My first stop in upstate New York
is a Best Buy where we buy a thirteen hundred dollar plasma TV. This is not
what I expected in the land of Bob Dylan with the legacy of Woodstock. My host was very apologetic; the irony was
not lost on her that I had eked out a couple hours of sleep on the
transcontinental red-eye flight from California to wind up in the bumpin’ club
party that is Best Buy at ten in the morning. However, this event was far from
how the rest of Day One would play out. Events would soon reaffirm that I had
indeed landed in the country of primordial hippydom.
After a
perfunctory tour of the charming, turn-of-the-century farm house that is to be
my home for the summer, the host (my boss) and friends strip down to bare skin
and clamber into the doughboy pool in the back of the property. Enrique, the
ever-diligent pool boy kindly whisks the bugs out of the pool and the damsels
refresh. All this relaxing after a very
dutiful June spent surfing, tanning and generally languishing in southern
California paradise is starting to get to me and I’m itching to get to work.
After rapid-fire questioning Enrique about who/what/where/how why are we here,
he sits down with me at the dining room table and we get to work for the rest
of the afternoon.
We have
yoga class at 5:30 so at 5 on the dot I’ve got my clothes on and I’m ready to
go. The rest of the crew rolls up to the farmhouse at 5:32 and along the way
(even in our hurried and late state) everyone stops to pick wine berries along
the road. We enter into the converted studio inside the mansion-crown jewel of
the artist colony where we live. There is a fireplace at each end, weaving looms in the corner and a
marble carving of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus. We arrive just in time to
interrupt everyone’s meditation and ungracefully tip toe to our places across
creaky floorboards that are over a century old.
Yoga is glorious. After a sleepless
night and morning in an upright airplane chair my body thanks me for the
thorough wring-out that is Iyengar yoga. The teacher is one of the bathing
beauties from this morning. I smell the sent of really old wood and fresh air.
Sunlight filters through the leaves of the trees and then through the skylight
making everyone look golden. I stretch and my hand lands in a burrow of ancient
spider webs. I look around at the empty shelves that are still labeled for the
books that are long gone. The history of the room is hard to ignore in favor of
meditation.
After class
we enjoy wine and fresh picked berries on a wide lawn and watch the sunset on a
mountainside. We bat gnats and bat more gnats. After dark the calmness
evaporates and people retire to the music room to bang on the drum set sing
“Cosmic Girl” and other disco favorites.
They are competing with the band across the road rehearsing for
tomorrow’s performance of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar”. It’s too much for me so I
slip out and find my way through the woods back to my barn. I think about the
black bear spotted yesterday and wonder if he’s eyeing me through the foliage.
I see two yellow eyes. They’re blinking. I’m wondering if someone slipped me
some inauguration hallucinogens when I realize the blinking eyes are fireflies;
the fabled creature us West Coast kids only dream about. With the double drum sets pounding in the
distance the fireflies around me and visions of nudists running through my head,
it’s clear that I have arrived in Woodstock and the spirit of all it has meant
to our culture waited for me.
