A True Flower Child Speaks Out

A “good” friend told me I wear too much floral and suggested I try stripes, checks or polka dots to spice up my wardrobe. I went home that very same day to inventory my closet and, sure enough, flowers were visible on ankle-length dresses, mid-calf skirts, chiffon tops with ¾ length sleeves. Even my flannel pajama’s had daisies on them!

Floral makes me happy – I feel lucky and loved. Floral makes me feel safe. A long 70’s-style dress is for me, and if I weren’t 55 I’d wear a flower in my hair. I could now but I’m afraid someone would label me eccentric. Floral is my youth, a comfort zone. It brings back memories of years 1971-1974 living on Haight Street in those (whisper here) Haight-Ashbury/Berkely campus days. I felt light and loose and full of innocence.

In truth, it was a time of hardship for me, i.e., little money; even less food; and more cockroaches in my apartment than the entire block of dilapidated homes. But I’d gather my floral skirts around me and move forward, always learning, always changing. I was 20 years old and made a choice to leave my job, my family, and a middle class neighborhood for an adventure near the San Francisco Bay. I had no safety net that spring day in 1971, just a lot of bravado.

I’m not sure what I wore when I left, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a dress. I sat in the front seat of a van with a cat box, and the cat loose to walk around my meager possessions. But I was full of hope and high expectations, with Rod Stewart and Carole King playing on the 8-track.

Just weeks later you would see me at the swap meet with my waist length hair (not yet gray) in a pony tail, wearing peace earrings, blue clogs and smelling like Jean Nate. My dress would be a shade of lavender or turquoise, and it was obvious I was out of my element. I was young in years and childlike in spirit…a pretend runaway with an unlined face, bright eyes and big dreams.

Living as a hippie was difficult yet empowering. I lived in a 1-bedroom apartment with one window; no couch, and a hand-me-down card table for eating. There was incense; candles, posters on the wall, and a black light in the bathroom that would advertise the day-glow paint on the footed tub. Yes, this was the “real” Haight-Ashbury. There were recreational drugs in my immediate environment, and plenty of suspicious looking characters walking the neighborhood. Some even wore platform shoes, flowing capes, and flashed a lot of cash on the street corner.

Yours truly was young, naïve, and wearing a floral garment of some type. When I was out of food I’d go upstairs to my friend Cyndi for a loaf of her homemade bread. Although her apartment wasn’t nearly as picked up as mine (she had a rabbit and a seagull living in the front room) her door was always open. We’ve managed to keep in touch all these years and exchange Christmas gifts. The earrings and chokers she sends are some of my favorite pieces of jewelry, and take me back to those tender innocent times.

These days I’m older, somewhat wiser, and still shopping at department stores for a dress with tiny flowers or blossoms of some kind. You can take the hippie out of San Francisco and place her in NW Montana, but you can’t take the hippie girl out of my heart. If I had a choice to change those times on Haight Avenue I would have to say no…. they were the times of my life.

Not to be reproduced without the written authorization of author Ja'Nee Newman