What I’ve learned from hippies is…
So today I was in Philadelphia with my mom when we stumbled across this peace gathering thing, which is a really nice way of saying that we found a field full of hippies. Like legit, long skirt, dreads, van sleeping, hippies.They were playing music, throwing Frisbee, doing really legit hula-hooping and painting and all this great hippy shit. Anyway the point is it was REALLY great. We stayed for maybe an hour to a hour and half and I just wandered around and these people like went out of their way and like included me in stuff. Some random dude complimented my smile, and not in a creepy hitting on me way, but in like a genuine ‘you have a nice smile’ kind of way. And I was watching everyone and they’d like jump up when someone they knew came and hug them and drag them around to introduce them and they looked so fucking happy.
For a little bit I was like “what the fuck do dirty hippies have to be happy about” yknow? But then like these girls were spreading this red string to everyone in the field, and it took them a while cause there were a lot of people, but when they were done the people who were singing stopped and here’s what happened.
They told everyone to make sure they could grab hold of the string that now draped all over the field and when everyone grabbed it this girl started like sing/chanting and talking and the main point is that the whole idea was that everyone was connected and we were together and we were happy and we all had something in common and it was wonderful. It was surprisingly moving, and as she was doing it this rainbow appeared over the field, and only over the field, and people were cheering and some random person grabbed my shoulder to make sure I saw the rainbow, and it was so nice.
Now you may be wondering what the fuck my hippy ritual experience means, but what I’m trying to say is that’s the first time in so fucking long I’ve felt like I was a part of a group. Like I’m not just talking about groups like clubs and organizations I mean like I haven’t even felt like I was part of my group of friends for so fucking long and a bunch of strangers in a field made me feel like I was actually an important part of the group more than my friends do.
Like what the fuck. Anyway I’m sitting in my room thinking about this and I start laughing and then I start crying and then im just laugh crying (cause that’s cute) and I dunno how I feel exactly, but I do know that the group of people in that field had a great reason to be happy. They were part of something they enjoyed and something they felt accepted in, they were part of a group and for once they didn’t have to be alone.
What I’ve learned from hippies is that we all need a place to belong.

