to heart pounding, rocking music should get off the stage and retire.

Don't get me wrong – youth is great. But I don't want those little guttersnipes telling me what to wear, how to live or setting limits based on what they perceive old should be doing. True, at one point in all our lives we thought 30 was ancient and most of us never planned to live that long. But now that we’ve survived, most of the Boomer generation knows no limits.

“Have you ever thought about cutting your hair short... like, up to your chin to highlight your cheekbones? Older women look younger with that cut,” an acquaintance offered.

“I like my hair long…” the hair on my neck bristled.

“But you'd look younger...” she slurred as her fingers went for my locks.

“No, I'd look like an older woman with shorter hair,” I snorted, ignoring her as I grabbed another piece of sushi and shot of sake while the younger set bounced somewhat rhythm-less to a rap beat.

“Women your age shouldn't have that color blonde. You need to lowlight your hair. Aging women need to look softer...” she said as her legs gave out and she sat down on the floor.

“Wait...” I curtly cut her off, “you’re saying I should lowlight a color that's not found in nature to try to make it appear more natural? Obviously, I'm not trying to convince anyone I'm a real blonde. I like to wake up to light-sucking, shockingly bright hair... it’s like an instant shot of incorporated caffeine. ‘Soft’ is a description I use for people not right in the head and has nothing to do with the way I want my persona to project.”

It doesn't matter what hairstyle, color or fashion you sport if you're too drunk to stand, or speak without spitting. It's all in the carriage. If you carry yourself well, people will follow the statement you create. In the 80s of New York's East Village culture, design spies would scope out the street wear of the neighborhood locals because they were so unique. You'd see a modified version of it in the following season's lineup.

Not that bleached platinum is anything unique or different. My idea of fashion is more theatrical since the world is my stage and my modus operandi involves creating my own reality. If chin length layered hair chunked out in wide, tri-color bands of red, gold and brown makes you feel younger – then you are. The trick is to be confident and walk like you mean it. Yeah, that's right, I intentionally put this chartreuse bolero with hot pink pants, and you bet... my hair color matches the shoes and the outfit. Wanna dance?

There is no age or fashion appropriate in my world... as long as the golden rule is adhered to (Do unto others…). Which of course, brings up the family thing. For some reason, it sent my then 10-year old daughter crying hysterically, burying herself into her bed covers, when I came home with strands of hot pink and electric blue tresses in the mid-80s.

“But you have to meet my teacher!” she sobbed. It was the one time I reversed a decision about appearance.

Perhaps brilliant color triggers responses from the time when little old ladies emerged from salons with blue hair... which they still do. It's like a bright warning light to MOVE OVER when you glimpse their fuzzy halo shining from behind the wheel of a 40-weight car veering ominously in the left lane with the directionals blinking continually – keeping the driver in the car behind guessing which way the devil with the blue hair is really going.

My mother turns 80 this week– and she stills drives but doesn't have the traditional bluehead of the Florida elderly. Having survived my rebellious teen years, wading through the experimental styles of the flower child love era of the 60s, she's wizened and always more amused than offended with any hair color, threads or lifestyle choice. As my grandmother would say, “What’s important is that you're true to yourself, kind to others and loyal to your family... but make sure you know how to dance well…”


PS: I'll be in Florida this week dancing quite well at mama Belloise's 80th birthday party.

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It's gettin kinda long
I could have said it was in my way
But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone – David Crosby

From the musical Hair:

...I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!
Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

End of the World

When the end comes and the earth tilts, Crested Buttians will know how to hold onto their drinks.


“This is the end…The end of our elaborate plans; The end of everything that stands; The end.” – Jim Morrison

Every time I think about mending my procrastination tendencies I simply remind myself that according to Mayan calendars, the world will end in about 4 years and then it's just easy to rationalize that hike, trip, purchase and slackerness into a justifiable experience conducive to my evolution at the time of the end.

“I wouldn't worry about the Mayan calendar,” my daughter explained. “They've already had their apocalypse. Their calendar ended a long time ago. They're gone.” Nevertheless, I'm confused as to what to do for the end of the world. Do I put my stuff in storage? Stockpile cat food, yak jerky and top shelf gin? What is fashionably appropriate at the end of the world – basic little black dress or white sheets?

What exactly is the end anyway – what kind of end is all this fuss about? Sure, there's the cataclysmic disaster of biblical foretelling and slamming asteroids. Fanatics and fundamentalists have been screaming for the end for two thousand years or more. Either they want to be able to shake that righteous finger and smirk, “See, we told you so...” or they want you to think the end is nigh so you'll join their apocalypso party and purge your soul of materialistic evil, bequeathing it to their cause. But why give up all your earthly wealth if the end of the world is around the corner? Better to spend it all and party like it's 2011.

I called on my astrologer pal, hoping to shed some planetary light on dark predictions simultaneously printed in papers at the grocery checkout counter, and to ease my fears about utter destruction.

“Well, yes, according to the planets something will occur to change life as we know it but I choose to believe the change will not mean the end of the earth. But,” she stuttered... “well, there ARE planets that indicate... well... explosive power and serious changes...” Not feeling particularly heartened I considered previous non-manifesting catastrophic world prophesies.

Supposed cosmically scientific evaluations that life would end during similarly epic planetary alignment when, in 1982, all nine celestial globes in our solar system would be lined up on one side of the sun, causing a gravitational tug-of-war worthy of earthquakes and magnetic force fields powerful enough to flip earth's axis and finally shake us off terra firma to free fall in space. The best part was the multitudes of pre-destruction parties to enjoy the last of the old world before we were collectively tossed out of the airlock of our galactic third planet home.

The Harmonic Convergence was predicted for August 16, 1987 and was also based on planetary alignments and a new age guru's Mayan interpretation – which was completely unfounded in any Mayan scholarship. Nevertheless, the Convergence was to usher in the end of all the evils of the modern world – war, materialism, violence, injustice, governmental abusive of power – an end we could all live with. Groups, armed with a plethora of crystals, gathered in the cosmic vortices like Sedona, AZ and on the Golden Gate Bridge. However, many others confused the Harmonic Convergence with Boulder's wacky annual Kinetic Conveyance race, and showed up on the shores of the reservoir thinking that the self-propelled land and water crafts were alien space ships. The ensuing party was far more entertaining than meditating and waiting for the planetary politicians to turn from their evil ways in a burst of enlightenment.

In the late 90s Sheldon Nidle, lead visionary for earth's membership of the Galactic Federation, predicted the human evolution would come when 16 million space ships converged upon the Earth with a swarm of angels trailing. Why there was a need for spaceships when there were flying angels was not clear. Maybe it evolved from a childhood trauma of those terrifying flying monkeys of Oz. I still mentally scan skyward for screaming winged primates when I'm hiking alone through the woods...

Another cult out of Texas determined that god would return in 1998 and invite their group to board a spaceship. When that didn't happen, the cult decided that god would appear on channel 18 simultaneously across the world, however, Playboy had gotten the calling first and bought up channel 18 – at which point all similar Christian cults decided to watch channel 18 as frequently as possible in case god did show up to preempt the regularly scheduled show.

If I were going to subscribe to any of the world ending saviors it would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer. An evolved blonde cheerleader, with supernatural powers, precociously kicking the Hell Mouth closed, thus continually saving the world from demons and impending destruction – a secret messiah to the unknowing human race. That’s the kind of salvation goddess I would emulate. Some endings are good, after all, Crested Butte is at the end of the road. So, don't worry about the world coming to an end today – it's already tomorrow somewhere.

Girlfriends

By midday, Boulder was sweltering canned heat with no relief other than to check into Vic's Coffeehouse for an iced mocha, sipped slowly at a table directly beneath the swamp cooler fan while trying to keep the eyelids open as the brain shuts in a meltdown. I gulp iced sodas and an ocean of water and still, I'm exhausted just watching the heat waves blur the air above sidewalks and car hoods. It's after a full day of visiting long-time friends in town in 100 degree temps that the imagery of cold sake and excellent fish in air conditioned surrounds propels me to a more logical priority before heading up the dusty, winding curves through Fourmile Canyon where I'm staying with dear girlfriends of my Boulder past life.

"Wow, that's a lot of sushi!" exclaimed the rotund man taking up his space and spilling into mine at the bar in Sushi Tora in downtown Boulder.

"They're only half rolls," I defended as the artistic platter of a dozen pieces was handed over the counter with a smile and a bow. Savoring the memory of my favorite Boulder sushi restaurant in the old West Pearl neighborhood called for revisiting the best loved menu choices.... all of them. Flying fish egg, and half rolls of dragon, soft shell crab and the Orgasm, the latter always producing guffaws from clowns like the one sitting next to me.

"What? Only half an orgasm? You should really work on that!" he grinned a dimpled practiced smirk that might have been cute when he was far younger but looked grotesquely warped as he elbowed his 2 buddies, who were equally smarmy.

"Yeah... right… but I'm only faking it anyway," I politely snarled, turning in solitary culinary bliss to admire the delicately arranged rolls zigzagged in sauces and sitting atop heaps of Japanese veggie-garnish. Slowly luxuriating in the complex flavors, I maneuvered another piece into my mouth.

"Wow, you can really put it away! And you're small... I mean... you're not fat or anything but you can really eat that stuff," the uninvited neighbor bleats as his belly shakes in laughter with his own perceived cleverness.

"Oh look.... your check! " I smile, "Isn't the service here wonderful?" I shoot a thankful glance to the waitress, who knowingly smiles back, and think... that's what I get for going to dinner without my girlfriends.

The girls were back at the canyon cabin, dubbed Fort Girlie for the weekend, where the air was only slightly cooler but the mountain stream was refreshing as it tumbled past the front door. Girlfriends who would never insinuate that you were eating or drinking too much. In fact, they'd gladly sacrifice the calories and offer to dine with you just to keep your intake to half. In our world 25 years ago, we would jog around North Boulder Park and then reward ourselves with
ice cream.

"The calories cancel out if you both eat the same hot fudge sundae," my friend, Lynda, would proclaim. It's like clapping your hands if you believe in Tinkerbell and if you believe – like magic – it will be. It must have worked because we were always able to fit into size 2 jeans.

The ladies of the canyon had reassembled and were chatting about past and future boyfriends, cats, travels, tarot readings, planetary transits and the latest strategy for instant weight loss and lottery-sized financial gains set to the music of girlish howls and fine wine. Years of mutual admiration and camaraderie. Decades of fashion trends, club hopping and changes culminating in a weekend reunion of breakfast in pjs and dinners on the porch with long conversations deep into the night. Real girlfriends who would never chastise for frivolous spending, or dumping a date, or moving cross country for your soul, or buying a pair of jeans a size too small for incentive. No... these were seasoned women who, after 25 years together sometimes on opposite ends of the universe, had been through every imaginable disaster, joy, loss, rebirth and hairstyle – and emerged victorious, wizened and stronger. Through time, they had come to understand and encourage the dynamics and value of their individual quirks and flavor.

"You know, my Ruby the VW is not going to make it over to the front range," I had tried to explain to my friends when the gathering was announced.

"We'll understand if you can't make it, but you should try to come," Lynda and Robin both said. I had been looking for a companion car for Ruby – like getting a puppy for an older dog – to get me to the further reaches, the edge and beyond – the VW reality is that in her antiquity, she's really a western slope car. Ruby is a lot like the rest of my girlfriends, classic and still going strong, but selective. Serendipitously, another girlfriend in Crested Butte happened to be selling her Subaru and although it didn't have the personality of a 72 VW bug, it would do the trick.

"Wait... you bought a car just to come see me?" Lynda sounded amused
but not too surprised.
"Well, that's what girlfriends are for..." I reasoned.

Memory Jog

This is your brain on macaroni with a side of fried memory.

If the genetic memory within cells can summon up traits in reproduction, why can't I recall the name of the person I just met 5 minutes ago? I'd like to blame it on the bleach headiness, but the sad truth is I think I had the same memory issues when I wasn't blonde... but I can't remember. Is the brain like a hard drive and can I upgrade to zettabytes? How do I get it to auto-save? Does it automatically empty the trash bin of memories not used for decades to make room for more?

It's embarrassing to have to continually ask someone's name introduced to you less than a minute before. I've tried the name game trick and relating the face or a feature with the name and even making silly rhymes. Tracy... racy, Macy's, parade, jade, fade, spade, dig, pig, fig... what was your name again? Sorry... my mind wanders. And my disc needs to be defragmented.

Coming back to Crested Butte after a 20-year journey through life elsewhere, I was reunited with people who remembered more about my past than I did. Although, I'm not sure their perspective of the events was viewed from the same angle as mine if I could remember it.

“Don't you remember Franko the Magician?” one particularly sharp friend impishly smirked when I looked blankly at the ground, trying to conjure up an image of anyone named Franko with a wand.

“You certainly came to work the next day thinking he was magic...” Later that evening, disturbed that I couldn't bring to mind someone uniquely romantic enough to be dressed in renaissance threads and traveling in a gypsy wagon, I suddenly remembered that I was trying to make my band learn Magic Man (by Heart) around the same time Franko's bohemian bus rolled out of town. But I still couldn't evoke specifics about meeting the magician, who was also a hypnotist...

As if to mock me, my mind will pull a visually detailed memory out of no where, completely unrelated to the moment, just a flash of a fragment – the marble stoop we sat on as young kids, a dusty corner from my teenage bedroom or the way the light fell into the window of a home 10 years ago. What triggers that visual when I can't remember where I left my keys, glasses, hat or drink?

Do genetic memories make us predisposed to certain preferences? There's a certain amount of cellular duplication passed on from parents to child – can parents' experiences be genetically shared on some level? This could explain why all teenagers are annoying to their parents... an endless cycle of retribution. It would then stand to reason that I am re-experiencing my grandmothers' flair for clothing, music and dance as a past life experience. It’s not my fault, it’s my ancestors’.

Riding along in the clanking tin cans of a local train to my family's ancestral home in southern Italy, I was stunned to discover the region was mountainous. No one had ever mentioned we hailed from magnificently tall green peaks that surrounded our house still occupied by the descendants of those who arrived in the 1500s. On a smaller, more ancient scale it was reminiscent of my own chosen mountain town home... but without the skiing, costumes or bars. I wondered if my love of vertical landscape could have originated from collective genetic memory of place.

They say if you can remember the 60s you weren't really there. What is it that makes a VW summon thoughts buried in a haze of purple nights and sunshine days? It's the gasoline and the horsehair seat stuffing. They always smell like part gas and part funky, musky wild animal and the combo jogs those memories loose from the back folds of grey matter. Someone tested the theory that the olfactory, the sense of smell, could bring forth strong memory, so college kids were given chocolate wrappers when studying and then again during the exam. The results were astounding for the group sniffing the wrappers. Maybe I just need more chocolate... enough to wake the deep-sixed.

Road to Freedom

Photo by Dusty Demerson

“Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, nothing ain't worth nothin' but it's free...” – Me & Bobby McGee by Fred Foster and Kris Kristofferson

Free Bird. Free Ride. Free Falling. I'm Free! Free your mind. Free your soul. Free love. Free spirited. Free Huey. Free the people. Free beer (where?!) Break free. Fancy free. Duty free. Free agent. Free up. It's an adjective. It's an adverb. It's a verb. It’s a way of life. It's free. But apparently, for some reason, there is no free lunch.

I ran away when I was 16. Not because I hated my family, to the contrary, I really loved them, but the call of the road was beckoning freedom and every day was a new experience, tantalizingly unfurling like a good mystery. When curiosity peaked for what was unseen beyond the next curve, I could no longer be confined to schedules and rules. Life was uncontrollably pulling me into the moment along with hundreds of thousands more of the generation who chose to tune in and drop out.

Monterrey, the Atlanta Pop Festival, Woodstock... they were about freedom. Freedom to groove to music, altered by the times, a collective of souls temporarily thrown together under one sky for a similar unified purpose in love and perceived understanding. Sharing. Dancing. Laughing. Freedom from the prescribed daily drudgery of the life “The Establishment” made. The way it should be in a perfect world... however, in reality, without the machination for economy or food, it wouldn't have lasted more than 3 days anyway.

While we proposed that truth could set us free and love sustain us indefinitely, we were all continuously hungry with severe munchies. The barter system worked for some things depending on what you wanted and what you were willing to give for it. Communal living sprung from the well of harmonious thought when we imagined we could be one big happy entity. It was about the WE and not the individual. And in that, theoretically, there was the freedom to be yourself within the cosmic sort of family. But if everyone’s truly free, then who's going to do all those communal chores required to exist, especially in the induced haziness? Few communes figured it out – most didn't and people went their different ways.

All that togetherness is probably what spurred the ME generation of the individualistic late 70s. The turn around from the group mentality of the flower children. New and improved... even more freedom. Free to be you and me, separately. Needing one's own space. Just because I sleep with you doesn't mean I'm gonna dance with you, as Tony claims in Saturday Night Fever.

Freedom takes shape differently for each individual. A mountain bike ride or sitting at a bar all day. A solitary walk deep into wilderness. A good book that can transport into another world. Traveling with no particular destination. Good health. Financial stability. For some, there is freedom in defined parameters because it appears safe. Religion. Meditation. Groomers.

I love my freedom. Corny as it may seem to some, the little red 72 VW I've given the name Ruby to is the manifestation of independence on wheels. She smells of simpler days, times of adventure and youthful idealism – and she gets 30 mpg. Recently, personal liberty was granted by the 30-year veteran guru of VW repair who in one simple statement, “She's good to go,” sent me free wheelin' down the road. I had waited all winter to redeem Ruby from her western slope winter spa since that's how long the Bug Guru in Delta had said it would take him to get 'er done. Which freed me from having to locate and shovel the tiny car out from the heapage of snow this past winter.

Mid May rolled around and Ruby was still in “I'm working on her” mode as we slid into June. I started to panic, feeling trapped, unable to roam past the walking boundaries of town. Anxiety took over and I packed a bag, ready to thumb it over to Delta if necessary to liberate Ruby, ready or not, when the call came serendipitously the same day Kebler Pass opened up the entire Western Slope from my front door.

The road doesn’t call me, it screams and sings in 5 part harmonies. For me, the sound of freedom ringing is a chirping VW engine as it putters along a high mountain pass, aspens fluttering in the breeze giving glimpses of distant higher peaks. Sunshine, blue skies. Everyone smiles when they encounter a classic VW ... they recall their own glory days of freedom, or the stories told to them by parents – fingers with muscle memory from decades ago flash peace signs. But meeting another classic VW on the road is like finding an old friend, honking and waving with recognition, knowing you share a history of like-mindedness being freedom bound. Why else would you be driving an ancient chariot? For all of you on the road, may your journey be free and easy and your Freak Flag forever fly.

Jung Mind

“You have to take this personality test,” my daughter insisted as she went on to catalog all the friends who had taken it. “Terra's an Idealistic Teacher and Chris is a Provider. I want to know what you are.”

“I'm your mother,” I mused.

“No, really, it'll be interesting,” she prompted.

Hell bent on getting me into a categorized box I figured she needed to prove to herself, once and for all, that there was a certifiable reason to have what she envisioned in her youth as a spacey hippie parent who ignored schedules and dragged her off to rehearsals with mom's crazy rock band. The same mom who flew in the face of conventionalism, teaching her daughter to question everything and rebel against what didn't fit her principals. But even more importantly, she needed to affirm to herself that she was entirely different from her mother during any time in her life. For sheer entertainment, and to appease my own curiosity, I Google search the supposedly respected Jungian Briggs-Meyer personality test.

I settle into a comfy couch position with a glass of libation to loosen deep thought and cogitate through hours of questions and essays I figured it would take to determine one's personality type. However, there were only about 75 questions, all of which overlapped and repeated – reworded in different ways to ensure answers were consistent, so in actuality, it seemed there were only really 10 questions that kept looping.

Unexpectedly, none of them had to do with maternal relationships, paternal envy, or even the desire to beat up your siblings – although it did ask if I would rather spend quality time with my family or go or to a party. I wondered if my answer would lower my rating and classify me as exceptionally boring or just weird because I enjoy my family, all of whom love to party.

The survey was a true or false and yes or no simplification and didn't even require a single thoughtful sentence. But how can the entire western world's personality be defined and organized into only four groupings and several subcategories determined by questions that potentially have multiple answers depending on variables of situations, moods, moon cycles or bad days?

“You are almost never late for your appointments: Yes or No?” What if you don't have appointments? Does the daily pilgrimage to Camp 4 Coffee count as an appointment and are you late if you're the last in your neighborhood to roll out of bed so you get there last?

“You feel involved when watching TV soaps: Yes or No?” Is Battlestar Galactica a soap and if so does Cylon sympathy count as involvement?

“Strict observance of the established rules is likely to prevent a good outcome: Yes or No?” Rules? What rules? Although, Crested Butte has its own set of rules – you must wear a costume for the Al Johnson Uphill Downhill, weasel out of work for powder days and furiously play outdoors in the summer – and if you don't follow those rules you won't have a good outcome or a good time.

“You often contemplate about the complexity of life:Yes or No?” Does negotiating the crawl home down totally darkened streets after a slurred conversation and drooling into PBRs at Kochevar's qualify? If so, then my town is full of deep thinkers with complex lives, which means Buttians are all average by default… but only while still in town because anywhere else, they’re off the charts.

I completed the test and emailed the ratings to my daughter.
"I am totally weirded out. This is a revelation,” she sent back.

“What's so weird?” I panicked, thinking someone finally had a verifiable reason to lock me up at last.

“These tests are pretty accurate and used all the time by professionals for analysis and companies for job placement,” she sounded astonished and confused.

“So what's the problem?”

“We're exactly the same type personality… and it's a rare one, quite uncommon, less than 2 percent of the population are in this category and we're the same… you and me....” Her worst fears had manifested... she was more like her mother than she had wanted to believe and was probably questioning: what if my mother was right about everything?

The next day I call my own mom, “Hey mom... you got a few minutes to take a quick test?...”

Wanna play? Take the Jung Typology Test online at humanmetrics.com. and see which box you fit into – and how far the apple fell from the tree.

Southland

The olfactory sense can trigger memories and images buried deep away from mundane daily synapse firing. The smell of a wet sidewalk after a summer rain, a box of new crayons and of course, Play-Doh can instantaneously reawaken childhood past as easily as the smell of stale beer resurfaces the days of brutal college bash hangovers. Back from a 2-week Florida stint visiting family, I caught a sudden whiff on the air that awakened a familiar but seldom visited brain quadrant of teenage years – Allman Brothers and The Outlaws suddenly shook loose in full surround sound from somewhere within the surviving cells of that late 60's era of wild experimentation, peace and love stirred with a smattering of youthful hormonal rage. But what was that aroma plunging me into recall?

Most people envision beaches and Disney when they think of Florida and never consider that it was, and still is, part of the deep southern culture with all its pros and cons. Fortunately, it was the positive aspects that the mind was revisiting through the sense of smell – the laid back climate and lush flora – the antebellum architecture blended with the building boom glory days of the 1930s, live oaks draped in gently swaying Spanish moss, the overpowering sweetness of night blooming jasmine, and acres of orange groves in bloom – a scent that could drift for miles to find your nose – and conversely in a winter cold spell, the burning stench of smudge pots warming the freezing air throughout the rows of unripened fruit.

Involuntarily succumbing to the heat induced afternoon nap in the shade of a porch where, drooling sweetly in your coma, you hope the palmetto bugs – Godzilla roaches the size of a chihuahua – won't carry your trance-like body off to feed their bizillion offspring. When you awaken there's ice cold lemonade and...what was that savory smell wafting through the air?

My teen years were spent whiling away the afternoons and weekends in the smoke filled room of my best friend, James Peter Britton known to all as J.B., but called in a thick drawn out accent by his momma as ”Jimmeee...” J.B.'s family lived in a ramshackle wooden house built right after the Civil War, leaning defiantly as though Robert E. Lee himself was still holding up the place.

The Brittons were financially poor but J.B.'s mom always had enough food to go around for his half dozen or so friends that showed up after school every day... as well as the 25 felines lounging around the empty cat food cans littering the back porch. It's that southern hospitality of feeding and sharing and politeness. On the couch greeting all the long-haired hippies who came and went was grandma, who in her 90-some years could recount the stories of the Civil War still fresh in the minds of those who lived to tell them to her as a child.

The inner sanctum of J.B.'s room was engulfed in black light psychedelic posters of bands and politics of the Vietnam war; self-mastered artwork, and paraphernalia which produced the smoke that billowed out every time someone opened the door. Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane performed just for us from a scratchy turntable when guitars weren't being played, poetry wasn't being read or discourse about the evils of “the Man and the Establishment” wasn't going down. It didn't take long at J.B.'s tea party to produce a ravenous appetite ... and what was that culinary bouquet coming from the kitchen where J.B.'s mom seemed to be in perpetual bathrobe, spatula in hand, over a frying pan on the stove?

Like Alice falling into the rabbit hole, we all tumbled out of the den of creativity to find his mom calling to us in her southern lilt slow and sweet like warm honey in the sun, “Ya'll hungry? I got some grits and eggs and gravy... ” Oh...that delectable smell of southern cookin' when you had the baddest case of the munchies in the history of mankind – served up with generous homemade goodness and so much love.

That smell... of truly fried deep south, down home cuisine meant to pamper the soul and the belly like a love song. There it was sending me back to the universe of J.B.'s mother's kitchen of 40 years ago – only I'm standing in front of the Forest Queen in Crested Butte – with the aroma from the new Josephine's kitchen transporting me to a simpler time. Was I hallucinating the menu? Collard greens, grits, biscuits and gravy. Meatloaf and fried chicken and catfish. Fried green tomatoes and... can it be? Fried okra? Yes!

With tears welling in memory of all those long gone southland friends and good times, I order one of every side dish on the menu and turn the ipod headphones up to a deafening roar as The Outlaws' 4-guitar army of southern rock wails Green Grass & High Tide Forever – the lyrics written by J.B. The nose knows, and remembers... never underestimate the power of good food, friends, music and love...

“Time and time again I've thanked them for a peace of mind
that helped me find myself amongst the music and the rhyme that enchants you there...
Green grass and high tides forever; Castles of stone souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you as kings and queens bow and play for you"
Lyrics: James Peter Britton… music: The Outlaws.