am I free?

I often wonder: Am I free?  I don't know exactly what that means.  But for me its something like do I feel free?  Do I feel like I live where I want to? Do I do what I want?  Think what need to think?

And even down inside I want to know what does free mean?  Why do I often feel chained, strangled, unable to say what I need to say, unable to express what I feel welled up inside me?  Am I simply a recalcitrant?  Not even able to stand the authority of my own inarticulate self?

And I wonder did I forget how to say things, how to think things, how to look at things?  Did this happen back in kindergarten when I painted my first painting that wonderful blue piece I did then?  

Did I forget what I was doing?  Forever?

Why do I do the work I do? What can these things say to me?  How do I know when they are done?  I stare and stare at them and I think, speak to me please,  tell me why you exist how did I form you? or even how did I find you?

It is totally ridiculous. Don't cha think?  Why does anything get found or painted or shaped or even expressed?  Why in heaven's name does a book get written?  Who does that writing?  What are they saying?  What can an artist be thinking?  What happens?

And I wonder sometimes, how many of them disappear? These artists.  Go unnoticed unwanted unneeded?  Probably millions and millions of them.  My father used to paint these extraordinary things,  sometimes the bleakest work, or a beautiful joyous watercolor, not many, but enough to establish a broad range.  Then he stopped.  He would do something else, like collect stamps.   I'd like to do that.

But I only like them on envelopes with a letter inside.  I found one once from a woman in Paris writing to her children in England.  It seemed so touching.  She claimed she would be home soon.  

It was in a beautiful handwriting...but something in it rang false...a strange phrase maybe, a wandering when she should be saying when she would come home.  I felt a sadness.  I thought, she is not coming back.  Ever.