When I was a junior in high school, I ran away from home.

This is a rite of passage that many people engage in. And, to me, it seemed like the logical response to an increasingly stifling atmosphere. I wanted to go to an extracurricular school event, a gathering of a group of politically active students from around the state, and my mother said I couldn't. I decided to go anyway. I lied and told my mom I was spending the weekend at a friend's house, my best friend told her parents she was spending the weekend at my house, and we took off.

It was pretty straightforward, except that we lived in Southern California, and we ran away to San Francisco.

We walked to the Pasadena Hilton and boarded the bus down to LAX. At LAX we boarded a PSA flight to San Jose. I had figured it all out beforehand; it was exorbitant ($35 for the plane ticket) but worth it. We were going to go to the convention if it killed us.

Well, it almost kind of did. I remember sitting on the bus heading down the Pasadena Freeway and looking out the window. It may have been this time of year -- spring, wild weather -- and I realized I had truly severed a tie with my previous self. I was off into the unknown, without a paddle, without a safety net of any kind. It was obviously all planned out, but I was executing on solely on my own. My best friend was with me and together we were embarking on a wild adventure.

I had met some guy at a previous gathering of the same group, and had kissed him in the rain under some trees in the park outside the Sacramento capitol. (Hence the prohibition of ever going to one of these things again -- my mom suspected there was something dangerous involved and immediately clamped down on everything.)

He and I had communicated... by letter! ... so we had set up to stay with him. He must have picked us up at the airport, and we went to his house in Woodside. It was a nice house in a lush area, and just like many rich smart kids of our day, he was pretty much left alone to his own devices by all authority figures who were doubtless off worrying about problems of their own.

We sat in his room, smoked a joint, listened to Led Zeppelin and watched a Wheel-0 go back and forth for maybe three or four hours. I have no idea where we slept that night; probably in his room. We were all three about 16. I have no recollection of his parents whatsoever.

The next day we went up to San Francisco. For some reason we bailed completely on the political gathering. Either we couldn't talk our way in, hadn't pre-registered (which would've been tricky without parental consent) or just didn't give a shit anymore.

In any event, once we got into The City we aimed for Union Square. This was in the early 70's, so The City was still in the throes of the Revolution. Which meant, basically, that it was pretty easy for a couple of young girls to find a joint to smoke and make new "friends" to crash with.

We had no money. Despite my beautiful planning, the arrangements of shuttles and plane tickets and rich guys to stay with, we sort of ended up without any pocket change. I remember standing at a counter at a diner off Van Ness and seriously arguing with Celia whether it would be OK to steal the Leukemia quarters by the cash register. I believe that morality won out, but I can't be positive.

We spent the rest of the day walking. One of most repulsive things we did, on that weekend of anarchy, was pick up cigarette butts off the ground to smoke so we wouldn't get hungry. It worked. We were both nauseated and disgusted, so food seemed a lower priority.

We found ourselves at a park near Coit Tower, smoking a joint we had procured somewhere. We sat under a tree and the world whirled about us. We were absolutely certain, and I still believe it to be true, that we were at the center of the universe at that moment. That we had found the true focal point, and it was holding us, and us it, in perfect equilibrium for those few timeless moments in that park I've never been able to find again.

I was not to lose my virginity for a few years, but we found ourselves in some other boys' bedrooms that night. The stereo was on, the parents were absent, and I insisted on wearing my trademark bandana around my neck all night -- so I was still technically wearing something. She had the older brother -- and I don't know what they did -- and I was with the younger one. He must've been 15 or so. Sweet and shy and completely unsure of what to do with a girl who had invited herself over and still refused to take off her bandana.

The next day we got back to San Jose, somehow, and made our exhausted and green way home.

I think of that every time I sit in an airport terminal, as I am right now. I think of that first excursion into the world... the part of it that is pathetic and the part of it that was glorious. I ran away 400 miles away, smoked cigarette butts off the ground, and was not caught for months (until my mom read some of my letters to the Woodside guy and I came home to find the word FUCK all over my bedroom walls, written in red lipstick.)

We made our journey and came back older and less wise. We were tired young girls, three years older than my son is now.

And looking back I find it incomprehensible that we could've gotten away with it. That we saw no evidence of parents anywhere. That it was OK for us to be hooking up with these kids without any questions, any interaction whatsoever, with any adult.

We were wild for a reason. We were being given arbitrary dictates from parents who had checked out, both physically and psychologically. They cared passionately, and didn't care at all. I don't know where they went. I don't know where I went. But it was a time when there were two worlds and they did not discuss their dealings with the other, under any circumstances, in any way.

I trust that my kids won't have to contemplate stealing the Leukemia money in order to buy breakfast. I trust they won't have to buy a plane ticket to find freedom. But I also wish for them a moment or two, with a cherished and trusted companion, where they find themselves young, untethered, and at the center of the universe.

Someday I will find that park again. And someday, I trust, they willl, too.

# posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 5:58 PM