Day: March 17, 2014

I happened across a YouTube video of Bob Dylan giving one of his rare and uncomfortable interviews, the reporter asked him if it was true that he often lied to journalists about his life. He said it was true. Why did you lie, asked the reporter? Because, Dylan answered, the world kept taking his identity away from him, they kept telling him who he was, and so to protect his identity, and to keep it for himself, he often lied about what he believed and who he was.

He was the only one, he said, who got to say who he was.

I understood this answer, I am not fractionally as famous as Bob Dylan, I am not famous at all, but I believe very strongly in the importance of identity, and I often feel the need to withstand the many identity challenges of our modern culture, where people are always eager to affix labels on others, and tell them who they are and how they are.

Social media advances the idea that we are all connected by computer software. Corporations make their decisions about us through software.  Here, in my world, people tell me every day who I am or how I am – I am a liberal, I am a conservative, I am happy, I am sad, I am against this or for that. My friends who are women tell me so many stories about struggling for their identities against authoritarian fathers and controlling husbands. Maria’s art is centered around identity, and her lifelong struggle to define and liberate her own.

I think all of us struggle with identity, it is always challenging to be an individual, to define yourself. I consider the definition of identity to be the condition of being oneself. My identity is precious to me, I do not let other people define me or label me or tell me how I am or who I am. You cannot, in fact, really know a person only through software, it is not the same as looking someone in the eye, listening to them talk, feeling the chemistry that passes from one soul to another.

But I have learned a lot about identity for me. It is about being authentic. It is about being human. It is about believing that I belong in the world, I am entitled to be here. No one gets to tell me who I am, I get to say who I am. My identity is not a fight with the external world, it is not an argument, it is not something others can ever define for me. People who put labels on me or tell me who I am are soul-stealers. We do not need the approval of others to be ourselves, it is not something I have to ask for or explain or defend.

Identity is precious, hard-won, easily lost or surrendered.  It is a quilt, a tapestry,  born out of joy and sadness, mystery and crisis, success and failure, dreams and experience, fear and accomplishment.

Identity is my soul, the condition of being myself.

Like me, our three hens have decided it is Spring. They’ve been holed up in the roost for nearly two months, and they have had enough. I’ve put away my winter coat, gloves and wool cap, I’ve just decided it is Spring, even though was zero when I got up this morning. People in town thought I was nuts, but I point out there is a mental element to all of this, I’ve just had it with winter, and appreciate the support from the hens.

I was thinking today that I don’t miss Strut the rooster. After he attacked Maria last year, I shot him and I know some people were upset by that, but he deserved it and I don’t think the hens miss him much either, he was always terrorizing them. There is already much too much testosterone in the world.

If I were asked what the heart of my town of Cambridge, New York is, I would say it is right where Red is obediently sitting – he is a trained photo dog, I just point to the spot and say “photoshoot” and Red hops up and goes into his action pose, this dog loves the camera and understands his photographer pal. Hubbard Hall is the very old restored opera house which is now an arts and theater and community center (where I teach my short story class and have often done readings).

Right across the alley is the other center of the town, the Round House Cafe, and also the only graffiti I have ever seen in my town or my county, in the alley between the two. I wonder how many country towns of 2,000 people put on classy performances of Shakespeare that sell out. I must confess I have never quite gotten into Shakespeare, I know he is a genius, but I am going to see King Lear. We subscribe to Hubbard Hall. I am always trying to capture the heart of the town.