People have all kinds of dreams. Mine, as long as I can remember, was to live in a cottage by a river with flowers around. I’d write all day and dream all night. Then get up, bake some bread, walk around, talk to the trees and then write some more. That’s all I really wanted. I didn’t think of fame or wanting to sell what I wrote. Because selling would mean that I now had to write what others wanted to read. My ambition was to be a vagabond free spirit hippy who isn’t answerable to anyone. I dreamt of freedom, not of grandeur, ownership or success. Writing was never about being popular for me. People would say with your imagination you could be the next J. K Rowling. Why don’t you write like Kamila Shamsie? Write like so and so to be considered ‘good’.
Writing was never about success for me. I was and am a vagabond spirit. I like to write because it wants to be written, for no reason, for no real purpose or outcome other than the sheer delight of being alive, of having fingers and a mind, and thoughts–delicious toasty and gooey in the right places. ‘What a hobo you are!’ people would exclaim and I experienced hatred for no reason other than I existed as me.
The real problem and the most difficult thing was finding a safe place to write. Where is the sanctuary and freedom to create? Quite clearly, living in the world is about conforming to the demands of the world. Somehow life wasn’t simple enough to just write. You had to write a certain way, for a certain audience to make a living out of it. Otherwise it was a hobby and one had to find a different way to pay for housing.
I spent years holding back the river that runs through my heart. I had to do so much just to have the free time and space to write. I had to conform to so many social and familial expectations, before there was even a remote sliver of a chance to be me. Thankfully, better sense prevailed and I quit the rat race. The other day I was looking for a home to move into where I felt safe enough and that worked for my son, so I could steal a few hours to write. Just a few hours of untroubled, peaceful time to think–are so difficult to get in the world.
Living with my family was not an option. As time wore on, the fact that I was me became an issue with a few people. That’s life as a writer for most of my kind. I had to run and hide. I’ve yearned for my son to graduate. Or for me to find a lottery ticket. A job where I wasn’t so drained mentally that I could sneakily write in the afternoons. A blog that paid. I’ve taken up alternative professions, so that one day I could write. I’ve plotted and plotted schemes that lead to: Destination > Hermit.
It was always the wrong time, wrong place, wrong ticket, wrong job. Until one fine day, I just quit. I resigned. I said to my employers and me, that if I did as much work as I do for you, for myself, I am bound to survive. It meant discipline, focus and total vulnerability. 1 or 2 years of poverty followed, but I worked very very hard. I started and maintain a couple of blogs, and created more content–as it flowed naturally from a place that is beyond time and space.
Overcoming my fears of rejection, I reached to other Reiki healers, tarot readers, psychics, local kind hearted brigade of fellow creatives. I found the emotional and mental support that helped me unfold the tight and uncomfortable wall behind which I felt safe.
Finally I began writing the living in abundance blog that I’d planned since 2010 and had purchased the domain name. Eventually the angels delivered an affordable attic, which allows me to squeeze most of my time into creative projects while doing freelance websites and group events.
The wonderful thing about writing for no reason, for no outcomes is that it flows where it will. My writing is like my mother’s garden. She never wants to organize it. She never wants to prune the trees. She simply loves each bush, each dainty flower into form.
Living like this is unthinkable where I come from. Artists and writers aren’t respected, unless of course they write for popular opinion and approval. ‘Good’ parents don’t hope that their children will paint or play music or dance. Instead parents hope that their children will be rich and successful. They make fake plastic people who live fake plastic lives. That is the definition of success. Fear. Fear. Fear = Success. Money. Success.
The perfect society for corporate control, environmental disaster and violence is the obedient society.
A River Runs Through It
A ramshackle cottage with an unhinged door
Sits upon the doorway of my heart.
A river runs through it,
under it
across it
behind it.
Interlaced possibilities
Gleam with discontent
Be me! He shouts, ‘You aren’t enough as you are!’
Be me! She screams. ‘You aren’t going to get away with that!’
Be me! Or me! Or even me!
But, I am me. I don’t wish to be anyone else
Life is too short for halfway measures
Almost being here is the same as not being here
Let the river decide the way to the ocean.
Behind The Veil 