Mary Oliver once asked, Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?
This question has flickered in my mind like a lightbulb that needs changing ever since I heard it. I tried writing my own version of her poem, Blue Iris, starting with the same question:
‘Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?’
Can’t shapeshift, can’t hide, but watch how fast I can sprint.
‘Well’, I think, ‘I can study the world.’
‘What’s that you’re eating?’
The fruit fly from the kitchen asks as it hovers around my plate.
I put down the melon.
‘Well, I can cook my meals with the fruit flies in the kitchen.’
‘What’s that you’re doing?’ mutters the sun, resting its rays on the sofa.
‘Give me some space’, I say back to the glare ‘It doesn’t happen in one place, you know.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ says the sun as a cloud passes over it, leaving darkness for a moment.
And my mind flutters with anxiety, resisting the urge to be where I want to be; the hollow, pausing, absolute, boundless container that I hold myself in.
But this didn’t give me the answers I needed. Too open-ended, I needed something more definite. Who could give me advice on this other than the walls who know my sleeping patterns and routines? They listen to my restless body moving in this tiny, stiff bed. They hear the door slam every-time I enter and leave.
‘Are you capable of stillness?’ they ask.
The wall next to my bed tells me to sit still and breathe.
‘Meditate for a while, surrender to the silence of the night.’
The wall that faces my bed, next to the door, thinks that I should put my phone near the other wall because I tend to scroll away the night. The wall my closet sits against tells me I am beautiful, but I should look into the mirror less. The wall facing my desk tells me to stop eating in front of it. Apparently it hates the sound of chewing and thinks the desk should only be used for work. I think about my misophonic sister back home.
The window wall tells me to keep it open at all times.
‘The fresh air heals’, she says.
I believe her. And the only advice the door tells me is to leave more often.
‘If I could leave this room, I would.’
I took the wall's advice - I left my room, explored, wrote about it. I wrote about my time overseas, with no space for imagination, no metaphors. And I think those words, the simplicity that they accentuate, is the answer I’ve been looking for.
‘Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?’
Living abroad, I brought a journal with me everywhere I went. I wrote memorable moments in it, and I asked people I met to write a piece of advice. I could list these back to you, but I’ll spare you the monotony. Instead, I want to bring you back home with me. In my childhood bedroom, my mind goes a mile a minute. It’s well past midnight but instead of sleeping I turn my light on and write.
There is a certain tree, native to Australia, that gives forests a blue haze. They shed bark as if crying tears of transformation. Sometimes that shedded bark leads to forest fires. Eucalyptus is its name.
Now home, on the East Coast of America, I paint from memory. I stain paper with colors, as if I were still sitting in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden.
Kookaburra, wallaby, dingo.
Grass trees, fan palms, flying foxes.
I don’t see you. Not on this side.
A fire waits for bark to shed. A wanderlust woman waits for boredom to end. She doesn’t question the tree for what it's done with its debris. For what it’s done to grow freer itself.
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