The 1960s float in my memory like a haze of sunlight through a beaded curtain. Golden afternoons, music drifting from a transistor radio, the kind of melodies that stitched themselves right into the soul. Each song seemed to know us, to whisper our secret hopes and heartbreaks.

I remember the swish of bell bottoms as I walked, the daring hem of a miniskirt brushing against my knees, the soft defiance of dressing in colors the world wasn’t quite ready for. Even clothes felt like possibility.

Summer nights stretched endlessly then. Lying on blankets under a velvet sky, we laughed at nothing and everything, our voices mingling with the crackle of distant radios. A VW bus parked nearby, incense curling into the warm air—it felt as if we were inventing life itself, discovering what freedom meant in real time.

And then there were the moments that made us hold our breath: a black-and-white TV screen glowing in a darkened room as men walked on the moon, our eyes wide with awe; the nights of sudden silence when assassinations shattered our illusions of safety. The decade carried both light and shadow, woven tightly together.

When I look back now, it feels less like memory and more like a dream—colors brighter than they were, music more alive, hope more certain.

And yet, that very contrast sharpens my sorrow at the world we see today. Where we once believed in peace and possibility, we now witness division deepened like canyons. The dream of equality we marched for is still deferred. We once cried “make love, not war,” but today wars grind on, fueled by greed and cruelty. Gunfire claims our children in classrooms. Lies masquerade as truth. The compassion that seemed to flower in that decade now too often feels trampled under rage, apathy, or the pursuit of power.

The dismay is real—like watching a bright photograph fade to gray.

But still, the memory of the 1960s reminds me what we are capable of when we dare to hope, when we insist on better. That decade planted seeds that have not all withered. And maybe, just maybe, the dream we dreamed then can rise again, if only we’re willing to fight for it.