Now that I'm THIS close to being am empty nester, my Hippie-ness is starting to return. It's coy. It's teasing me.

The last 18 years I've spent being responsible and mature, adult, disciplined [sort of] and reasonable. The first two I stayed home with my son. Fed him organic baby food and breastfed him which ironically created the boy who loves sugar and junk food to this day; brought him to baby play dates and started him at Montessori school. I worked for the next 16 of those years to help put food on the table, a roof over my son's head and clothes on his back [which he is fond of pointing out are often sitting in the laundry basket]. I've taken jobs I didn't want, I've moved where I didn't want to move. I've attended events and met people I didn't want to meet. For the baby. For my son. For my teenager.

But now I get to become again who I always was. Again. I am a hippie.

I won't wear birkenstocks but I will wear tie-dye. I might wear bell bottoms and I know I will wear holey jeans. I can take classes, throw pots, [smoke some?], grow herbs, have big loud parties and stay up as late as I want to. I know some people can be hippies and be parents but I'm not that good a multi-tasker. In order to successfully follow through on this whole raising a child thing, I had to wear pumps and show up and have health insurance and have a career. I had to be strait-laced and be a "good example". I had to give my son something to rebel against.

I had to be the Liz Lemon to my hippie alter ego. Worry and plan, herd cats, put up with unfortunate choices in bosses and commute. Oh God, I've had to commute. Sometimes by airplane, sometimes by car. Listening to the radio, books on tape, CD's, A.M., F.M., religious, new age and self-help tapes. But I wanted to do this because I wanted the experience of being a parent and raising a child. My sisters didn't choose this route. I had to do it. I'm glad I did it. I'll be a mother until I die. But God it will feel good to slip on my hippie clothes and head to an all night drumming session.

My house can be full of quilts and cats, lutes and incense. Some stereotypes die hard. When my son comes to visit he can lecture me on house hygiene and investing my money. I'll hug his neck and try to look serious and write down his advice and lose it in the wash next time I do laundry. I'll take in stray dogs and bake cookies and let young neighbors run in and out of my house. I'll pay them to weed the garden and wash the dogs. I'll name my next pet Skye just to blow some relatives mind.

I'll start braiding my hair and let it grow a bit longer. And hope my son has children whom I can spoil and call "sugar." The house will smell of patchouli oil and brownies, old books and sun tea. Let my grown son be responsible and a good example to his children. Let him take over that steady reign. Sometimes just sitting on a porch on a rainy day is enough.

I'll be less a Kesey-onian hippie and more of a Grateful Dead/Joan Baez type. Less LSD, more stickin' it to The Man. I know dominant culture is corrupt, a monolithic entity that exercises undue power over our lives. The Establishment sucks.

Mama is tuning in and droppin' out. I'll go back to my beatnik roots, play guitar again, learn CSNY's "Ohio", celebrate counterculture, listen to jazz. My clothes will be psychedelic, my spirit facing east. Maybe I'll finally learn to paint something besides the wall in my bedroom and create Art with beads and feathers, flowers and bells. I'll wear my hippie boots and grow wild flowers and wear bangles, I don't have any more parent-teacher meetings. I don't have to be square. Maybe I'll get my Tarot cards read and my astrological chart drawn up.

And maybe, just maybe this time, I'll make it to Kathmandu.