This is me trying to be free.

Got the link from Janaki. The best piece of writing that I've read since nausea. Left me stunned. Unfortunately, the other posts lack the panache.

At a lecture on French Cinema yesterday she spoke of roles and poses. There's a diplomacy that comes with adopting roles, she said. Poses are different, more a matter of style. One strikes and discards poses. One plays games. With poses, one knows. But there's a self-censorship to roles - I'm her lover so I can only say or do this, if I say or do that I might cease to be her lover, his wife, her friend, his daughter, her teacher. If I don't play my role she might see me differently. If I don't play mine he might not play his. Or he might go away.

My roles are my boundaries, and I draw them close. Too close. My relationship with this environment is governed by roles - as a student, a class-mate, a twenty-two year old, an acquaintance, a room-mate. Perhaps a temporary friend. I live within these.
And then I complain about limits.

Of course I am other things too, here. I am a daughter who has gone away to study. An inaccessible friend. A distant relative.

A lover of city roads at night.

A page-maker. A website-design-hater. A reluctant reporter.

A body. A critic. A new lover of French films. A guilt-stricken consumer. A spectator.

But these are not roles. I don't adopt them, or become them. These are not poses either.

Sometimes I think a vision of oneself is necessary. Sometimes I think a vision of oneself is most debilitating.

But this is not what I started to say. This is not about oneself. This is about one in relation to another. It's about you and me.

With you I don't want to play roles. I don't want to construct a me for you and hope that you will believe it, or pretend to believe it. With you I want no patterns, no precedents, no diplomacy. With you I only want moments without expectation and without disappointment. Without subterfuge, without judgement, without fear.

With you I want no reason for defence or denial. With you I want to search ruthlessly. With you I want no stakes and no comfort but those of the moment.

How shall we do this? How shall we discard role-play when it's the way we've been taught to negotiate life, all our lives? How do we learn not to feed on visions of ourselves, of each other? How do we learn not to give in to these visions? How will I find the courage to seek what I truly want?

This is me trying to be free.

I can only be free if you let me.