How I survived myself

Free adj. 1 not captive, confined, or restricted; 2 not busy or taken up; not in use; not prevented from doing something; 3 not subject to something; without. 4 costing nothing. 5 giving or spending without restraint. Free syn. Available, independent, self-governing, at liberty, at large, unfettered. As a verb; 1 set free. In other words; to release, let go, liberate, turn loose, untie, unleash; rescue, extricate.

  The dictionary does not describe the way freedom sounds, or tastes, or smells, or looks like. It does not say that freedom exists in many forms. Freedom of the body, the soul, the mind. A free man, a free nation, a free world. It does not say that free is, like the man I met on the train the other day described, not having to worry about being killed by the days end. He had grown up during a civil war in South America and to him, the word Canada is a fancy way of saying  free.  It doesnt talk about God, or society, or metabolics, or DNA, or geneology. It doesnt talk about the limiting influences in individual lives, or what works against it. It also does not say that freedom is a place, a dream, an idea, a risk, a choice. Nor does it carry instructions on how to become free, how to release, let go, or how to unleash.

 Because a definition (and I got this from the dictionary too) is an outline. It is not the skin, the bones, the mind, the heart, the soul. Which means just like my body is unlike any other, so too is my definition.

 Free a place New Zealand. Free an animal The dolphin. Free a feeling bliss. Free smells like the sea. Tastes like salt on my tongue. Feels like cold ocean water invading our tiny boat and soaking my body. Looks like miles of open water and then the sun catching on something sleek and shiny in the crest of a wave that wasnt visible before. Free sounds like my voice singing to the silver creatures dancing just below the waves, calling them over to come and play.

  The other night over pear gorgonzola pizza and pinot grigio at our favourite little restaurant, my mother asks me this question; when was the last time you remember being free?  I am in Pahia. It is not the best day for swimming with dolphins. The sky is overcast, there is a wind on shore that will only grow stronger on open water. But it is our last day in this sleepy seaside town on the  North Island, so I go anyway. It is my second day on the boat. My friend Victoria and I had gone yesterday. We had seen the dolphins. We had held our breath in delight as they breached, and flipped, and then all too quickly swam farther out beyond the line of the horizon.  Today my travelling companions stay on the mainland. My nature generally to go where they go, I make the decision to go it alone. I want to know I exhausted every chance I had to swim with them, whether a close encounter were to occur or not.

  So I board the little yellow boat and greet Billy and Grace, the same captain and skipper I had met the previous morning. “You may not get the chance  today.” they caution, “Its not looking great out there”. If the currents are dangerous or there is a calf in the pod legally we cannot enter the water. But I am aware of this. I smile, “Its worth the shot”.

  I do not remember how long we are darting between islands before we spot them. Ahead of us at first, then all of a sudden there are dark shadows gliding just below the surface of the water, right below where I am perched at the front of the boat. “‘There’s a calf in this pod” Billy says, “we wont be going in”. But he directs me to lie face down on the bow,  hold on to the bars, and lean out so that I am hanging over the front. I imagine I am like the sculpted mermaids that adorn ancient vessels. “They respond to voices” Grace yells to me. So I start to call to them. I slap the water with my free hand, I coo, I sing, I laugh. I dont care how ridiculous I look. I am unfettered and at large. The bow dips and my upper body is in the water and my hair is soaked, and there is sea water filling my mouth, and there is a dolphin thisclose, staring directly at me, and it is smiling, and we look at eachother and in its eyes I see everything that I want to be.  And I am no longer in the boat, or even in my own body; I am in the water and I am a dolphin and I am playing in the waves. I am wild, and smiling. I am at peace, and I am free.

  “And where does this moment exist now?”  My mother inquires as only a mother can. And I realize that it is written in my skin, my bones, my mind, my heart, my soul.

 There is a saying that goes something like, “If a tree falls in the woods and noone is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  Can then it also be asked if a painter paints a picture and never shows it to anyone, is it really art? If a poet writes a poem and never shares it, is it poetry? If a singer sings, but only in the privacy of the shower, is that music? If a person lives their life with their truth, their gifts locked up inside of them and never opens the door or gives away the key is that really living?

  And what about the painter who doesnt even pick up the brush? The poet whose pen never touches the pad? The singer whose voice never reaches the air?

  What about me?

  When did I stop dancing? Stop singing? Stop writing? Stop acting? Stop painting? Stop laughing? Stop living?

   And what about when the tree? What happens when it falls and there are people around and the ground shakes, and the needles fly, and the bark breaks and it rattles and scares them?  Who is responsible for that? The tree? The wind? The people for getting in the way?

  Why did I stop dancing? stop singing? stop writing? Stop acting? Stop painting? Stop laughing? Stop living?

  Because I am afraid that I will fall and the ground will come at me fast and hard and cause my bark to break and peices of me will fly off and everyone will see the knotts and the scars and insects will make a home in my broken open heart.

  And because I am even more afraid that I will fall and there will be noone there to witness it, and I will not have made a sound.