Today I am wearing a tie-dyed T-Shirt of turquoise blue & purple. An authentic Dead Head t-shirt. Made for me by a true D-head. It is a prized possession.
Why? You ask? Am I a fanatical fan of The Dead? No. Have I ever been to a D-head concert? No.
So then why is the t-shirt so prized? Because a friend made it & the t-shirt reminds me of him. Now this man was never a close friend. I never got the chance to know him that well. He was working as a temp for a company I was working for eons ago. He was a temp by life-style choice. He would work for a short time – just long enough to save enough money to go on the road with The Dead – again. He was rootless – by choice. His community was made up of his fellow dead-heads whom he would hook up with for months at a time on the road. During his brief stints in the “real” world he would connect with others – such as me.
My memory of him is that he was a smart man. I always enjoyed talking to him - he had such a clever, dry sense of humor. His view of the world was hazed over with a heaping helping of liberal hippyness. He was also a gentle soul. Kind & unassuming. He embraced his deadheadedness with an idealistic fervor that I often found myself envying. Oddly so. For the short time that our paths crossed – he changed my view of the world in his own humble way. In fact – he still does. Bless him.
Then the making of the t-shirts. His personal fund-raising drive to go on the road with The Dead. My purchasing of this t-shirt from him meant that I was enabling his return to the road. For better or worse.
Months after he left – without a trace – Jerry died. Immediately we all thought of our friend. How his world, his sense of belonging & purpose must have shattered like bits of glass. My ex-husband & others tried to track him down – but the trail was cold. We all worried about him though we knew we would never see him again.
I think of him still from time to time – especially when I wear this t-shirt – which I adore. I wonder what became of him & his fellow idealistic types - living in an unforgiving & increasingly conservative society - without their center - Jerry.
I realize I may seem to be over-sentimentalizing a simple, now worn, article of clothing. And, well, yeah, I guess I am. But the reason is this – there is much about this lost friend & this t-shirt that symbolizes my path through life as well. In my adult life I have moved so so so so so many times (in the early days by choice, now - not so much), I have said goodbye to more friends than most people make in a life time. I have learned to be philosophical about friendships – to value them in the here & now because tomorrow . . . Unlike my old dead-head friend, I have less of a sense of community. His wandering gave him a sense of purpose & a sense of shared community with his fellow Jerry worshipers. And this is perhaps the part of his story that I have always somewhat envied. My less purposeful sense of community comes from phone calls & emails with friends scattered around the country. Friends I love & value more than they can know.
What brought on this personal reverie of a post? Whilst going about my business today sporting my D-head t-shirt I have been going over in my mind all that I must do in the weeks to come. Including - wading into the job market – again – full force. Mine is a temporary position. Still a transient in search of a permanent home, I know that I must eventually leave where I am currently landed.
