‘These will have to go,’ said Karen after a few weeks of me living at the commune when she went through my few clothes and possessions. My jeans, jewellery, tops and make-up hit the box for the jumble, to be replaced with the commune uniform of Eastern-style tunics and long skirts, or loose trousers in rainbow colours. Although brightly dressed, we blended in with many of the hippies around the city who favoured tie-dyed clothes and the Indian look.
As there was no room for beds for everyone in the house, my given place to sleep was between the wall and the top of the one bed kept for travelling indigos. I had just enough room to lay out a sleeping bag. I soon got used to it plus, by the end of the day, I was usually so exhausted I’d be asleep in seconds. One night I needed to go to the loo at about three a.m., and it was like crossing a minefield, having to step over six humps of sleeping bodies without treading on any of them.
In the days that went by, I got to know my female roommates a little.
First there was Karen, who worked hard looking after the house.
Second was Gail, I called her Miss Prim. She had an air of disapproval about her and looked as if she’d just sucked a lemon.
Another lovely looking girl with long titian hair disappeared soon after I arrived. She couldn’t get on with the ‘up at six a.m. to meditate’ part of the house timetable, something I also struggled with.
The fourth girl wasn’t cut out for the lifestyle either, and always seemed to have some kind of mystery illness that excused her from activities. She was also on a macrobiotic diet and ate fried onions, rice, lentils and strange-looking things that looked like shrivelled bollocks – umeboshi plums, I think they were.
The fifth was a slender Indian girl who was always jolly, always laughing and easy to get along with.
And finally there was Rosie, a petite and pretty black girl with a wicked sense of humour. She soon became my friend.
The men were not stylish or cool, apart from Andrew and Nick. Most of them favoured open-toed sandals that they wore with socks, even in winter.
Two weeks later, I was washing those socks. I took up the challenge as best as I could and made bread, prepared pans of lentils and rice, red beans, mung beans, all cooked with consciousness, lentils with love. Sara, Jo and Ally would have died laughing if they’d seen me.
My morning tasks began with the opening of windows in the top bedroom where ten of the boys slept. We named it The Pit.
Andrew, Joseph and Nick were lucky to have escaped The Pit. They slept in the third bedroom that served as an office during the day. Andrew slept under the desk, Nick with his feet jammed up against a filing cabinet, and God knows where Joseph found a space.
On the girls’ side, Rosie ran Rainbow Designs, making clothes for everyone. She had a jolly old time tie-dying shirts, scarves and jackets in red, green, blue, purple, yellow and orange, her hands almost permanently stained with dye. Everyone had a job that was Rainbow-related, from the Rainbow Wholefoods to the Rainbow hairdressers.
I learnt to be quick with my ablutions, a habit I never shook off. You had no choice when there were so many of you lining up and only one bathroom. If you stayed in longer than five minutes, your popularity faded fast. We’d stand in a line outside in the corridor, toilet bags in hand, legs crossed, waiting to get in. Everyone avoided going in after Ian. If you went in after him, you needed a can of air freshener and a gas mask. He was the house comic and musician and would entertain us, singing Bob Dylan-style, while we waited in line in the corridor.
I’m in Samadhi with my budgie,
My budgie’s in Samadhi with me,
We meditate each day
And hope that in this way
We will finally be free.
And so on:
I’m in Nirvana with my newt,
My newt’s in nirvana with me, etc.
‘Not exactly The Grateful Dead, is it?’ said Rosie one evening as we stood in line.
In those weeks that turned into months, I felt inspired, wanted, loved even, by my new friends. Everyone in the house felt their lives had been touched and transformed. Those who had been lost or lonely, confused or even suicidal had found a place, purpose and sense of belonging.
A new world was opening up to me. A new language, a new lifestyle. Fi dropped by a couple of times. She was appalled at the way I was living and begged me to leave.
‘I’m happy here, can’t you see that?’ I said.
She refused to believe it. ‘Can’t you see? This place is an escape for you. I know life dealt you some hard cards, losing Jack and the baby, but you don’t need to hide away like this, cutting yourself off in the prime of your life. Please at least stay in touch with your old friends. There must be other ways to move on from your bad experiences.’ She gestured round at the room and house. ‘This has provided an alternative family, and the people who run the movement are kind parent figures to replace our old grouchy ones, but it doesn’t need to be like this. It’s like you’re punishing yourself for something, doing some kind of penance, or that you don’t believe you deserve to be truly happy.’
Her words probably had some truth, but I asked myself: what was wrong with the lifestyle I had chosen? I’d made the biggest mistake of my life in letting go of Sara Rose, so maybe Fi was right, and living the way I did was a self-imposed penance of sorts, but the Rainbow Children was a good cause.
