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6/02/2019

Hippie Living: Free Dance!

Howdy, a comedy piece for you, creative nonfiction, from the archives...

Hippie Living:  Free Dance!

Back in 1998-9, I worked at a health food store in Virginia. It was a privately owned, high maintenance, cultish, superbly organized place, and I have no idea how I got the job because I had no experience, and I was newly sober, and I wasn’t feeling well in the head at all I might add, which made it a true adventure, since I suddenly morphed into a wild hippie – not shaving, all natural everything, very high maintenance. Anyway, being the extremist that I was, I got so obsessed with ingredients that it took me all fucking day to shop. Suddenly, when it came to food and cleaners and detergent, I had to be 100% pure. Sure, I have always had trouble with the “happy medium” idea, but at that time, it was extreme. And then I created an entire recycling center inside my one bedroom apartment. I had so much recycling that I had room for nothing else in the apartment except for an egg crate cushion, one chair, and a small desk. That’s it. Anyway, I got so obsessed and spent so much time studying labels while shopping that even though I became an absolute expert, I got fired.

Actually, I probably got fired because one day at work I asked my coworker this: “Hey, do you know of some kind of aromatherapy that helps out with crazy racing thoughts? My mind is in fuckin’ overdrive!” That’s right, I really said that. In front of customers. So my coworker just looked at me weirdly, shook her head, and picked up the phone, and in case you were wondering, yes, the call was about me.

After my short adventure at the health food store, I became so excited and intrigued when I met this medicine woman who only had one name, like Madonna. She was rad, and she loved my “quirky” personality, so she introduced me to her secret society of “Free Dance.” On Friday nights, a group of strangers got together at some vacant house, and she turned some music on, and we “danced out” the way we felt. Like therapeutic movement, only there was no real therapist there. Just a bunch of wild hippies dancing out feelings. We were ultra-serious about it at the time, but thinking back, I’m sure it looked like a circus. Actually, it was fun as hell…for most of us…

See, there was this one chick who was kinda down I guess, because she spent the whole dance night curled up in a little ball on the floor. That was her dance – some kind of never-ending, weird, slow-mo somersault. Every single week, she curled up in this ball, so I’m not sure if the Free Dance was helping her. My dance was pretty intriguing. Kind of a mix between some stoned-out hippie crossed with a hip hop act crossed with a kangaroo crossed with a spider crossed with someone who just got electrocuted. Really, my Free Dance was no different than my regular dancing, to tell the truth.

Maybe I’ll start a Free Dance class around here. You know, get a boom box and some old used CDs, and find some warehouse. I might be the only one attending. Just me, some Dead Can Dance, a candle, some incense, hells yeah. I’d write more, but I have to Free Dance to the kitchen. I may return, I may not.

C.A. MacConnell