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In August 1969, a couple days after Woodstock ended, I turned 13. I would have my first real kiss the next summer. I was a straight kid, didn't carouse in high school and only went to one drinking party in a farmer's field one hot summer night where I took a couple of nasty sips of beer from a flimsy plastic cup. My older and wilder brother had taken me to the party, but he watched over me. That Michigan meadow party was about as close as I got to Woodstock, and the girl in this photo is about as far from my experience as she can be. For years I bemoaned my protected life, being a preacher's kid. But any secret grains of recklessness never took root.
For different and very annoying reasons, Joni Mitchell never made it to Woodstock, yet she wrote the song about it, which David Crosby said captured the gathering better than anyone who had been there. She said herself that the deprivation she felt not being there, watching it on television, provided an "intense angle" for writing it.
In writing classes, my mentor Diane Wakoski always said it is hard to write a good, happy poem. It's difficult to avoid cliches. Truly, I found it easier to write poem after poem venting angst about growing up in a churchy life. She also said the best art and writing comes from those who have had to overcome obstacles. Think of your favorite artists and writers and see if that isn't true.
One month after Woodstock, at the Big Sur Celebration, Joni sang her new song for the first time publicly. I wonder if she isn't partly glad now that she didn't get to Woodstock, so she could write such a song as this. Below is that Big Sur performance.
And no, I'm not sorry I was protected. I've gotten over the regret of being a goody two shoes. I also recognize the oddity of seeing the thoroughly good life of a pastor's family as an "obstacle." Another funny thing is that I looked the part of a hippie in my tattered blue jeans and long wavy, wildish hair, and many people - including the staff at the church camp where I worked one summer - were convinced I smoked pot with the best of 'em.
By the way, did you know that Joni Mitchell considers herself "a painter first, and a musician second"? See her paintings.
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