Sunday, February 14, 2010

In the Tower of Song

"When they said repent, I wondered what they meant."

"I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and religion, but cheerfulness kept breaking through."

Leonard Cohen



So here I am in Port Douglas, with LK, Robert and Jaki all cashing in their wide-awake chips before I was ready to snooze. I am just a little too buzzed to get sleepy - although when I do, I think I will fall so hard, they may find me snoring on the kitchen counter with the laptop going crazy because I am drooling on the keyboard.

The simple - no, the complicated - fact is that tonight is the night LK and I celebrate our breakthrough. We are not working, and we don't have bosses. We have shut our house down, and all that goes with that has passed with the last box that moved out of the house.

We are, in fact, free. It is the result I have spent 61 years of my life trying to accomplish.

When I say free I don't mean that freedom is a negative - it is not that we do not have to do this or that, pay attention to this or that, suck up to this or that person. No, I can tell you from my gut tonight that freedom is a positive - I can do what I want, can not do what I don't want, can be with the people I want and can spend my time caring about the people I care about.

Funny thing, this getting old. For maybe thirty or forty years, I've felt like I used to have a great, soaring spirit that got buried, maybe even killed, when I was young. Tonight, I feel like I only put it into the cupboard until I could use it properly and it's time to take it out. Pity it doesn't fit around the waist any more!

Who knows? Maybe it's just a combination of getting through the dramas of clearing out the house. Or maybe listening to the best album since Sgt Peppers - Leonard Cohen's "Live from London." But tonight, with my love and my friends all sleeping and Leonard singing his 70-year-old heart out, I just feel like this is the beginning I have been waiting decades for.

And I thought I would share it with all of you who take the time to look at this blog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Calling Linda your love touched my heart. I love you guys!!