Celebrating Poetry in Oysterville

50% Hippie!  That’s what my test results were for one of those dimwitted FaceBook quizzes with the alluring (not!) title, ‘How Hippie Are You?”  Fifty percent seems about right. I’m pretty much a hippie in spirit but not in practical application.

Truth to tell, the hippie generation came too late for me.  I was already a wife/mother/teacher living in the East Bay by the time the Summer of Love came along – not inclined to be hanging out in the Haight-Ashbury or in Golden Gate Park.  On the other hand, the Beat Generation was a little too early for me.  I was a junior in high school when Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was published, and a foray into San Francisco was generally a shopping trip with my mom, not an evening in North Beach at the City Lights Book Store.

Tod Marshall, Poet Laureate of Washington State

But, in both cases, I was in agreement with almost everything about those countercultural movements.  Almost.  I was too uptight to try the drugs, a bit leery of the free-love movement and certainly not comfortable piercings and tattoos – but grew my hair long, and had a wardrobe that featured black skirts and sweaters as well as layers of diaphanous scarves and colorful ankle-length dresses.  I embraced the music, the literature, the art, and the world of ideas that both the ‘beats’ and the ‘hipsters’ shared.

I thought about all of that yesterday afternoon, knowing that the “Celebration of Poetry” was taking place at our house in Oysterville.  Right up my alley!  Right in my house!  And… I was missing out once again.  Not because I was too early or too late this time around.  I was 100% present at Nyel’s bedside and 100% where I wanted to be – no question about that!  And thanks to Tucker’s photos and the magic of cyberspace, it might actually have been a 150% situation anyway!