the old-school guestbook archives
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hippie chick tells a story of sunshine ~ 2001-01-22 - 14:04:54 have you ever had one of those times in your life that was just ridiculously perfect? Where you just kept being astonished, over and over again, by how wonderful everything was? I had one of those, last fall. I'd been working with a vending crew at the strawberry music festival. strawberry's a great folk festival, it's been around forever. I was working for steve and mongo from the blue sun cafe... they're based in boulder creek, but there's a few vending events they do every year, and strawberry's one of them. I started going to events with them last summer at the high sierra music festival, and I got hooked. working music festivals is addictive... you work crazy 15 hour days, but you're surrounded by beautiful people and fantastic music. I'd get done working at 1 or 2 in the morning, then run around all night, finding the night music and the drum circles. strawberry's especially magical at night, because amazing folk musicians get together and jam all night, and you can just wander around from one jam to another. it was hard work at strawberry last fall, though, because it poured rain most of the week. rain sheeted down off the sides of the booth and dripped through the roof, we had to run in the rain to stock food from the refrigerator truck or go to the bathroom or do the dishes. we were all soaked and freezing most of the time. sean and eamon were on the crew, and they kept telling us about el portal, where they lived, which was about a half hour away, right on the edge of yosemite. they invited everyone to come and visit after strawberry. I didn't seriously consider it, I was in the middle of booking my tour and getting ready to leave my home. but then, on the last day, when the sun was finally shining down on us as we broke down the booth and packed up the trucks, the idea started to appeal to me more and more. heather had room in her van, and she was heading back down to santa cruz in three days. a fairy named rachel and I walked to the phone booths together to check our voice mail. we stepped out of the phone booths at the same time and looked at each other. "nothing pressing going on in my life," I said. "mine either," she said. then we both started to giggle. I don't know if I have the words to describe how magical our time in el portal was. me, heather, rachel, and tim spent three days there together, but it felt like long delicious weeks of perfect summer days. sean and eamon are beautiful people, and they have a large and loving extended family of friends in el portal. it's an incredible beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and forests and rivers and sky. they all live along one road, in funky little old houses. the entire time we were there, the weather was perfect-- hot sundrenched summer days with warm breezes and blue skies and the sound of windchimes drifting lazily from everywhere. every day, sean and eamon took us to another gorgeous swimming hole with waterfalls and deep, clear pools and we spent hours and hours naked in the sun, swimming and baking ourselves on boulders. we were full of love for the world and each other. we hugged and touched easily, drifting through long lazy days, sharing sweet smoke and sunshine and sleepy smiles. we danced if the music took us there, sang if the spirit moved us. there was a ridicuous abundance all around us-- sweet grapes hanging from the vine, fresh tomatoes from the garden... I remember a moment where rachel and I were walking to eamon's from the swimming hole, sleepy and warm and utterly relaxed, but hungry... and we came across a plum tree spilling sweet plums by the side of the road. and we both giggled and crouched down and started gorging ourselves on these sweet, sweet plums. suddenly I saw myself there, eating plums with a fairy by the side of the road in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I didn't know if I'd ever been so happy. they took us rockclimbing, too, and it was the first time I'd ever been climbing in yosemite. it was the first time heather had ever climbed at all, and she was scared and self-conscious, and we fed her all kinds of love. I climbed the hardest route I'd ever done-- a 5.10c handcrack-- and when I topped out, I could see the valley stretching out for miles and miles and the crescent moon smiling down at us over the shoulders of the mountains and I wanted to howl at the moon for joy, and so I did, and the whole tribe down at the base of the cliff howled back up at me. there was magic and healing, too, and things too deep to write about here. I left el portal feeling more rested and relaxed and filled with love than I can ever remember feeling in my life. there's a lot of stereotypes about hippies, and in any community there will be some people who embody all the worst of those... but in coming back to the tribe, I've found some of the most beautiful, intelligent, spiritual and loving people I've ever known. it's definitely one of the most wonderful families I've ever been a part of. we call each other brother and sister for a reason.
(((rings))) |