At first there were very confusing conversations about the unofficial business of making a decision. And let it be known that i tried on decisions like multicoloured pantihouse for a rainbow nation parade. I'm going, I'm staying, I'm moving to Cape Town in a post card on my myspace page. There was no perferct fit like a push in the right direction by unruly circumstance, a mentor and a conveniently placed cliff. But now this the official business of letting you know of my leave of absence.
Strange, how a leave of absence from all worldly responsibility is the closest thing we can invent that resembles freedom. A holiday, vakansie, pre-graduation sabbatical to pre-empt the would be quarter life crisis following the presumptuous maturity of my still somewhat pubescent adulthood. And yet for someone who always subscribed to a freedom described in Krishnamurthi's teachings that need not flee from society in order to exist freely within it, I STILL cannot deny the power of the effect of a change in circumstance on the fragile human mind or rather my rather unripe one.
Our perceptions are fickle and in many ways i regard it as one of our more virtuous attributes or perhaps a symptom of youth - but it allows for the oppurtunity to redefine our realities and therefore re-invent our expereince of our lives. And for me I must admit that I've always craved a bigger bite of the the cookie, a thicker slice of life, gnawing at the bone of its meaning - a deeper experience of life's essence.
I used to as a child experience that intensity in the most mundane things. From a sunset or the rising of the moon from the wrong side of the pool through a pair of goggles, i was certain life was pouring forth it secrets. But somewhere along the timeline we stop trusting ourselves, stop listening to our innermost voices. The acquired cynicism with which we graduate to adulthood drowns out our intuition and there is less innocence, less purity in our day to day living. These for me are not moral definitions - I see innocence as a state of mind without assumption. It does not claim to know and therefore its experience is pure, intense and truthful to the situation.
Deep within me there is a craving, and the craving creates a knowing that I long, I live to express authenticity. An authenticity that would demand mastery of my craft, that would feed my art and an art that i could call a life well spent. I know that when you leave behind familiarity you leave behind safety, comfort and all things sugar and spice. But you also leave behind the past and any solid notions of who you think you are - a daughter, a sister, a lover, a friend and a piggy bank of adjectives to go with it. You create an oppurtunity to be defined by your own constitution rather than circumstance. I have felt that authenticity before and yet it flickers away when the experience is still premature and past settings bring back past limitations.
So I leave knowing in my heart that i look forward to a life of bolder artistry when I return. And I've been warned against it by many people whose lives I really wouldn't chose in place of whatever balls up may lie ahead. ha, But I have made my choice and this is my notice so you can't claim absence without leave. The details will be revealed as they are confirmed but a rough sketch on the globe will include India, Europe, South America. 10 months of solitude.
