5 strings and a bag of oats

This is a story of my very own, self-proclaimed moment of true ecstasy. Cool huh?

I'll tell you time and again it was in 2000. After a whirl-wind three months backpacking around NZ with nothing to my name except a five-stringed guitar and a bag of oats, dates and pumpkin seeds, I arrived in Sydney off an 8 hour bus-ride.

All too soon, my clad-in-rainbow-fairy-skirt self knew all too well I had barely enough to get from the bus station to the city. But with my remaining coinage and a gasp of hope I made it to the big smoke. Sydney Town. Sydney. The biggest city I'd seen in many a month. So, there I was. Dressed like a Byron Bay feral with a half-shaved head and from my nose septum hanging a bulbous silver bull-ring, I carried my freshly 21 years into the busy CBD streets and the morning peak-hour crawl. Checking my pockets I had all but 20 cents to my name. Not enough in my account to withdraw, even if I bothered to go inside. Not even enough for a phone call... 

It hit me. Like a wave of silence, it hit me: "I have no where to go. Nowhere to be. No one is expecting me, or anything of me. I have nothing to buy and nothing to choose. I have nothing to do, but sit. And wait."

So I did.

I sat. I watched the morning CBD busy-ness of business. I watched the sly glances and the hurried steps. I watched the frantic phonecalls and the thrumbing thumbing text messages. And through the barrage of suits and blouses I watched. I watched a man dive a grubby hand into a rubbish bin and examine the contents for usefulness or a couple of calories. I watched a vacant-eyed woman feed the crumbs of her crumpled bag to any pigeons who seemed to care. I sat. I watched, and I waited.

Then I got thirsty.

So I walked. I walked around those busy streets, noticing the people who curved their bodies as to not touch mine. As if I was an infection. I watched my grubby, sandled feet pave those steps around the perfect concrete slabs until, I found a simple water fountain - old and cold. This forgotten friend of Sydney and I became acquainted as I drank from her and wondered how long she had been there; if she had been placed there just for me. In this moment. Now.

The hours passed. Nothing to choose. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. I had never been more free. I sat, mind vacant. Nothing to choose, nowhere to be. Nothing to be. Nowhere to choose. The silence seemed to open me. Like a moment of pure detachment, pure freedom, pure bliss. Nothing to do, nothing to buy. Nowhere to be, nowhere to go. I was forced, like a willing slave, to simply sit and BE STILL.

I had never been more free, nor have I been as free since.

***

12 years later I find myself losing sleep over choosing what kind of sink this 'we' are going to buy. I find myself in a nightmare - a giant cascading waterfall of choices which I feel threatens to drown me, to flood my insides and squish my 21 year old self under a barrage of glossy magazines and junk mail.

How did we get this way? As a species I mean? How did I get this way? Well... that's another story.