Who am I, who are you?

To quote The Who, Who are you?

Do we know ourselves through some magic mirror we have placed inside the cave of our conscious mind, a magic all knowing mirror which allows us to see the breadth and width of a human soul, color coded and expounded in easy to follow directions, or are we merely nothing more fantastic than a sentient being which is constantly changing and in some part a reflection of the time and places in which we live?

I do not believe we can ever truly know ourselves, at least not in our entirety. Who I am now is not who I was a year ago, nor ten years ago, who I am today will not be the same person I will be in a month or a year from now. One could argue that who we are can be summed up by our likes, dislikes, passions and memories. Others could say that we define a man by his actions, deeds and words. In fact several schools of philosophical thought have been created upon this very divergent path to identify the self, and yet here I am asked to define the whole of my individuality in two hundred and fifty words or less.

To put it simply, I am too private and too stubborn a being to submit so easily or with much good grace who I am, or less importantly who I think I am.

My name is Kristie, which people always spell wrong, or decide to shorten to Kris, which I hate, or call me by other variants of the same name such as Kristina, Krystal, Kirstie and so forth. This has been a constant source of irritation pretty much from the start, so I decided to simply ask people to call me K. It’s easy to remember and easier to spell, and most importantly it also won't leave me feeling insulted if you mess it up, only highly amused.

I define myself through music on most days, I am a musician, poet and artist, and music defines my mood while art defines my outlook for the day ahead or the moment captured in time. These are really the best tools that I can give you when tasked to “Introduce myself”. Music, poetry and art are neither verbose, nor truly florid, you take from them what you will, your perception and interpretations are your own and can only be defined by you.

We judge everything every day of our lives, how I prefer to define myself, as you can see, in text could be seen as avoidance to a simple question, rather than supplying a set of tools to perceive the persona that is me.

So let us begin my introduction, I will give you following three different examples of who I am today and this moment in time. They may not be my life story but they will do for now.

The Who ; “Who are you”

http://youtu.be/PdLIerfXuZ4

“I staggered back to the underground

And the breeze blew back my hair

I remember throwin' punches around

And preachin' from my chair”

I love the wind, storms especially, late October or November is the best time for windstorms and I enjoy them best when walking out in the stinging rain, hair whipping around my face watching the world come alive around me, pushed to and fro by the only proven invisible force. That is when I feel most alive. I have been through Hurricanes, Tornados and lost it all in a flood and yet still I find myself facing the wind and breathing in the only thing which could humble the juggernaut that is mankind. Mother nature, knowing that the old words are true “Man belongs to the earth, earth does not belong to man.”

I am opinionated and enjoy nothing more than a good old fashioned debate, to be challenged, to have my mind swayed and expanded by the perception of others or through experience itself. However I am not a passive participant and as someone who self identifies as “insatiably curious” please feel free to expect from me constant questions and frequent thought exercises, simply for no other purpose than the fun of it.

The Marlon Brando smirk.

Another important part of “Who I am” is how I react to things. I generally, as first described above, am a private person. I do not speak very often in person, I am an active listener and tend to very deep reflection, which, coincidentally doesn’t always lend itself to being the most outwardly socially available person in the world. however one of my few saving graces is I find a lot of things funny. My reaction to most things in life is either with a smirk or a scowl. In my own opinion there is so much in this world to cry about it is much better to laugh.

I am extremely sarcastic and also tend to have the inherited “celtic” dark sense of humor from my primarily Scottish family. I oftentimes find amusement in the ridiculous and the hypocritical examples in this world only to later find myself lost to contemplating the more serious ramifications of my observations.

Lastly a poem;

“Glory cracked like a flea.

The sun-leaved holy candlewoods

Drivelled down to one singeing tree

With a stub of black buds,”

From A Saint about to fall By Dylan Thomas

I am a firm example and advocate for reinvention. Only through utter annihilation of all my preconceived notions, no matter how habitual or dogmatic my understanding of the world and my own role within it, i know inevitably it all must change. If this life has taught me anything is that you must change or life and circumstance will change everything for you. A burnt field produces better crops once it has been tilled and sown than a field that is always planted with the same seeds.

I am inspired most by those whom transform themselves in a similar way. Those whom have lost it all and have been reminded that we are more than just our jobs, our cars, a piece of paper hung on a wall, we are more than the easily defined and the socially acceptable. We are an enduring spirit, much more than a single star in a black void, what we are is infact endless opportunity existing in timeless space teeming with life and expansion. I am, who are you?

As for my reaction to Mimi’s aria as performed by Teresa Stratas from Puccini’s La Boheme, I found her performance a little...unbelievable and contrived. She delivers the lines with a sugar coated over enthusiasm I find lacking in sincerity and diminishing the true depth of the character in light of the suffering the character faces. I prefer the Maria Callas performance of the same aria. Both the tone and the vocal stylings of Marias voice gives a world weariness, a life described to us in the somber colors of Mimi’s experience whilst also giving the listener a feel for the “end of the day” hope that she still carries with her. That springtime of which she so adamantly clings in the face of her daily hardships.