Oh I'd rather go and journey where the diamond crest is flowing and
Run across the valley beneath the sacred mountain and
Wander through the forest
Where the trees have leaves of prisms and break the light in colours
That no one knows the names of

And when it's time I'll go and wait beside a legendary fountain
Till I see your form reflected in its clear and jewelled waters
And if you think I'm ready
You may lead me to the chasm where the rivers of our vision
Flow into one another

I will want to die beneath the white cascading waters
She may beg, she may plead, she may argue with her logic
And then she'll know the things I learned
That really have no value in the end she will surely know
I wasn't born to follow

The anthem is unabashedly poetic. Performed by the Byrds and framed by the impressionistic, unreeling vision that only a motorcycle can convey, it gave me a few moments of deep, sheer joy. Being a girl, I knew the song was aimed at me � I was certainly not above begging, pleading and arguing with my logic. But then, I wasn�t born to follow either, and so this was my song too.

The song recalls a lovely but crazy time for me, when no pleasure went untouched by the Vietnam War. I had Friends Over There. And also in jail and in trouble and headed down and missing and dead. There was no serenity or stability to be had anywhere, least of all in Berkeley, and so we took our pleasure sharp, brief, and intense. Try to play it out a little, make it last, and it just dispersed and turned ashen and floated off like smoke, leaving you marooned, lonelier than before.

So this song was a fit, packing it all into just a few moments, and the imagery stretches your visual imagination, but you still know what it means and where it is taking you. In the end, it all comes back together like the colours in that prism in the first stanza: I wasn�t born to follow. It�s a relief to know it was true then and still is. Every time I hear it now, it sweeps me back in time, and I always think, it�s over so fast. It�s over too soon.

Linda grew up in Minneapolis, came to California as a teenager, graduated from UC Berkeley in English Lit. She is a Chesterfield Film Writers Project semi-finalist. Her short stories have appeared, or are scheduled to appear, in Epoch, Cimarron Review, Prism International (2), Artisan, In Posse Review (2), Pulse, Starry Night Review, Stirring, The Pedestal Magazine, Eyeshot, Cyber Oasis, FictionWarehouse, Zacatecas, Outsider Ink, The Shadowshow, Summerset Review, 24:7, Storyglossia, Amarillo Bay, and Ducts. She won first prize in The Writers Place 2004 fiction competition, and her first novel is emerging at the rate of an average continent. A feature-length comedy screenplay, Flush, is under development in Seattle. Linda has also optioned four film scripts in the past year and been hired to write two more. One of them begins shooting in August in Los Angeles; two others now have directors attached and are moving forward. Read Linda�s story �Mighty� on the Stickman Review site here, her story �A Journey From Which Many Do Not Return� in Riverwalk Journal here, �Charlotte�s Law� on Girls with Insurance here or to read �The Hundred Thousand Dollar Suit� on the showcase of this site, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.