July 21, 2013, Chameleon: My life as a West Coast Hippie
The day I fly to Oregon I’m wearing a long purple skirt, a
loose brown shirt, a distinctly exotic scarf, and blue Toms. With my long hair
and the healthy snacks I’m toting in a carry-on bag I look the quintessential
hippie. It’s too early in the morning to feel
like anything in particular so I settle in for the wait on an airport chair that
has both a view of outside and of the gate kiosk.
After my crossword puzzle is done, a handful of pages read
in my book, lots of people-watching accomplished surreptitiously, and the chairs
around me filled with other travelers about to head northwest a man takes the
seat next to me. He’s nondescript and benign enough. He doesn’t chat me up and
I’m grateful for that. I need another cup of coffee.
There’s some delay with the plane and we all listen to the
intercom messages from the attendants waiting to see how much longer we’ll be
there, how much later we’ll land in Portland. I’m keen for it to arrive and for
the other passengers to get loaded on so I’ll know if I have a seat on the
plane. I’m flying standby and I’ve been told it’s a full flight. I’m practicing
pseudo-Zen by pretending I’m patient and at ease. I even try singing (in my
head) Doris Day’s Que sera sera, whatever
will be will be. The future’s not ours to see, que sera sera. Sure, I’m one
who knows that it’s all about the journey and not the destination, but
sometimes, like this day, getting to the destination is all I want to do. I
still have the metro to ride, some walking to do, and two busses to catch
before I make it all the way.
“You must be going home,” the man says to me. He gives a
small gesture to me, my clothing, my hair.
Well, well, well, I’ve just been profiled. I raise my
internal eyebrows and think Vestis
virum reddit, a phrase I learned as a child when my older sister and I were
taking Latin and which means Clothes make the
man.
“It sure would look that way,” I reply, neither
confirming nor denying.
“It’s always refreshing to see someone who doesn’t froof
themselves all up the way people do these days,” he says and waves vaguely
behind him as if to include everyone in the airport and everyone in Dallas,
everyone in the world. “And is comfortable with their natural look.”
I’m pretty sure he said froof and I’m imagining what it’d be
like if Oregon were really my place of origin. I make some noncommittal noise
at his compliment and he goes on to tell me some of his life story. It’s not
like I don’t consider myself to be a hippie in the sense of free spirited and
as a rejecter of convention, it’s not like my hair isn’t long, it’s not like I
don’t use natural remedies, it’s not like I’ve never worn tie-dye. Here it’s a
case of feeling like a lizard. Like a chameleon. Because I may look the part,
but I don’t belong to it. I’m living out the lyrics to a song I loved when I
was a kid. “Chameleon, you blend with
your surroundings. Chameleon, no one knows where you come from.”
I’m a hippie but not a West Coast Hippie. Whatever that
means.Since I had the chance to spend some time in Colorado this summer I’ve been thinking a lot lately of the sense of belonging. Over ten years ago I left Dallas for Colorado Springs and when I got there I felt that it was where I belonged and it was home. It became the place where I was from. It was the place I went back to. Then I left it behind me. Heartlessly, adventurously, free spiritedly.
Yet, it doesn’t matter how long I stay away, when I return
the mountains always seem to say, “Welcome back, welcome home. We’ve missed
you.”
And then when I leave again to resume the nomadic nature of
my life they smile, wink, and say, “See you next time. Come home again when you’re
ready.” They joke and say what my dad says, “Come back when you can’t stay so
long.”
There’s comfort in belonging. There’s reassurance in having
a sense of place, in knowing that I don’t have to search for it. I don’t know what
this means except that I’m a mountain girl who in this moment looks like
someone who makes her own deodorant (I do), owns a pair of Birkenstocks (I don’t),
and would date a guy who has dreadlocks and tattoos (TBD).
The plane goes out only ten minutes off schedule and I get a
seat in the exit row. I doze most of the way. When I deplane I blend right in.
A couple passing by in the metro asks me if they’re on the right line. I don’t
ruin their image of me when I tell them they are. I’ve been this way before. I’m
practically a local.
I get on the bus and settle in for the three hour trip. The driver Charles, an older gentleman with a charming white mustache and a black cowboy hat he puts on when he drives, is the same driver I had eight months ago. I recognize him, I remember him. But who am I? No one to stand out or to remember.
I’m a spy, a role player, a chameleon.
Just another hippie.
