Saucers

One

So while the housemates whittle on in my ear I sit down here and think about fulfilling my obligation, although brain has been destroyed and thoughts fail to forthcome. I am not who I once was, nor who I want to be; I don't know who I am. Somewhere in this world is a place to fit but I don't know where it is. This week I did bugger all; the rain has returned; it creates a Seattle-like cocoon of dread upon my house, my head – if that means anything at all…

Two

The secret to using a microphone is to not sing to it, but through it. I discovered this about half-way through my first song on Wednesday, and then I thoroughly enjoyed it. The audience were shite – can you believe they didn't listen intently to my every word and nod and smile and cry and think in all the right places??? – but I didn't seem to care, it gives you a certain freedom to do whatever you feel. My dad was there and that was perhaps some important step, because of the way he'd traumatised my singing when I was young, but it didn't really feel like that. I felt normal; I generally do. The whole time though he was bigging himself up the way he does – man, he must be really insecure – but by the end of it, after he was telling me how much better than me he was for the forty-forth time (and, don't get me wrong, it's just water off a duck's back, 'cos I know how he is) I just said, "yeah, but I write better words than you," and there was nothing he could say to that. You have to give him some credit; for all his bluster he is quite good at taking things at times.

Three

I never know what I'm going to write – well, sometimes I do – and tonight I thought I had maybe half a sentence, at best. I rarely even feel like it until I get going – but by the second paragraph I've generally got a taste for it. I don't know what comes next, though – although I did know I was going to type that before I did, because I said it to myself in my head first (just as I said that). I thinks before I speaks, you see. Not everybody does that.

Four

I've been applying for jobs down South; I've been a bit disappointed with Yorkshire, and with my chums here. I feel like I was a stranger and nobody made much of an effort, even though I made a bit (and, to be fair, some people made a bit also). But, on the whole, it's been pants. I think I need something different (always allowing for the possibility of a sudden, exciting change). So I've applied for Oxfam jobs in Glastonbury, Bath, Oxford and Totnes. Also, I sometimes feel that London is calling me; London scares me though. Times I've been there and hated it with tear-eyed madnesses. Times it was all I could do to get away. And sometimes it feels like…oh yeah, this is quite nice. London calling? We'll see. I'm going there next weekend, to see Mother Meera…

Five

I feel like reviewing my life; I don't know where to start; the beginning would be good, I suppose…

Six

So I was born in Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, in January 1976, the son of a seventeen year-old Lincolnshire girl and a twenty-four year-old guitarist/electrician – and also of a twenty-two year-old motorbiker/stockcar racer/scrap merchant who it turned out was my actual biological provider, though I didn't learn of him till I was 11, and didn't get around to meeting him till I was 25. In any case, my parents divorced when I was six and my younger brother and I grew up kind of poor in council houses in South Elmsall and I guess I was more or less happy, blessed with a modicum of intelligence and some common sense and humour, and perhaps a slightly different way of thinking. Education ensued, blah blah blah, a bit of work, and then, after being kicked out aged 17, a few years in Leeds, I flew to America aged 20 and I guess that's when life began.

Seven

And then I travelled! And then I grew, and learned, and saw something of the world! I saw nature – I saw fireflies and mountains and rattlesnakes and rivers and canyons and butterflies and big enormous trees and holy windin' roads. I lived in New York, and slept on roofs, and worked jobs, and went back and forth between penniless and alone and moneyed and befriended several times. I lived in Charlottesville, San Diego, Colorado, Tombstone. I bought cars and drove cross-country. I pushed the hedonistic lifestyle to my extreme – and then I hit rock bottom, in terms of everything (ie, money, work, friendship, mental/emotional health, hope, happiness, security, future, etc) and that sent me into the world of hitch-hiking. From there, over tens of thousands of miles, backwards and forwards across America and through Mexico, I discovered something wonderful in life, a perfection, and myself. I saw beauty unimaginable, in nature and in people, and witnessed miracles of provision, found a trust, a magic, an 'always being taken care of'. It was incredible. It was the best thing I ever did. Losing two thousand dollars in an envelope was what forced me into it; talk about a blessing in disguise! Eventually I found something else: a happiness; a higher purpose; a God. And love.

Eight

Between January 1st 1999 and sometime in the summer of 2002 I lived a pretty intensely spiritual life. During my time in Mexico and the west of America I had met some fairly enlightened souls, and some genuine spiritual teachers, and had my mind blown over and over again. I learned the truth of what it means to say "the universe provides"; I had a few mystical experiences; I discovered I had the gift of healing hands, got into Tai-chi, and yoga, and meditation. I did vision quests (one of 6 days, one of twenty eight) and lived like a sadhu, wondering penniless from coast to coast seeking the next enlightenment, the next high, drifting with a purpose to wherever my heart, my intuition, the signs would take me. I got higher and higher, went deeper and deeper into the mystery and the magic, till I saw God everywhere, in everything, and not seeing It became almost as impossible as seeing It would have been to my previous, atheistic self. I lived in this bubble of grace, so high that nothing could bring me down, spaced out on bliss, without a care in the world for food or money or shelter or the morrow. It was the most amazing time of my life – amazing, but mad. Eventually I came down – I was brought down – after a fairly disastrous and traumatising relationship in Paris. I came home, floated around for a bit, and then I went to university.

Nine

I remember that day distinctly, walking down the High Street in Canterbury just after my interview, after they had accepted me, and suddenly, for the first time in years, I didn't feel absolutely and totally different from everyone around me – I wasn't a visitor, passing through, I was one of them. I think I quite liked that: it was refreshing, relaxing; it made a change. I slotted in – kind of – and struggled through university (not in the work) fighting my desires to be out there, my needs to always be moving, my difficulties with staying in one place for more than three days, three weeks, three months. I overcame that and then I overcame my avoidance of others, of conflict, of going beyond the short and sweet travellers' relationships by living in a big house full of noisy students and actually indulging in arguments and ups and downs and the joys and challenges of communal living. I got into a relationship, and I discovered something about writing. I had a short story published. I switched my degree. I graduated with a 2:1 in English and American Literature and Creative Writing last June, aged 30. I then worked as a teacher for a bit, but quit. It wasn't for me – it wasn't where I wanted to be in ten, twenty, thirty years' time. I left Canterbury; I moved home. This is where I am now.

Ten

There are certain things in life we can think of as the cornerstones – but I'm not sure I can remember what they are. Money would be one – and perhaps sex/love/our relationships with others. Work, too – that's one of them, for sure – and then our relationship with God/our emotions/our minds/ourselves. I'm not sure what else there would be…perhaps home, perhaps entertainment, hobbies, distractions and interests, etc. Expression, creativity, and family – you know, things that you need, things that are eternal, across all cultures and eras – not like shopping, or getting drunk, or doing your hair in a certain style, those things aren't eternal – and then, I guess, neither is money, 'cos that's just a representation of time, of work, used to trade for other things – so I guess we can scratch that one and stick with work. But anyway, you know what I mean. Work, love, home, expression, higher power, mental/emotional well-being/growth – the basics…

Eleven

I lived with my girlfriend for about two and a half years, and we were together for about a year and a half before that. It was good, I guess, in that we had lots of fun, plenty of harmony, always having a cuddle before one of us left the house, always having a cuddle when the other one returned from the day at work, long nights and mornings talking, hugging, snuggling and [ahem] in our bed. Jokes and walks and meals and arguments and discoveries and learnings – you know, the usual deal. Maybe not as exciting as Hollywood, as flash in the pan romances – but probably better than we gave ourselves credit for. Open communication is not to be sniffed at. Nor love and understanding. Mother Meera says harmony's the number one thing in a relationship and I'm wont to believe her. In any case, it lasted, and then it ended: unhappiness in our personal lives, a desire for change, a moving in slightly different directions, some misunderstandings and a feeling that perhaps there was something better out there. I moved to Yorkshire, she moved to ****; I started sleeping with an ex-lover, she started going out lots. I thought that maybe ex-lover was the one for me; I realised she wasn't. I feel older now, more sure: even two weeks ago I agonised about how one could choose their partner, how it was ever possible; now I feel I know something more about it. It's the way you feel, I guess, the way you look at them, or can hold them, or want to be with them, beyond sex and lust and the always-there physical attraction. It's thinking, "could I stand in front of the priest and the altar with this person and look them in the eyes and say 'I do'?" It's wondering about the shape of their belly as it grows with your seed inside it and how it would feel to wrap your arms around it and love. If you can do that, then I guess it means something – and if you can't, then I guess it means something as well. But relationships are confusing – maybe the hardest thing of all.

Twelve

Which makes me think, why bother? And I'm not sure I have the answer to that one – especially when I consider all the things I want to do, in travel, in writing, in being wild and financially insecure and freight-train riding and random, job-quitting, plane ticket-buying and just generally free. Can the two combine? Or does a man like me need something that allows that freedom? Why is it the only things that seem to make me happy are so random and ridiculous and maddeningly mad and free? And why, if that's the case, do I live a life that includes so few of them? Because I can't combine them? Because I have to be doing one or the other? Staying put and working the old 9-5 and doing nothing else or ditching it all and hitting the road and roaming penniless and wild climbing trees and hugging strangers and building mad rafts to float down dangerous dirty rivers? Man, those are the things I love – and some people (I'm thinking my new latest heroes: comedians, artists, etc) can do them (or their equivalents) – but me…aagh, now I'm thinking there's something wrong with me, 'cos I'm realising there's nothing holding me back except myself and, perhaps, my own inabilities, blind-spots, lack of upbringing, etc. Oh, and a strange obligation to just stay and work, stick where I am, live a normal life when what I love is elsewhere. Except I have the time to be elsewhere as well, and I just don't do it. Laziness. Lack of inspiration. Boredom with the world, and the people in it. This country, this town – everything but me. Ha! But, but…but the things I want: to write a book; to record my songs; to jump in my car and drive away from it all; to fly to New Zealand; to have no possessions; to climb the mountain in the rain like I did in Montana, in only a checked shirt and jeans and to feel it lashing on my face and the life pulsing through me and to be out there alone in it all knowing there are bears and only that moment and how fantastic it all could be. I should have been an explorer; a drifter; a beatnik; a tramp – anything but what I am now, Mr TV-watching, computer-fixated, bored at work-slash-home, in the shopping-loving society he lives in, always thinking, there's got to be something better than this. And that, I suppose, is expression taken care of…

Thirteen

Oh God! Once I knew you so well, you walked with me everywhere, I saw you all the time, you filled my head, my heart, my days, my experience. You cured the sick through my hands; you provided for me for months on end, in the most wonderful ways, filling me always with joy, in the darkness of our meditations, in the thrill and ecstasies of our encounters with nature; in the ever-new adventure of what-lay-around-the-corner, always some new surprise, some new height to take me to, some washing away of all that I had thought I had known and to replace it with something even better – and where are you now? I know, I know, you're hardly gonna come knocking when I make such little effort – but truth is, God, I don't know where to start – beyond giving away everything I have and casting myself loose once more into the world. How can I combine it with work and living and girlfriend and maybe even children one day? I just don't see how I can. But I miss you, oh Lord, I really do. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and that's what makes it even more painful, because now everything I try to bring me that joy just pales in comparison, can only provide it for a fraction of time and then it's gone, replaced by dissatisfaction, a pining for you. But I pine, and I cry, and I say my prayers, and I chant, and I find you nowhere no more – 'cept sometimes, in that tingling, in those little miracles of healing that you do, in the provision, and in the light; okay, yeah, sometimes – but not enough, oh Lord, not enough. Nothing compares – and that makes me want to weep. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? And how can I put it right? Why do I work (because Mother Meera 'told' me to) when perhaps I would be better served out there, living the life, learning and growing and being wild and free and in love, with You? Or are you going to rescue me and make it all worthwhile, make it all make sense? I live in hope. I want you back. I want to bathe in that light and next time I want to make more of it, so that it will never leave me. It's the best thing, it really is – better than any drug or football team or cup of tea or sex – I swear, It is.

Fourteen

Money. Ha! Money's funny. I was happiest when I didn't have any; now I've about four grand in the bank (and another one and a half in my car) and it doesn't mean a thing. When I was penniless I flew all around the world, and never wanted for nothing, and had the most incredible experiences; now I've money, I fly nowhere, and want for plenty, what a bitter irony! I mean, not that I'm complaining, but – oh, the happiness of sleeping under my found grey blanket in that cold November Paris doorway, a genuine smile of joy as I shivered the night through with barely a penny in my pocket! The trips across America and to Europe and Mexico bought for me when a wandering moneyless sadhu, provided for always and in possession of everything I needed, which was next to nothing. Oh, it makes me sad to think of it! Oh, I'm a man lost and harking back to the past! Oh, I just bloody can't help it! I wanted to do this life review to help move me on somewhat – but I always get back to the same thing: missing my carefree wandering life when I had not the burden of possessions and responsibilities and jobs and just wanting God, and light, and magic, and realisation and – is it just the thought of being old and still penniless and wandering that stops me? Or is it something else? A shame, the dirt, the being outcast, the being different? Oh, how I'd long to be different – and to truly not care!

Fifteen

I'd have to scroll up to see what else there was; I'm slightly mad sometimes; it's twenty to four and my mouth's all coated in cough candy twists and Ziggy and Brian are still going on, man, those guys never sleep! Well I don't feel better after writing all that; it's so abstract again, as usual; I don't take very good care of myself these days; I don't give myself time to think; I think I'm destroying my brain. Isn't that where we started? Can you really bare to read this? Doesn't it just make you feel as mad as I must be? (No, I know I'm not really mad, that I just use that word 'cos I like it, but, relatively speaking, I'm in a pretty good space, mental/emotional-wise). But – don't you just wish I'd write normally and actually stick to the "this is what I did" kind of stuff? Something you could pin your hat on, you saucy old fox of a horse, you! I've got arms like an old Staffordshire pony, all floppy and gray like a saucer of donkey's little germaline. It makes me think and smile a little when I go like this; it gives me giggles and props to squirt juicy little melons in your general direction and paste a couple of drawings here what I did earlier in a telegraph pole/face soup manner, if you know what I mean. Nonsense is making me smile now; you can't take the man out of flan – but you can take a plane to Japan. Mick's mog make's Maggy's moo mink mack muck. I like cheese; it's a grottie's favourite barnacle. Goodnigh-eeeet!