There is a particular set of irritations that happen to people with a predilection for healthy food, a giant love of nature, and a tendency to approach their health with a minimalist, prevention-first mindset. In a word, hippies. Here are some that have plagued me over the years.
There are chia seeds glued onto my canines!
Like so much gelatinous goo on the bald head of a Garfield Chia Pet. Remember how spreading seeds on a chia planter works? If you’re the type of person who adds chia seeds to snack bars and yogurt, a bit of saliva is enough to get some chia-glue going and stick chia seeds to your teeth.
And when I say canines, I mean teeth, but I can only assume that chia-eating dog owners find them on their dogs’ coats, the same way I find them on my toddler, and also everything I own. Because that’s how toddlers work.
My coconut oil deodorant melted!
Coconut oil melts at 76 degrees Fahrenheit. If you’re the type of person who deodorizes with a mixture of coconut oil, baking soda, cornstarch, and a bit of lavender oil mixed up with a fork in an old salsa jar, your finely-tuned cream mixture will turn to goo.
On the bright side, the more liquidy your mixture gets, the more you know you need it. A handy visual indicator.
My ginger bug died!
And now I can’t make experimental fermented beverages. Plus, I’m a sad person because I had kind of come to think of it as an inert, bacterial pet, and no one understands because they have normal pets like cats.Y
I have barefoot angst!
Because I’m on a barefoot kick, but I need to go to Sears, and I don’t have the braided thong of cloth that makes it look as though I’m wearing flip-flops.
I need to buy yogurt at the supermarket!
But all the low-fat, high-sugar, nutrionally-bankrupt options sitting in fluorescent-lit yogurt prison remind me of the three things I hate most–disempowerment, brainwashing, and patriarchy—and I end up leaving the store in a steaming rage-spiral.
I need to get food at a gas station, but I don’t really consider any of this stuff food.
Well, yeah.
I accidentally revealed how infrequently I shower!
Because I mentioned taking a cold shower on Sunday when the hot water didn’t work, but I’m talking about this on Wednesday, haven’t taken a shower since, and didn’t think anything of it when I mentioned the Sunday shower. If you disagree with the idea of daily showers as necessary, know that soap advertising played a big role in the concept of the daily shower, and don’t want to open those particular cans of worms, it’s easiest to say that you get dry skin.
I self-identify as a hippie, but I don’t want you to confuse me with those hippies.
You know the ones, with the fluffiness and the moon crystals, the anti-vaxxing and the unquestioned conflation of “natural” and “good,” and the idea that people give themselves cancer with negative thoughts. Or the ones who give bad advice about essential oil use, and recommend coconut oil for ALL problems.
Or the ones who turn “natural living” into a consumer activity with surface-level gestures toward healthy eating, like buying almond milk because it’s almond milk, without looking at the ingredients or questioning whether 2.5 grams of fat is the correct amount of fat for a beverage purportedly made from nuts.
My partner spent an agonized Facebook post asking his friends for better terms than “hippie” to get away from those associations, and came up with nothing. The best I had was to add the word “pragmatic” in front of it.
And that describes me fairly well: I’m a pragmatic hippie.
To be honest, I’m not sure how many of these problems are still considered hippie things since some of them, like chia seeds, have gone mainstream. It’s been years since I had to explain to someone what chia seeds are, or since I had to go to a special store to buy them. But whether these behaviors have gone mainstream or not, I know their roots.
This is hippie stuff, and these are hippie problems, and I have them.