by C. D. Hersh
Willow, Bodi, Jake, and Starr sat cross-legged on the blanket, middle fingers and thumbs touching, and repeated the chant with the crowd surrounding them.
Closing her eyes, Rose let the mantra flow over her. She didn’t notice any great power, but she did feel the rhythm of the sound, the lyricism of the words. Peace descended over her. She knew, even though she’d come alone to the festival, something good waited for her here. She only had to let go and accept it. Learn to go with the flow like Willow and Starr.
The chant ended, the last word echoing in the basin of the hill. Swami Satchidananda concluded his speech. The crowd applauded and started talking as the guru cleared the stage and the band Sweetwater prepared for their set.
Bodi rose in one fluid motion. “I’m thirsty. Do we have anything to drink in the picnic basket?”
“The drinks are in the cooler,” Willow said. “Didn’t you and Jake bring them?”
“Ah, man!” Bodi exclaimed. “We left them in the car.” He dug in his jeans pocket and drew out a couple of wrinkled bills. “I’ll get some drinks at the concession stand.” He counted the money. “I need more bread.”
Rose dug a couple of dollars from her Libra horoscope bag. Starr and Willow contributed also.
Jake turned his pockets inside out, flipping lint at Bodi. “I’m cleaned out. Sorry.”
Bodi riffled the money through his fingers. “This should do. You can share with Starr if not.”
As soon as Bodi left, Starr and Jake claimed a corner of the blanket and started making out.
Rose angled away from them. Their public display of affection made her uncomfortable. “Don’t they do anything else?”
“Making love and dropping acid is what they live for. And protesting the war.” Willow scooted closer to her. “I don’t get you.” She brushed a hand over the love beads draped around Rose’s neck. Then she tucked a stray lock of hair under Rose’s beaded, fabric headband. “You look the part. Granny skirt. Straight, ironed hair. Peace ring on your finger. You made it clear when we became friends you wanted to be part of the scene. Yet, I sense you’re holding back. What gives?”
Rose stared at the blanket, committing the weave to memory. How did you tell someone, who seemed to be the epitome of love, you felt unlovable? Everyone fell in love with Willow the second they met her. She reciprocated their affection lavishly. She was open, caring, and free. No way could someone like her understand the depth of despair an unloved person felt.
“Are you upset over the ex?” When Rose didn’t answer, Willow continued, “He’s not worth your time.” She swung her hand around at the crowd. “There are thousands of guys here. One is probably waiting to meet a girl like you. Love a girl like you.”
“Yeah, but for how long?”
“Does it matter? That’s the freedom. You don’t have to be bound to one person.”
“What if all I want is to find the one man who makes me feel whole? The one who’ll love me forever.”
“Forever is a long time. You need to live for now. Let forever take care of itself.”
“What about when Bodi needs more than one woman? Or Jake? I’ve seen the way you and Starr watch other girls when they’re eyeing your guys. You’re jealous. Both of you. Seems as if free love is just a meaningless phrase when one of the parties involved cares deeply for the other one.”
A flash of pain crossed Willow’s face, and she plucked at her skirt. “It’s the Sixties.” The slightest hint of a wobble sounded in her voice. The argument apparently hit a nerve. “We’re free to love whoever we want, whenever we want.”
“I’m sorry, Willow.” She slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” Willow smiled brightly, the cheerfulness not reaching her eyes.
Rose knew that look. She’d pasted a similar smile on her own face when some guy hurt her and she didn’t want to let him know.
The MC introduced Sweetwater. As a roar sounded from the crowd, the band started playing. The throng behind them pressed forward again. Her claustrophobia resurged into high gear.
Bodi pushed through the bodies. A young woman trailed behind him. “Man, it’s crazy out there.”
“Where are the drinks?” Willow asked.
“Bummer. The concession stands are tapped out.” He linked arms with the girl.
“And who’s she?” Willow’s mouth became a straight line in her pretty face.
“This is Joy.”
Joy leaned against Bodi. Daggers flew from Willow’s eyes.
Rose’s heart broke for her friend. She’d guessed right about Willow. She cared deeply for her boyfriend. All her free love rhetoric was a front.
Bodi held out his hand, revealing four joints. “I bought these from Joy’s friends. They’re primo, guaranteed to make us fly high.”
Jake grabbed one, lit it, and took a draw. Then he handed the reefer to Starr, who inhaled the weed. “Happy Trails, babe.”
“You bought marijuana with my money?” Rose barely kept the squeal out of her voice.
Bodi lit one and held the smoke out to her. “Don’t flip out. Take a toke. It’ll mellow you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to OD like my friend Joey.”
“This won’t make you that ripped, chick. A rush from the primo stuff makes the music copasetic.” Bodi gave her a sideways glance. “Although as clean as you are, weed might make you pretty trippy.”
“I don’t need drugs to get lost in music. I can get high on the sound on my own.” She knelt and grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the basket. “I’m sorry, Willow, but I need to get where I have some space before I really freak out. I’ll take these instead of Bodi’s joint. I’m hungry.” She hugged Willow and whispered, “I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“Me, too.” Willow returned her hug. “Where are you going?”
“To the tent to get my sleeping bag. Then I’m heading for that tree line at the top of the hill.” She pointed. “To the right of the stage.”
“Are you going to make the scene with us at the tent tonight?” Willow asked.
“No. My claustrophobia would be even worse inside with the four of you. I’ll sleep under the stars. Like when I go camping with my family.”
Worry creased Willow’s forehead. “But—”
“I’ll be fine. All these beautiful people will watch out for me, just like you have.” She dropped the sandwiches into her bag. “You won’t bug out without me, will you?”
“We’ll wait. Be at the tent Sunday night. We’ll leave Monday. I have an afternoon class I have to make.”
Rose threaded her way through the crowd, stepping over legs, feet, trash, and smooching couples. Two bare-chested, bell-bottom-clad longhairs, whose heads were wreathed in blue smoke, tried to catch her attention as she passed. She ignored them, the quest to get into the open driving her forward. After her conversation with Willow, she wouldn’t have stopped anyway. They didn’t appear as if they had forever on their minds. Free love didn’t bring happiness. She’d seen that in Willow’s face.
Settling for less than forever was no longer an option. Even if she spent the rest of her life alone.
Chapter 3
By the time Rose trekked the half mile to the tent, she could no longer hear Sweetwater playing. She grabbed her sleeping bag and backpack and headed out across the rim of the basin. Families camped out under tents of all sorts. A few even resembled circus big tops, complete with scalloped roofs, but on a smaller scale. Hippies sat in clumps, smoking and tripping out. Half-naked toddlers ran around, their bare bottoms exposed to the air and overcast sun.
About halfway around the hill’s edge a tall, slender woman, dressed in a tie-dyed caftan, twirled to her own music as she played the flute. The expression of ecstasy on her face
made Rose suspect the musician was wasted on something. A toddler, a younger version of the woman, spun beside her. The child’s pink flowered dress billowed at the bottom like a tulip in full bloom. The sight of the merry duo lifted her spirits.
Stopping, she removed her flute case from the backpack and joined in the music.
When the woman heard the harmony notes, she halted. “Far out.”
Her clear-eyed stare indicated the joy on the woman’s face came from music, not drugs.
Then she began playing the melody line of Bach’s ‘Minuet in G.’
Rose danced around the notes with her flute, creating a psychedelic version of the classical song. By the time they neared the end of the piece, a small crowd encircled them. When the last note sounded on the air, the crowd hooted and clapped their appreciation.
“Wow, you can really groove,” the woman said.
“You’re not so bad yourself.” Rose smiled, pleased with their efforts. “Classical music. I wouldn’t have expected that based on what you’d been playing.”
“Many of the classical composers were considered rebels in their time. Just like us.”
“True,” she replied.
“Besides,” the woman added, “music is the universal language. We all speak it in some form. Want to go again?”
More people clustered around them. Rose’s chest constricted as claustrophobic anxiety mounted. “Thanks, but I should be going.”
As she reached the tree line on the far side of the basin, the MC announced folk singer Tim Hardin on the loudspeaker. A ripple of disappointment ran through her. She’d hoped to hear him sing ‘If I Were a Carpenter.’ From her hilltop perch, a few chords sporadically drifted by on the breeze. Enough to let her know she was missing some grooving tunes. The performers, resembling colored dots on the stage in the graying evening light, jived to the rhythms of their songs.
Rose laid her waterproof ground cloth under the spreading branches of a golden-brown, gnarled tree no one else had claimed. She dropped onto the cloth and grabbed a sandwich from her bag. Her stomach growled loudly as she unwrapped the waxed paper. The bologna and lettuce tasted like heaven, but then she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Remembering Bodi’s comment about the concession stand selling out, she ate half the sandwich, rewrapping the remainder for later.
The edge taken off her hunger, she removed her flute from her backpack. If she couldn’t hear the music, she might as well make her own. As she played her favorite folk songs, a breeze stirred, rustling the low-hanging branches. The tree’s light green, silver-bottomed leaves quivered. Their swishing sound melded with the sweet notes of the flute, creating an otherworldly harmony. As she swayed in rhythm with the breeze, the movement of the leaves washed calm and peace over her.
Spotlights flooded the stage below as the musicians changed. Then the spotty, minor key reverberations of Ravi Shankar’s sitar wavered on the air. She tucked the flute inside the case and slid it into the backpack. Curling between the aboveground roots of the tree, she listened to the sitar as the wind tossed bits of the melody to and fro, the notes swirling like confetti tossed in the air.
The notes changed, taking on a harmonic value. Was the natural amphitheater formed by the hillside basin creating an echo? She strained to hear the new melody.
Woven in the harmonic tones, now stronger than before, a voice whispered, “I am old, I am ancient, my purpose is clear, to give those who are needy a treasure so dear.”
Startled, she sat up. “Who’s there?” she called into the darkness. When no one answered, she rose and explored the area around the tree. No one sat close enough to have been heard speaking. She lay down again and then bolted upright as another whisper sighed on the air.
“They who come to my roots, touch my bark, stroke my leaves, find the soul of their lives if they but believe.”
An overwhelming urge to hug the tree rushed through her as the harmonic music swirled on the air. She pressed her head between her hands.
Am I tripping out? What did Bodi put on the sandwich besides lettuce?
Certain Bodi dosed the sandwiches, Rose reached for her backpack and Libra bag, prepared to find one of the medical tents. If she was going to float she wanted to be around someone who could help her.
“Do you yearn?” the voice asked.
“Where are you?” She dug her flashlight from the backpack and aimed the light into the darkness, then on the limbs of the trees. The leaves rustled, their silvery bottoms reflecting with diamond brilliancy in the now-still night.
“Show yourself,” she demanded.
“Be you lonely?”
Panic gripped her. She dropped to the ground and dug her half-eaten sandwich from the Libra bag. She was tripping. “I’m going to kill Bodi for feeding me dope,” she muttered as she tore the sandwich apart. She focused the flashlight on the bread, then the meat, and finally the lettuce, checking for traces of hash. Nothing except limp lettuce and pale pink bologna adorned the unadulterated white bread.
“Be you lonely?” the voice whispered again.
Covering her ears, Rose willed the sound away. I must have eaten the marijuana already. Otherwise why would I be hearing things?
She dug in her bag for her compact. Opening her eyes wide, she shone the light on her chin, illuminating her face. Then she searched in the mirror to see if her pupils were dilated or wild. Green eyes flecked with hazel stared back at her. She didn’t look like she was tripping out.
“Do you yearn? Be you lonely?” The phrase sounded more like an order than a question.
She was tripping out.
Slumping to the ground, she tried to figure out what to do. Would fighting the hallucination be good or bad? She decided to roll with it. Following her first instinct to freak out and rush headlong into the night couldn’t be helpful.
Rose stared at the hundreds of points of light dotting the hillside below, highlighting festivalgoers smoking and flashlights twinkling in the dark. On the tops of the hills where tents had been pitched, campfires glowed. Even in the copse of trees to her right, evidence of more people emerged in the darkness.
Humanity surrounded her, many of them making love right now. Even in this counterculture of free love, where she thought she could surely find someone, she’d been unable to let go. Find love. Find someone to connect to. Find someone to make love to.
Now, I’m sitting under a tree, whose genus I can’t identify, getting ready to talk to a non-existent voice in the wind. Could it get any worse?
“Just go with it, Rosemary,” she muttered.
Giving into the hopelessness of her situation, she called out, “I am lonely. I do yearn for someone to love.”
“Touch my bark, stroke my leaves.”
A pair of leaves on a thin stem dropped onto the ground in front of her lit flashlight, pale green and silver sides glowing bright as precious metals.
She picked them up and tucked the stem behind the edge of her headband. Then she laid her palms on the tree, gliding her hands over the smooth, golden surface, caressing the patches of rough, dark brown bark scattered over the trunk. A crushing urge came over her. She hugged the enormous trunk to her chest.
The harmonic chords, mixed with the swishing leaves, coursed through the tree branches, followed by the words, “Find the soul of their lives if they but believe.”
“I believe.” The desperation in her heart caused a hitch in her voice. “I believe.”
She dragged the ground cover, backpack, Libra bag, and bedroll between the crook of the roots. Then she crawled into the sleeping bag and lay down as rain pattered on the branches.
She prayed the hallucination was real, not drug induced. If all the younger, eligible guys in America embraced free love, as witnessed by the vast turnout at Woodstock, she’d need all the help she could get to find Mr
. Right.
The sound of male voices woke Rose. As she peeked out of her sleeping bag, water streamed over the edge of the nylon, running onto her cheeks. Beneath her, the ground cloth squished as she moved. Wiggling from her cocoon, she glanced around. The tree, which sheltered her from the rain last night and promised true love, no longer shielded her. Disappointed, she flopped her forehead on the wet cloth. Everything had been a drug-induced delusion after all. Bodi would die when she saw him.
As she raised her forehead from the wet surface, a stem of leaves slid down a rivulet of water sluicing along the ground cloth. Catching them before they washed away, she turned the leaves in her hand.
Pale green, oval, with a silver underside. Just like the ones she’d put in her headband.
Bolting upright, she scanned the hilltop. Her heart jumped like a crazed guitar player on speed. Had someone moved her away from the tree? Scrambling to her feet, she dashed in a circle, searching for any evidence she hadn’t been dreaming or drugged. She checked her headband. No leaves there and no magic tree.
The two guys, sitting a couple of yards away under a makeshift lean-to, called out to her. “You okay?”
“My tree’s gone.” She realized how idiotic that sounded. “I mean, did you guys move me out from under a tree?”
They gave her a dumbfounded stare.
The second sentence hadn’t been any better. “Sorry. I’m a little confused this morning.”
“Bad acid?” one of the guys asked. “I hear there’s some bad brown hash going around.”
She fingered the leaves still clutched in her hand. They must have fallen out of her hair in the night. Proof the voice, the tree, and the promise were real. She tucked the leaves behind her headband. “No, I’m not into that.”
The dark-haired guy, whom she recognized as the one she’d seen on the bridge, scooted over. “Want to get outta the rain? We can make space.”
