I have been trying to mentally compose this blog entry, but I keep going back in my mind, the back story to set the context, to explain the why for I was there at that particular time. And back and back and back. So, fuckit, let the stream of consciencelessness begin...
One of the most intensely spiritual and formative events that ever happened to me, happened when I was sixteen. Nineteen seventy three. Free love. Hashish. Bell bottoms. Thai sticks. Long hair.
And there I was....
...in Athens, Georgia. 1973. Home of the University of Georgia and a burgeoning music scene that would later produce REM and the B 52's. Free concerts were a part of campus life. Expected. What one paid student fees to provide. Drugs were freely available. For free.
I was sixteen and into self mutilation with cigarettes and other things. A cup of depression, anyone?
However, I do not wish to diminish the experience. Second Oldest Brother had surfaced there from his hitchhiking trek, maybe the year before. (Please excuse me if exactitude of dates is your obsession. It was a long time ago.) That summer, Mom and I drove from Northern Indiana to visit Brother. Lean on Me was everywhere on the radio. I did and do now love that song. I ended up staying in Athens for a few weeks, supposedly with Brother; mom drove back home, I guess.
Brother must have had his own plans, however, because I was quickly pawned off onto his friend, Alex. Alex was the manager of a motel and I lived with him there on Lumpkin Street for the better part of a week. He was way cute, with the requisite long hair and the plus of a having job and a pad! (I was so completely cool with that, but on how many levels was this wrong?)
Brother left me with 3 little green tablets which he said were LSD. HOTDAMNDOG!! "Don't do them all at once" was the sage advise - as he left me with a 23 year old crazy motel manager whilst he frolicked with the TWINS. (Hi, Brother!) I think I waited for about twelve minutes after his departure to take the first hit. This was the initial time I had dropped acid. "Take me there, Baby! Wherever THERE is!!!!!" (I took all three hits in four days.) It was pretty cool. The radio hallucinated at me. I about wore out a ball point pen making spirals on a notebook page. I was exceedingly alert and then I slept.
The next day, though, I had the Experience. Tripping out of my gourd on the second hit, I was in the motel pool when the rain began. I saw Every. Single. Rain. Drop. I saw the relationship. We are one. The ocean accepts all rivers. My mind was literally expanded that day. That night, Tom took nude group photos of me and Alex and three other people that I do not remember. Sixteen and trippin' and drinking Coor's brought from Over the Mississippi AND gettin' our picture took. (Tom, where are those negatives???) And how would these folks be prosecuted today?
It is a hard thing to explain, how that experience changed me. It was a pivot point in my creation. The why of the me of today.
To see the connectedness of all things, instead of the separateness of US from THEM that the Baptists taught. I am no Alan Watts. I can't describe it, but I lived it and try to live it still.
I think the last time I did LSD was at the premier of Star Wars thirty years ago. The Pyg (aka Pygmalion, the first husband) and I saw the second showing of the much anticipated movie at Loew's Tara in Atlanta. GoodGodAlmighty! I was twenty. Ushers were actually selling cups and frisbees and stuff to the people in line, as souvenirs. It was like two in the afternoon on a Friday. And hot. We were much too broke to buy such crap. Dope - that shit, was affordable. Always. The movie, of course, as time has told, was great! So exhilarating! After having sat in about the third row of seats in the middle of the theatre, and seeing the best western movie EVER MADE - I annihilated a lot of the enemy out the car window on the way home. Not so much a spiritual adventure, except for maybe killing a lot of the enemy. I'm a good shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment