WildFlower WannaBe
“Mom! I’m going to be a flower child when I grow up!” During the mid60s, my single mother, brother and I rode our rented bicycles through the Golden Gate Park of San Francisco. Ross, my brother, and I charged up to the bicycle stand in the Haight-Ashbury district to select our favorite bikes with training wheels. Admittedly, at five years of age, I still needed training wheels, however, my four-year-old brother instantly conquered this balancing act.
Ross and I trailed along the Park’s winding sidewalks behind our mother like ducklings. I was mesmerized by the long hair woven with flowers, Frisbees, rings of smoke, beads, strewn bottles, hypnotic music and scantily clad bodies. Ross took advantage of my trance and rammed his front tire into my training wheels sending me careening down an embankment.
I lifted my tiny body off the ground and discovered I was looking up to a soulful group gently swaying to the music from the Park’s center stage. Even though the Summer of Love counterculture wouldn’t begin transforming the world for another two years, the “Human Be-In” initiative to make love, not war was in full swing and centered in the Haight-Ashbury district. How cool was that?
As an impressionable young girl of San Francisco’s 60s, my raison d’être was to become a flower child. After all, I was born in the Golden City by the bay. Every stitch of clothing I owned was covered in flowers, including the jumper my mother designed and sewed for me.
In 1969, I was old enough to comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War. I sat an inch from our television as one by one our brave young men boarded their respective helicopters and headed to Vietnam. They appeared the same age as those dancing in the Golden Gate Park only a few years prior. How would I ever let them know I supported them and would be waiting when they came safely home? Suddenly, my silent impassioned well-wishes were jolted when I heard my mother’s reminder, “Deborah! Don’t sit so close to the television set!”
While in the 6th grade, military personnel visited our school where they handed out POW bracelets. I instantly put mine on, wore it in the bath, swimming, riding horses and motorcycles, too. With my POW bracelet connected to my wrist, Michael would come home, although sadly, I never received such word. When our soldiers began coming home in 1973, I watched in nervous anticipation as they jumped off the helicopters and into their loved one’s arms.
By this time I was 13 and denounced anything conventional, including the dogma of my mother’s Baptist religion. However, I continued striving for that Golden era, which no longer existed. My futile attempts to become a hippy chick were squelched by my pragmatic mother who demanded I wear my training bra while away from home. Strutting with wide-legged bell-bottoms and peasant blouses, this 13-year-old flower child hopeful transformed into a wild child during the summer of 73.
Miserably, I tried smoking a few times and inhaled, too, however, I nearly coughed up a lung, although I wasn’t about to give up my distasteful habit just yet. I attempted overpowering my ghastly oral ashtray with grape Bubble-Yum while nonchalantly explaining to my exasperated mother, “Listen, Mama Frannie. I smoke ciggies now and should be able to puff inside our home. I don’t want to hide who I am any longer, a hippy chick.”
Flinging my long wavy hair over a shoulder, I furthered, “I’m also going to begin referring to you by your first name. Oh, and I learned a new swear word today at school: C-R-A-P.” My proper mother sprang from the couch like a jackrabbit and in an instant, her first finger was an inch from my astonished blue eyes. She sternly extinguished my summer of love demands, “You’ll do nothing of the sort, young lady. Now, go to your room until dinner!”
With my heels dug in, it didn’t take long to begin swearing like a sailor and discover spirits while I was at it. My tea-totaling mother caught a whiff and desperately pleaded, “Deborah, must you indulge everything within your grasp?” Casually, I answered as if to offer comfort, “Don’t worry, Mom. You know I don’t like mushrooms.”
My teen years proved trying for my family and perhaps, for me, too. I couldn’t seem to find my groove and although I had friends coming out of my ears, I still didn’t feel I possessed that je ne sais quoi for which I longed. At 16, an overly-eager boy brought a dozen red roses for our date, which I carelessly tossed onto the kitchen counter. They weren’t my idyllic wildflowers. My visiting aunt Audrey pulled me aside and whispered, “Honey, even though they’re not your favorite flowers, Paul paid a lot of money for those roses. Thank him and then, we’ll put them in a vase with water, shall we?”
Wearing lots of clothing was never my thing, either. I felt they inhibited my free teen spirit, however, with a brother and now a step-brother also in our home, my watchful mother declared, “Deborah, that’s too short! Put some decent clothes on!” I rolled my big blue eyes and chided, “Oh, puh-lease, Mom. Must you be so uptight? I love the skin I’m in.”
I wanted to be a flower child since my training wheel days in Golden Gate Park. Those beautiful babes loved all living things, including Mother Nature. They believed there was a non-violent way to resolve conflict, advocated love, beauty, peace and simple values. Offering flowers was their means for a peaceful protest. They didn’t see the color of one’s skin, yet what was inside and they were tolerant of others’ beliefs.
They loved music, art and all other forms of creativity. They maintained a carefree, youthful attitude surrounding life. I grew up still wanting to become a flower child of yesterday. Sure, I indulged in a few nasty short-lived experiments as a young teen, however, I eventually learned my precious body is my only temple.
A few years ago, I noticed packets of wildflowers at Walmart and grabbed all of them off the rack. Believing wildflowers bloom where they are planted, I dumped the seeds into my hands and tossed them over my shoulder into my backyard. It wouldn’t take long to finally awaken my flower child within. I envisioned looking out my kitchen window to see a field of wildflowers, however, there’s still a beautiful lawn.
To this day, flowers remain a powerful, peaceful symbol in my heart and mind’s eye. Although I’d like to apply cat eyeliner and false eyelashes, I’m clumsy at this dexterous form of art. I admire those able to beautifully wear provocative attire, however, I succumbed to rocking my peasant blouses. As a last-ditch effort, I finally care about what goes into my body and what comes out of my mouth.
Although I keep my impulsive side reined in, perhaps for my caring late mother, I hope to remain forever young. My heart’s desire is to continue dancing freely and singing at a moment’s notice. I’m secretly honoring my free inner spirit while remaining an everlasting wildflower wannabe.
