I protested too much. the things that I wanted and could not have, for instance, I disdained them as material things that little hippie me, little self reliant me simply did not need. and I was believed. by everyone. even me.
when I was in college, I met a man. he was funny and cute, he had long rusty hair and a terrible complexion and he dared,he dared to say what he thought. he played the guitar, he rode a skateboard, he was a vegetarian and would not wear leather. he lived in a household where he could bring a girl home and have sex with her in his room. when I met him I was 17, a freshman in college and as unformed and bewildered as anyone could be. he was fun. he had a campus radio show. and a car. he teased me gently about my "party clothes" (that meant a bra and a nice shirt and pants. I was new to jeans), he took me to the beach, he told me all of his back to the earth dreams. he called himself Skip Sunny Skies.he was everything to me. he was one long adventure.
Long after I had ceased to love him, his ideas influenced me. from then on, I wore jeans and tee shirts without a bra. I studied the universe and the hidden universe. I hugged trees, I recycled, I was kind to animals and loved my children unreservedly. I taught them about taking care of their earth, and how we cleaned up what we were given, they wore cloth diapers because I didn't want to add to the landfill. I took up a name that wasn't given to me by my mother, but by the universe, and I thought if I ever saw him again, I would know him by what he had made of his life.
I did see him again. I was horrified. for one thing, he had married my friend from the fabric store. after I got my breath, I saw that he lived in the very suburban middle middle town that I grew up in. he had short hair. he had been in the service. he was a shrink. he had 2 boys that he named by the names he and I had come up with.
I saw him at the 4th grade mother-son dance that I was attending with my son, wearing a nice dress with gloves, like the school had suggested. his wife wore jeans and a tee shirt, sneakers, and told her son that she couldn't dance, she just came along, and brought her husband. they had taught the children to dance in gym class, this was their show off venue. he was called by the name his mother gave him. I was all kind of confused.
I sat down next to him and smelled his familiar stale breath smell and asked him what brought him here and wasn't that wierd? we had some words together, and I asked him what changed you? why aren't you who you said you were going to be? and he just shrugged and said "well, we all have to grow up sometime"

for the next 15 years I stayed where I was. but lately I have asked the universe to show me who I really am. and now it's happening. I'm watching from the inside, watching it happen, and I'm frankly surprised to see who I'm supposed to be. and I do not have a clue how this will play out. I have to collect some more pictures so you can see-----