I’m sitting atop a quaint grassy hill in Houston, petrified with fear. This place— Hippie Hill—is one of the only elevated knolls around town where people can indulge the carefree pastime of rolling down a pleasant incline. I’ve never been afraid of heights, and the prospect of grass stains doesn’t bug me. Still, I can’t make myself budge.
On this gusty March day, scores of Houstonians have flocked to this hamlet in Hermann Park, a 445-acre park brimming with lush gardens, water features, and pavilions located by the city’s museum district, to launch kites into the breeze. As I sit on the hill, I tilt my head back and follow a neon-green octopus kite flailing in the overcast sky. Its tentacles seem to mock me and my unwillingness to move. Roll, damn it, I growl to myself. Around me, kids giggle while launching themselves off the top of the hill, near the lawn of the Miller Outdoor Theatre, again and again. One rebellious preteen even goes for it on an electric scooter, looking stoic as the wheels hurtle him forward about 15 feet.
I used to be one of these people. When my brother and I were kids, we’d beg our parents to let us spend an afternoon rolling down Hippie Hill. Now, in my early 30s, I’m cognizant that I’ve done objectively more petrifying things than this throughout my lifetime, like scuba diving where sharks are known to roam. Sure, the hill is steeper than I remember it from when I was 10. But it shouldn’t be enough to immobilize me now.
Maybe it’s that a lot of us lose our edge as we age. Carefree merriment is harder, if not impossible, to grasp in the same way thanks to adult obligations, creaky joints, and anxiety. Yet this specific prospect has made me spiral. As a chronic overthinker, I’m often plagued with intrusive thoughts, no matter how nonsensical. This venture is no exception. While sitting there, my brain badgers me about why I’m not using my time more productively. I’m so discomfited by this idle time that I’d somehow rather go to the dentist than roll down Hippie Hill. Why can’t I do this?
In director Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a 2014 coming-of-age epic filmed over 12 years, there’s a scene where young protagonist Mason (Ellar Coltrane) runs, not rolls, gleefully and dramatically down a grassy hill. In addition to driving the plot forward, it’s a wink-wink moment: Linklater grew up in Houston and likely knew it would be poignant to anyone with ties to the area. But even without this connection, the memorable scene brims with unfettered joy, rooted in a bottomless well of that precious resource: time. Specifically, it embodies the rare luxury of having time to waste.
Hippie Hill is one of the highest points of elevation in stubbornly flat Houston. It was a gathering place for Houstonians well before Linklater scouted it as a film location. But the hill wasn’t part of the original master plan for Hermann Park, says Houston historian Mister McKinney, who also serves on the advisory board of the Miller Outdoor Theatre. If anything, the hill emerged as an accidental byproduct of city planning and circumstance.
In the late 1940s and early ’50s, as the city began excavating the burgeoning Texas Medical Center, they also started to bring Fannin Street further south, McKinney explains. That meant workers needed a place to dump excess dirt from those construction projects. So, they began depositing tons of mealy earth onto a flat patch of land around the Miller Outdoor Theatre, which was built in 1923. When other hospitals began moving from downtown and cropping up around the medical center area, more dirt kept piling up on the growing hill. “It was more like an elevated incline in the late ’50s,” McKinney says. “And then by the 1960s, you started to have an actual hill on the backside.”
Hippie Hill is fairly accessible to Houstonians via a multitude of bus lines, and its location around several college campuses, like Rice University, the University of St. Thomas, the University of Houston, and Texas Southern University, makes it a natural stomping ground for students. It became the site of Vietnam War protests in the late ’60s, and the prevalence of longhair anti-war activists congregating there caused “Hippie Hill” to stick.
The hill kept growing in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when the city began rechanneling Brays Bayou. More and more dirt followed. The drop has become even more precipitous in recent years, McKinney says. “Back in the ’80s and ’90s, when you may have been rolling down the hill, it was still pretty significant,” he adds. “But it’s much steeper now.”
When McKinney tells me this, I feel validated. I’m not sure if I misremember how big the hill is, given the last time I was here was probably 20 years ago. It does feel taller now. But then again, so am I.
Back on the patchy grass, I’m still mustering the nerve to head down. My thoughts start wading into a strange place. At what point in my life did I start feeling fear?
Like every adult, I have less time and more responsibilities. I spend most of my waking hours either writing or thinking about what I’m writing next. I’m reminded of what author and Stanford professor Jenny Odell posits in her 2019 book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. She argues the demands of hyperproductivity have trickled into our everyday existence such that it’s now inconceivable to not optimize our time. As a way of divesting from that capitalist-driven grip, she suggests we retrain our instincts by strengthening our connection to nature—and learning how to have fun again.
Spending the day outside sounds delightful, but in the days leading up to the hill adventure, my dread gave way to something else: a gnarled hesitation to give in to an unfamiliar situation where I might look or feel stupid, with no tangible goal at the end to make it worth my while. I suspect there’s a through line between that and the perfectionism I’ve grappled with my entire life. In high school I was so exacting with my academic achievements and training as a volleyball player that, for a while, my hands shook from uncontrollable anxiety. Though I’ve made significant strides in keeping invasive thoughts at bay, I’m constantly wrestling with a strain of nonlinear anxiety that rears its head in peculiar ways—like being afraid of a hill with a slight incline.
I sit there for the next hour making excuses to myself. Well, some people could get in the way. What about my big notebook—where would I possibly keep it as I roll down? Then, I start to notice the kids plummeting down the hill each have their own technique. One industrious child expertly places his hands in a prayer formation, keeping his arms trained there even as he picks up speed.
The idea of focusing on mechanics, instead of just barreling forward, gives me the first sense of comfort I’ve had all day. In that moment, finding a specific rolling technique feels more manageable than rolling writ large. All right, I’m going to do it.
With a long gulp, I cross my arms over my chest and hope for the best. Then, I unclench my body and let gravity take over.
The 10-second roll is a blur—faster than I remember and over just as quickly. When I finally come to a stop, I feel a rush, similar to standing up too fast. I’m delighted I’m not critically injured, though in the future, I would probably stretch before rolling. As I get up on my feet, I feel woozy, and that dizziness stays with me for the rest of the day.
It’s a small price to pay for something I haven’t been able to do for a long while: submit to a fleeting burst of absolution and a moment of pure abandon.
