The Freedom of the Water

Sometimes we want freedom of choice. Sometimes we want freedom from choice. It seems to be that as the Wheel of Fortune spins we want what is on the other side coming down. Sometimes we get dizzy from all the spinning as it all slides out of our conscious control.

I am aware of anniversaries. To a codependent person, anniversaries are dangerous shadowed time, when the past encroaches upon the future, propelling us out of the now and into thoughts and patterns that seem more real than reality. I am thinking of April Fool's Day 2003, when I left my first husband.

I am also remembering another leave-taking, or a day just before it happened. My sister, who had been an integral part of my separation, taking me me into her home while I prepared for my divorce, was moving away from New England and beginning the precarious journey to the West Coast to join her husband in Oregon. She had stayed behind for our family's annual reunion at our aunt's house in Vermont that was nestled beside a beautiful man-made pond. There were kayaks and paddle-boats and other small watercraft bobbing in the water.

My niece and nephews had no qualms taking off onto the pond by themselves. I wanted to enjoy the gorgeous July day but I had no experience at all with kayaks. Having capsized the Sunfish with my ex-husband, I was leery of small boats and certain I would end up unintentionally in the drink. There was a two-person kayak. My sister took her youngest son out for a spin, then came back for me. She was the veteran adventurer of the family, battling with rubber bumpers to protect our drifting sailboat from crashing into other boats at the same time that I was dreamily scribbling poetic descriptions of the New York skyline into my travelogue. So of course I felt safe with her.

How lovely it was to see the sunlight sparkle on the water on that long summer day. We rowed together, speaking some but mostly secure in companionable silence, gazing at the tall water reeds, watching the childrens' good-natured rough-housing, drowsing in the heat. I knew she was going away, that she would no longer be just 20 minutes over country roads whenever I needed her. That day was tinged with sadness, especially when after a few revolutions she spun us back up to the dock and got out of the kayak.

She took off her lifejacket and tossed me the oar.

"Now you have the freedom of the water," she said. I sat there with a sinking feeling in my gut. How could I go out by myself? I've never done this before in my life, not by myself. But her confidence somehow outshone my confusion. I shoved back out onto the pond. I went out by myself for another hour. I enjoyed paddling at my own pace. I let myself be lulled by the meditative stillness of circling the known perimeter of the pond. I left my anxiety back on the land and lost myself in the tranquility of the water.

Now I have the freedom of the water. I am pondering what that freedom means. I am trying to find the tenuous tranquility that I knew on that gorgeous bittersweet day.

Freedom is not something encouraged in little girls or the women they grow up to be. At least not in our culture. How delighted and surprised I was when a friend showed me this video about the women of the Mosuo , an obscure matrilineal ethnic group in rural China that gives adolescent girls unprecedented freedom in choosing their own sexual and romantic partners. Unlike in traditional Chinese families, where girl children are considered a burden until they are married off, these girls are raised in tribe-like families of women and uncles with very little emphasis on fathers. To a Westerner's eye they seem to get the best of both worlds-song and dance and romance on a Saturday night and a place at a big family table. In a way they are living in a similar way to some single mothers I know who have social lives on an every-other-weekend basis, when the fathers take over the parental responsibilities and the women let themselves live semi-single lives.

Yet the children of the Mosuo do not lack anything with this absence of fathers. They are doted on by their uncles and raised by their mothers family. They don't sacrifice freedom for security in traditional marriages. Their confidence reminds me of my own college days when in addition to study we could experiment with ourselves and our identities. Far away from parental influence, we could exist in this limited time-span where the joys and responsibilities of personal choice could be taken for granted. From this place of confidence we could choose careers, choose life partners, choose to have or not have children.

Of course in the Mosuo culture it is all about the children. The Mosuo women are not Britney Spears-- they are hard-working economic providers. Our own culture does not have such a built-in-support system for mothers. In tight nuclear units we are supposed to somehow face all these pressures single-handed, as well as hold down an equal-paying job. Is it any wonder I opted out the joys and challenges of motherhood for myself? But for the unmarried woman, especially as she ages, what hope does she have of finding love and connection of a less temporary nature than choice-and-emotion-driven romance? If men are biologically driven to abandon the known for the new and shiny, is freedom for women just another word for nothing left to lose? Or is true love not found in the pair-bond but in the larger community?

As I was pondering those questions while considering getting married for the second time, I became obsessed with a certain fictional matriarchal TV community found on "The L Word" . While certainly the drama was campy and the sex scenes over-the-top, there was something wonderfully rewarding about the sense of friendship and community the women shared with each other, love that transcended romance, but was more about lasting commitment to each other's growth. Before this fictional representation of fem-powered tribe there was "Sex In The City" , a fun 90's exploratory romp through the locker-room talk of gal pals whose glamourous surface hid an underbelly of existential angst: If the ultimate quest was to find the "One", as the notches on the belt and the candles on the birthday cake added up, these "girls" had a Sisyphean task ahead of them as the brass ring of married happiness got farther and farther away. Watching them became painful more than joyful--no wonder I rallied to the you-go-sister spirit of the L Word where they would faced real issues like breast cancer and military discrimination, where they fought for human rights not the perfect pair of shoes.

So now I find myself wanting to dig deeper, use my passion and my freedom not just to acquire an endless string of romantic partners or personal ego satisfaction but to support causes like The 99% Spring and dare to see community as something bigger than tribe, something more than a few voices raised in prayer or song in churches or yoga studios, something like the movements of Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi... nonviolent direct action creating community and expanding freedom to something more than just the individual pursuit of happiness or security through material acquisition. I missed the protests of the 60's and this is my chance to be part of something bigger. Having been given the gift of choice, I will advocate for the choices of others. Having decided against biological motherhood I will bring forth the nurturing warrior energy I found in the internal sacred space of the Red Tent Temple and give something back of my self that will transcend myself.

I have found the freedom of the water, looking out at the hard-working harbor, not as a tourist at the edge of a pleasure lake at the other side of the world. And I will not relinquish it any time soon.