Strings of Freedom

For days I have been trying to give a value to the word freedom. What does it mean? Who is free? A barefoot child? A bird? The citizens of a democratic country? Am I free?

I see the barefoot child flourish in the muddy streaks by the river. He steps into the morning like a soldier of fortune. And when his toe gets a nip from an angry fish underfoot, he runs quickly into the arms of his mother. He is, his little mind is..... yes......free as a bird. Unless, well, unless he is a child living in a refugee camp and his mind and body are consumed by hunger. I suppose the same goes for the free citizen. Hunger attaches itself to a person like the curse of an evil witch, perpetuating constraints on body and mind. Illness, pain, fear can be restricting too, though the mind has more choices when confronted with their outbursts of confining thought. "Strings attached" comes to mind when thinking of illness. Mental strings.

The strings I was dangling from last year, my year of cancer treatments, twisted themselves into a safety net and carried me through chemo and radiation and fear.
Hanging from frayed strings of imagination I sometimes allowed the wind to blow me into the inferno of nightmares, but more often than not I took an upswing on the summer's wild thermal waves and lifted myself into the realm of lavender scented clouds and illusionary images of fairies and mermaids.

Mariela Sinti is the outcome of such an upswing. Imagining her happy voice echoing from the distant mountains and her graceful steps crossing the darkness of a forest became an exercise in survival for me. I never got very far before I came crashing down, before sleep took me away, or before drugs blocked my imagination. Her growth was stunted by my illness, but she survived. And now it is time to continue her journey.


This is the concrete phase of Mariela Sinti's maturation. She needs to be moved. She needs a background. A theatre. I have been obsessed with thoughts of freedom in recent days. Am I the one who needs the marionette to stay healthy? Does my progress make me dependent on her? So, who is free and who is not? Does lifting the wooden doll off her stand and walking her across the floor make me the manipulator? Or do her imploring eyes, begging me to continue the exercise in puppetry, make her the manipulator?

Stepping up my game. I drew up a plan for the stage. Using PVC pipe might be the way to go. My theatre space is limited and any kind of display will have to be disassembled after use, so a system of fitted pipe pieces might just be the thing. Pipe Connector pieces will hold the scaffolding together and cotton material will make up the curtains and side coverings. I am working on the background scenery, trying out several large photographs. One of them will become poster size to fit the theatre.




On the emotional front I have decided, actually it wasn't even a decision; it just came to me as I was writing, that it makes little difference who pulls the strings, they will amount to strings of freedom one way or the other. Mariela and I free each other.