“I wish you weren’t going Ash. It is going to be different than you think.”
Betty fussed over her daughter’s clothes. It was the first time she would be away from home so far away and for so long. “What if you get stuck there and can’t get back home?”
Ashley took the jacket back that her mother had refolded several times. She was going across country for the summer to live in a commune. She was going to school in the fall for sustainable living and she figured the best way to learn was to live it. Betty didn’t understand it. It sounded like a lot of hard work just to live.
“I will be able to get back. There are phones in the commune ma.”
“Why can’t you just go to Europe like Cindy’s daughter?”
Ashley laughed a little and pushed her braid back from her shoulder. “Because Europe cost a lot of money and if I go to Europe, I won’t be able to afford school. I can’t believe you would rather me be in another country, as opposed to a commune.”
The older woman sighed louder and got up from her daughter’s bed. She knew what those hippy communes were like and didn’t want Ashley to forget the bright future she had in front of her. “It’s just one big orgy Ashley. Drugs and sex. That is all it is.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, even when her mother gave her a sharp look. It was the first thing that popped into everyone’s mind when they heard commune, a lot of free love and free drugs, but that was not how it was at all. Ashley had been to one locally for a week, but the place in California that she had been accepted to was on a whole other scale. There were over two hundred people there with everything on site. She was excited and she wished she could get her mom on board about it as well.
“I will smoke a little pot and have a little sex, but no more than usual. Promise.”
“Oh, Ash. I didn’t want to hear that.”
“Well I don’t know what else to say. You know how much I want to go. They have a huge hydroponic set that I will get to work on. They have animals. It’s going to be great.”
She was softening, but still unsure about the whole thing. Betty had been a single mother most of Ashley’s life and in some ways it was more about her, than it was about Ashley. She knew that she would be okay, adapting however she needed to. It was her that didn’t think she could do it alone. They had been companions for so long, Betty wasn’t sure what she was going to do with herself.
It had always been her dream to live on a farm and her love of all things nature had pushed her daughter towards a hippy kind of existence. Now that she was older, it was finally coming to fruition. She looked at the long braids in her hair and the colorful skirt that she was wearing. “Just promise me you will come home. And don’t drink the Kool-Aid if it turns out to be some cult.”
Ashley was teary eyed and nodded. She was going to miss her just as much, but she knew if she succumbed to the tears, they would both be a mess. “I promise, no Kool-Aid.”
Waving goodbye, Ashley decided to get out of there while she could. Betty would have said or done anything to keep her there, if given enough time to come up with a plan. Ashley had to get to the airport in time to get on her plane and like always, Ashley was running a little late. But she made it, just barely and relaxed as she sat back in her seat.
The flight was long, several hours with one change in Denver. When she got out of the airport in Denver, there was already a change in the air. It seemed cleaner and she was able to breathe deeper. There was no telling what California was going to be like, but she was hoping for more of the freshness. Where she lived in the east coast, the sky was never as blue and the air just tasted better there. The further west she got, the wilder the terrain around her and the cleaner the air became.
Her next stop was at the airport in California and the only thing she could think of was getting to the commune. It was out a ways and the taxi driver got lost twice trying to find the place. There were no signs or roads that led to the Sunshine Commune, but there was a wreath of flowers on a post where the walking trail began.
The idea was that a person couldn’t bring more than they could carry, thus they would always be satisfied with less. The hike was almost a mile and though there was a trail, it wasn’t smooth and level by any means. She was out of breath and sitting on her duffel bag when she finally made it over the hill and could see the small community below. There was a few ranching fences around one side of the commune, but everything else looked to be part of nature. It was perfect and she sat there for several moments as the lights died down more and more. The sun was long since gone from sight, but still streaming rays down to her part of the earth.
It was so much warmer there than when she had left earlier in the day. The sky was huge and the breeze blew through the loose strands of her strawberry-blonde hair. The moon was starting to come out and Ashley could have stayed there all night.
“Are you coming in or just here to look?”
The voice was attached to an older, portly man that smiled down at her. He had glistening brown eyes and a knowing smile that was disarming and unexpected from a man his age. She smiled back and stood up, her hand outstretched. “I am coming in, it’s just a long trip here and I was resting for a minute. It looks beautiful from up here.”
“What is your name?”
“Ashley Porter.”
“Ah, Miss Porter. Welcome to the Sunshine Commune. I am sure you will be happy here. I hear that you are only here for the summer?”
“Yes, I plan to go to college in the fall.”
“Well many people stay after they have been here a while. You will love it so much you never want to leave.”
She nodded and smiled, but Ashley didn’t believe that she would be staying. She wasn’t going to argue though. The man’s name was Sebastian and he was the founding father of the place. It had been him that she had had to write to for an application to be considered for the place. After a stack of paperwork, she’d been okayed and it was because of the man standing in front of her that she was there. Ashley didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.
“I thank you for the opportunity Sebastian. I am sure I am going to love it here.”
He took her arm as she picked up her bag and started to walk her back to the small community. There were fires burning and people dancing around it. The only thing that was different than how it was supposed to be in her mind was that nobody was naked. It was exactly what she had been looking for, a place to be free from judgment.
“You will my dear and everyone will love you. Would you like me to take you where you will be staying or would you like to join in the festivities and get introduced to everyone?”
She wasn’t sure, but she decided that putting her bag down would be a good start. Her shoulder was sore from carrying it throughout the day and a rest sounded better than a dance around the fire. “I think I would like to put my stuff away first. I should have brought less.”
Sebastian smiled, his brown eyes twinkling at her. “That is the idea. Come with me. I will show you around and you can put your things down, get something to eat.”
She thanked him and followed him towards the crowd of people. It seemed like everyone was out there and their names were lost in the sea of faces. Ashley was a bit overwhelmed, but she was happy to be there. Not everyone made the cut at Sunshine Commune and she was happy to be one of them. She knew that it was the best place for her to be at the time. Ashley wanted to learn all she could about sustainable farming, but she was not prepared for all of the attention from the men. Out of all the males there, there were three times as many women. It seemed that they were in dire need of more men and she wondered why they were more than happy to accept her into the fold. It seemed to her that the balance of the commune was already severely off.
It was strange to be getting so much attention and she found herself a bit overwhelmed with so many other women around. Ashley was beautiful in her own right, but it was as if she were fresh meat there to be inspected. She had sun-streaked strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes that made a man’s heart melt and she heard several comments about how pretty and young she was. She had just turned eighteen and her youth was like an elixir to the men. She was introduced and her hand was kissed by half of them, yet their names became a blur as soon as she heard them.
“Thank you for being so welcoming.”
There was a group around her and soon she was in the circle, smoking and relaxing. It wasn’t what she had expected, more like what her mother had foreseen, but Ashley wasn’t going to think about it right then. Instead, she got a bit of a buzz and went to bed. There were a couple of offers to share a bed with someone else, but she declined. It was too soon to be playing musical beds and she didn’t want to be that girl, but there were temptations.
Telling everyone good night, she went to lie down on her small cot in a room with several others. The men and women were sprawled out in every room and she fell asleep to the sound of the commune sharing love. Most men were engaged with one of many women and the noise was hard to get out of her mind. Ashley had not been expecting so much of the love part, but it gave her interesting dreams to say the least.