outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- dye your hair blue There's this moment, this tiny moment, that I can't get out of my head. It was the summer of 2003, after my first semester of grad school. I had driven across the state "all by myself" (I'd been driving regularly for only six months) to a workshop in Flagstaff on cultural astronomy, where I didn't know anyone. I had become a prize to my research advisor because I'd taken an interest in American Indian astronomy, where no one before had wanted to touch it - no idea why. I came back from the reservation where I'd struck up a relationship with a group of outdoor and indigenous educators (still some of my favorite people in the world) with a new-found commitment to the field, and a month later I was sent to this workshop to shmooze with whomever it was my advisor was hoping to impress. In any case, I was there, a fledgling scholar, the youngest one in attendance by far. What the presenter was talking about I can no longer remember, but oddly enough I still remember what I was wearing - a simple but pretty frilled white shirt I'd bought as a bathing suit cover-up for the cruise I'd taken a couple years before. I remember it because of how I felt in it, pretty and light and young, and because of what was said. The presenter was making a point, maybe about the choices people make in their lives - but how would that relate to cultural astronomy? - I can't remember, but what he gestured to me and said "...Jessie could become an artist, dye her hair blue and be free." Everyone laughed softly; I remember someone being especially tickled by "...and be free," which he repeated from behind me. I think I had my feet up on a seat, and I felt relaxed, and I smiled. I'm at the end of my graduate career now, and it's time to make some choices about what I'm going to do. I always thought this moment was funny...dye my hair blue and be free. What does that even mean, to be free? Am I free now? If I wasn't free, would I feel it? If I'm free now, will I stay free? How do I maintain my freedom - if it's even something I value? These questions would be a lot easier to answer if I was even sure what freedom was. 4:42 p.m. - 2010-09-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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