Having choices is a wonderful thing: I feel like one can at times, if the circumstances are good, have some choice in where they live, but cannot determine where they are born. Although feeling an integral part of place or thing is sometimes a bit tenuous for me, I still wanted to be a "Californian" during those first years, no matter how I thought of myself.
I remember buying quite a few pairs of shoes by a brand called Seavees, whose motto is and was "Authentic California". I would catch myself looking at my feet, sometimes drifting off, imagining being on the beach in the mid-nineteen sixties, a part of some laid back culture that I have no background or familiarity with. I also recall first listening to the Zombies' classic album, "Odessey and Oracle", believing I could be in a room somewhere in California, maybe high, as the music seemed to give sound to the world around me. It was probably my way of easing into a culture that felt very different to me.
When I was around seventeen years old, I dressed primarily like I lived in the 1950's, as I liked listening to rockabilly music, but never really thought of myself as somehow living in that time. Perhaps it is because I was actually alive during a good part of the 1960's that I am able to better imagine myself as a part of the culture of that time than I was for the 1950's. I've also thought that because I never really cared for the politics of that earlier time that I never envisioned myself there, but I think that the fact that I search for how I felt during the early year of my life makes the 1960's more interesting for me to explore, and seeing myself in California then is an attempt to bridge gap between how I was and who I am today.
One method of transport
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