Shrieking and laughing, the three of us raced up the hill.
Barefoot and braless, footloose and unfettered, I felt my soul breaking free. With the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, I lifted my chin and blew a kiss to the sky.
Fifty Years Later
Woodstock 50th Anniversary Celebration
Bethel, New York
Sunday Evening, August 18, 2019
“You look so cute, Grammy.” Adelaide’s eyes travel from my head to my toes. “I have the coolest grandmother, like, ever.”
We look like twins in our bell-bottoms and tie-dyed tops. Actually, mine is a tie-dyed silk tunic, to cover my rear end, but hers is a tiny little halter top accentuating her tiny little waist. It reveals far too much, in my opinion anyway, but what can I say? I wore the same top right here in this very spot. Fifty years ago, to the day.
“Smile!” Adelaide snaps our selfie. “I’m adding this to my story right now. And yours.” Her thumbs fly across the keys of her smartphone.
Adelaide loves posting pictures of us on Instagram. I put her in charge of my account since I haven’t the foggiest idea how to make a post on my own. Learning how is on the top of my to-do list.
“Are you nervous?” she asks.
“Maybe a little.”
A twinkle of mischief shines in her eyes. “Sounds like you could use some green acid.”
“As I recall, the brown was much more potent.” I add a little shimmy to my shoulders.
She looks up from her phone. “They say if you remember Woodstock, you weren’t really there.”
“I can assure you, my darling, I was most definitely there.”
Adelaide giggles in a schoolgirl way. Despite her youth, she considers herself the picture of sophistication. My pride swelled to the size of a fat watermelon the day I opened her text with a picture of her holding her NYU acceptance letter. Their premier music program is reserved for the most talented of singers.
“Just teasing,” she says. “I think acid is dumb. I’d never be that stupid.”
Like grandmother, like granddaughter.“Music to my ears, my love.”
I love her confidence. Her parents have raised her to believe in herself, stand up for her truth, and speak her own mind. That mind, however, is the reason she’s been allowed to drill a hole in her belly button so she can flaunt two jeweled studs. That mind has paved the way for the tiny gold ring that fills the hole she drilled into the side of her darling little nose. She claims it lessens her period cramps. I know a lie when I hear one.
That butterfly shoulder tattoo she boasts whenever she has the chance was supposedly done in my honor.At least it’s not her zodiac sign,I’ve thought time and time again. After these four days, I’ve decided to get out of the way and trust Adelaide to make her own choices, in the same way I let her father make his. She is smart as heck and has a good head on her shoulders. After all, it’s her journey, not mine. She’ll have to carve her own musical path in the world. Just as I have carved mine. Despite the obstacles.
It took several years, but with the help of my brother, I forgave my father. Despite his deep psychological war wounds, Ron humbled himself, carving a path to reconciliation between him and Dad, and that led the way to my forgiveness. I credit Ron for helping Dad to release his legalistic theology that had hurt and confused us all. Dad decided toembrace the miracle of God’s grace and unconditional love. It saved not only our relationship but also my parents’ marriage. Mama would have never left him, not physically, but at least her final years were joyful.
She never confessed to Dad what she had done for Ron while he was in Vietnam, God rest her brave, beautiful soul. And none of us ever shared their secret.
Sadly, our family folk-rock group, Ron and Suzannah, never materialized. Ron wasn’t able to move back to America, something that caused him, and my parents, deep regret. Although President Ford instituted a conditional amnesty program for all draft evaders and deserters in 1974, Ron had already fallen in love with a darling Canadian girl, a musician whom he treasured. They have raised a beautiful family together, all of them singers, and have their own folk-rock quartet. Livy was never the ultimate girl for him, but they remain friends to this day.
“The music this weekend has been dope,” Adelaide says, scrolling through her phone. “Especially Ringo and Santana. I’ve already gotten three thousand likes on the pictures I posted from the museum party. So outta sight.”
I grin when she saysoutta sight. She loves the sixties lingo.
While we were at the museum party, she’d been sure she saw me in every photo. “Is that you?” she must have asked thirty times. “Grammy, look, this girl has your hair. I think it’s you.” When she spotted a blowup of a gorgeous blonde wearing a floppy hat, with multiple love beads around her neck and wrists, she said, “Look! It’s Livy.”
“No,” I said, pointing to a picture of one of the nudists dipping in the lake. “This is Livy.”
“Forreal?”
“Just kidding,” I said with a wink. “Livy would never do something like that.” I’d left out most of the details about our visit to the lake.
