I need to write more about identity. In my own mind I circle around this topic constantly. Does everyone?

There is a corner of my self that is a tuba. She plays my baseline. It goes something like: you (pause) need – a – la (pause) bel – oh – you (pause) need – a – la (pause) bel. And this goes on and on with very few breaks. It’s that driving need to be able to say to people what I “do”, or what I “am”, and have them instantly know what I’m talking about and, at least to some extent, respect it. Having a label (“writer”, “artist”, “teacher”) feels safe to me, and like I’ve automatically earned at least a B+ at life if one fits. And “mom” is not a label that’s ever counted, for some reason.

But there’s more to me than that tuba.

In me there is a vast section of drums. Some are of the type you’d find in fancy stores, but many are the kind you’d find only in villages so remote they aren’t mapped. These are drums that make me feel alive, or Alive, rather, which is to say free. Mostly their sounds are unworded. They pull me from small living, though – small meaning living that’s constrained and afraid of not measuring up or of looking stupid. When I hear them, they work magic on my feet, and before I know it I’m dancing and laughing and exploring all kinds of things with abandon – ideas, fears, interests, relationships, my own soul. When I’m dancing to these drums, it doesn’t occur to me to wonder whether I fit inside a label. Labels don’t matter – for me or anyone else – and it feels as if everyone and everything pulses with beauty and color and pathos, and I want to make love to it all. Or just dance.

Across the room from that whole section is a sad violin. The only song she’s learned so far is about how I’ll never be the person I wish I could be, and I’ll never be able to even define the person I wish I could be, so everything related to establishing value and identity is a lost cause anyway. I haven’t had the right life experiences, she sings, and my body type is all wrong, and I can never freely dance with those tribal drums because even if I wanted to, family and friends from throughout my life will always have me pegged as something totally not free, and their words and assumptions and body language will always create the invisible box that for all intents and purposes is the real, impenetrable one I’ll always live inside. Oh, her song is sad!

But there is a piano, too. And she can harmonize with that violin, a kind of empathetic tune, while not being overpowered by it. She plays all kinds of music. All kinds. She knows that an instrument – particularly one like she – is not constrained to one song, and is actually capable of more range and diversity than most people ever imagine. She can spend entire years learning classical music without fearing that’s all she’ll ever play. She knows she’ll play the blues because she’s always itched to do so, and that “tinkering” is where some of the most redemptive, transformative sounds are born. She can be elegant and refined and course and off-color and the sheer weight of her commands the whole symphony’s respect.

And I love her. I love my inner piano. She is easy to love and I feel safe with her, and like nothing is ever a lost cause or too late. With her I feel like nothing of my life has been wasted, and nothing ever will be.

I am a mom right now, yes, and for many years I have clung for dear life to my writer label. But I want to let go. I have no reason to doubt that I will write much, much more in my life. But who knows what else I’ll do? Who else I’ll be? I want to let my piano play what she wants for a while, and maybe put some new music before my tuba. It would sound nothing like the tired line she’s played forever, and everything like “celebrate life, silly!” And damned if that tuba won’t sigh, itself, with deep relief.

I think identity is a lot more like a crowd of musicians than the static, one-dimensional thing I’ve long assumed it to be.