A Mystery

I've been wondering about my aunt my whole life, just about.

She's my dad's older sister, and they're far from close. They leave each other phone messages on major holidays and send each other terse cards.

But I've always known she was a hippie.


It's something my dad brings up now and then, usually when he's playing one of the many songs she liked. She loved music: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Iron Butterfly, Simon & Garfunkel, Donovan, Quicksilver Messenger Service... She forced her parents and my dad to watch the bands she liked play The Ed Sullivan Show. She burned incense in her room, watched The Prisoner, went barefoot everywhere, and got into Buddhism and Chinese astrology. Through her, my dad also learned to like some of those things, even though he was only in elementary school.

Her parents hated the scene she was getting into- my grandfather especially. He was the one who made her give up the tickets she bought to see The Beatles play at Shea Stadium. He was also the one who told her she couldn't go with her friends to Woodstock. But he couldn't stop her from everything. They lived near New York City, and once she had her license, she started disappearing into the city on the weekends. My grandfather thought she was getting into drugs, and got even angrier.

Then he got a good job offer up in New England. He took it and moved the family there. My aunt, who was already eighteen, chose to stay behind.

I know she stayed in touch with my dad, but not with her parents. She got a job in a record store and she would send him stacks of albums she liked. There were also letters, occasionally- less and less as time went on. She took a few college classes but decided school wasn't for her. Once she sent my dad a letter that was just the lyrics to "Wooden Ships" by Crosby, Stills, & Nash written out on a piece of paper.

I've seen her three times. She still lives very close to New York City, but she never goes there anymore. She never goes anywhere that's more than a few miles from her house. She married again at some point, stayed with him, and had a daughter who's a few years older than me. She's very politically conservative and uptight, now. She didn't say a single word about music- her house didn't even have a stereo. If I had only heard about how she used to be after I met her the first time, I would have never believed it.

I wish I could have met her when she was my age. I wonder why she changed so much.

There are still a few hints that something inside her hasn't forgotten, though. She's still a vegetarian. There was a Buddha in her living room and she commented on how much of a perfect example I was of my zodiac sign. And when my equally conservative mom made some kind of disparaging remark about hippies while they were discussing politics, it set her off on a spiel about how she thought they had some good ideas even if they were a bit misled, ideas that she wished more people today would listen to. She looked embarrassed after she said it.