Over that weekend you had a chance to meet a couple of homeless people hanging out in East London. Maybe you passed them on the street, not paying attention, maybe you didn't even notice them. So actually they were not exactly homeless. It was me and A., having a real time of our lives.
This idea of a total freedom, without being put under any limitation neither stuck between boundaries, to the extend of not accepting even the limits put by ourselves out of our own choice, has been alive in my mind as an unreachable perfection since I was grown enough to understand it. Moreover, I never liked school. I didn't like structures in general, remaining rather reluctant to any sort of organizations, institutions from church and government to student clubs and youth association. I always considered myself somehow antisocial, never feeling a need of belonging. When I grew up, graduated, got a job and learnt how to follow up all kinds of society's trends, from time to time all of a sudden I got an idea of quitting everything and just leaving. Still (I hope my bosses don't read it) I carry the picture of my mind- to go out of my office without a notice, leaving my desk, my purse, computer and mobile, to just leave. No matter where. When I was younger though, some of these thoughts could easily made me depressed, ensuring me that I am not really suitable for any place neither job and don't really belong to nowhere.
Almost two years ago, when we had an exceptionally severe winter and I created Monkey Seduction, A. and I liked to spend late evenings drinking cider and talking about, as A. always defined, 'people and their lives', which meant for us something we dettached from entirely. Once, taken by an impulse, he took his guitar and played a song. It was about being a cat, wandering and everywhere where you can be yourself. I referred to this as to his exclamation how imprisoned had he felt in London for all this time, but then he looked back at me with confusion.
- I wrote this song before- said he avoiding my gaze. I understood that belonging to everywhere means belonging to nowhere. I realized that my total freedom is not really an issue of belonging. My total freedom was indifferent: it didn't have a definition. And definition is a limitation, too.
This year I missed Notting Hill carnival as usual. I never mean to miss it, it just happens. While I was thinking about it, feeling reluctant to getting a make up done and going out to do what everybody else does, the door opened and A. showed up on the staircase.
- Fancy going for a ride?- asked he, shaking the car keys in his hand. Ten minutes later we were heading to the suburb, the two vagabonds who never worked, never lived in the city, never lost anything and never willed to gain.
We hit the countryside penetrated by surprise how green is the landscape around us. We passed an old carousel, abandoned in the middle of a field like a memorial to the horizon, and glided into curvy roads of lovely suburbs surrounded by small houses like boxes of matches endways. We hung around for a while, and then had a take away dinner at a square, where I got perfectly comfortable with my pyjama.
Who do you want to become when you grow up? I mean, when we're really adult. Not like now.
We will never grow up, A.
So maybe you passed me on a street and had a chance to meet my vagabond-self. If so, you do own a part of me now. If not, leave your phone, shoes or everything you feel defines you and go out. Then you can come back home, like us on that day (as we got into our fancy car- don't get excited, it was from a car rental)and take your total freedom back with you. Later on you will get a chance to embrace at anytime.
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