Freedom

                                                                                          

16 January 2013

I aspire to waking up early to meditate and getting to bed early, to enjoy a good night’s sleep. I aspire to living in an organised house, with no clutter, with all my books on shelves, filed alphabetically. I aspire to having an audio library of every song I’ve ever written – all copyrighted, of course – and to steadily rolling out album after album of beautifully recorded songs.

Many years ago, before I realised how unpredictably the road would wind, I aspired to having a life that was picture-perfect. But here I am, aged 51, and my reality is very different. The truth is, no matter how I look at it, I wouldn’t change a thing. Of course, that’s not strictly true, because I have this long list of goals that I’ve been systematically ticking off for years, but I understand the link between my experiences – the pleasure and the pain – and who I am today.

My life is filled, not with alphabetically-packed books or colour-coded wardrobes, but with so many things that make my heart sing. Besides the people in my life and music, the thing in my life I prize most highly is freedom. There’s so much I don’t have, so much I wish I’d already accomplished, but I have my freedom – and that means everything to me. A few years ago, when I was retrenched, I decided that I would re-invent myself, be whatever I chose to be, and I wouldn’t stop – I’d just keep re-inventing myself, have fun, probably fail a few times, pick myself up, start again, and again, and – like the title of one of my songs – write another ending. That’s the freedom I’m talking about - freedom to live my truth, whatever it may be.

Sometimes I forget how much that freedom means to me, that it’s my oxygen, and that I don’t actually know how to function without it.

What is this freedom? It’s the freedom to say what I like, do what I like, spend time with whomever I like, sing what and when I like, play my guitar when and how I like, be a solo act or part of a band, make choices that are right for me; freedom is trying new ways and changing my mind.

But now I have a new job and, to my surprise, I find myself in a situation where the way I dress is strictly regimented – I’m expected to wear a uniform! I am an artist, a free spirit, I wear colourful clothes because that’s how I like putting myself out into the world every day. I wrap scarves around my head and I wear ankle chains and hanging earrings. And the fun part is wearing something different every day.  So much about adult life is duty-based, survival-based, that it’s important for us to find and make magic wherever we can. If I’d wanted to wear a uniform, I’d’ve gone into one of those professions. Instead, I chose, admittedly at an age when I was too young to fully appreciate that I was an artist, to become a teacher. I started working thirty years ago, as a teacher, and this is the first time I’ve been confronted with this dilemma.

Nowhere during my interview was this ever mentioned – and it’s a huge deal to me. In fact, I even asked about the dress code for this chain of college campuses, and I was told that I needed to dress appropriately for my position as lecturer – no scruffy jeans, etc. This is the irony, though – only ONE of the 8 campuses has this rule, and it happens to be the one where I’ve been placed.

I have a real problem with this - a real, philosophically-based problem. I need to figure out how I’m going to handle it.

How far am I prepared to go?

Right down the rabbit hole? J