Well it's Sunday night and I'm here for the Sunday write, getting back on track, back in my rendezvous and routine; I feel quite emotional – perhaps a little weepy, a little raw – but that's in a good way, in the way that I like to feel, like to cry; it's been a good week, spanning London and Leeds, bicycle adventures and bicycle mishaps (I had my wheels stolen in the early hours of this morning), friends and homelessnesses, and abject gloom as well as totally inexplicable happiness and joy. I've also socialised quite a bit, and that seems to have taught me this and that (always learning more around people, it seems, than sitting on my own – as though that should be a surprise!) Anyway…
I began in London, with wicked and inspirational, super-social Countdown chum, Mikey, with lots of chats and pedal-pumping through the dark, exciting streets of London (Camden to Whitechapel and back again, and back again) and that was the tip of the cherry on the icing of my cake of a weekend that had encompassed lovely chats with lovely lasses and pyjamas and pillow fights and mad songs and funky dances and silly giggles and two – count 'em – beautiful vegetarian fry-ups and – wahey! – a big hats off and thanks very much indeed kindly ma'am to Lil and Esther and Abi and Charlie and the aforementioned SuperMikey and all the others for the magnificent fun of cream crackers and bowling and sock-stuffed foosball and way-too-much McDonald's (not me) and lots of giggles and keeping people awake till seven a.m. and doing more socialising – and chatting more – and feeling younger than I have in years. Marvellous. Thank you. Great.And then it was back to Leeds, you see, and within four hours of leaving Mikey and pedalling quickly through going nowhere London morning traffic to catch my King's Cross train I was back in the land of old ladies and shifty-eyed Seacroft junky shoplifters and the paperwork was all mixed up and – lo! a room full of other people's castaways and – well, okay, it's not that bad, I love it really, but something had happened to me down London way, and suddenly Leeds was…I guess it was a bit of a comedown really, like coming down off drugs, and suddenly all that buzz of London was gone – the buzz that I had found so unappealing on first arriving – and it was back to life and normality and even though I was digging the space in Leeds, the lack of CO2 (in comparison) and traffic and people and crowd, I was digging the memories of those things more. Lord knows – at least X will testify to this – I've been no lover of London these past ten years or so, always going wrong when I go there, heaving heavy bags around on stationery, fume-infested buses or sitting morose underground or getting lost or being skint or watching my bags go to Italy without me – but this was just marvellous (the bike helped a lot in that) and then, like I say, I missed it, and actually wished I was there – and thought about actually being there, on a more permanent/regular basis – which is something I never thought I'd hear myself say, feel myself feel. But I did; I saw a light, somehow, and – okay, okay, one summer does not a swallow make and all that (yeah, I know that's the wrong way 'round) but – well, that's how I felt. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, being back in Yorkshire was dull, and I was depressed, and down, and uninspired by any of it – my being here, my job – and thinking things/places different, wanting away, wanting change. As I always do.
It wasn't helped, I guess, by my self-inflicted/enforced homelessness – which I'm still puzzled about today but, hey ho, that's the way it goes and – I guess I'd better tell you about that first. So. What had happened was this: I'd looked at places in Leeds – half-heartedly, sure – and kind of found one but then got beaten to it by someone else and was just so sick of Wakefield I thought, man, I've got to get out of here, I've got [secret location] I could stay at – which I quite like really (really like sometimes) but which isn't ideal in the sense that it's not, well, a habitation, and it could cost me my livelihood by living there (it's not a graveyard) – and, anyway, probably enforcing this homelessness on myself will be a good motivator towards better things, because, for sure, it was convenience and accumulated lazinesses that were keeping me in Wakefield so – ten minutes before my King's Cross train (southbound) I finished packing my meagre possessions (down to just over a suitcase full! yay!) and then sent my mum a long text saying I was moving out (did I ever tell you it was my mum's house? although she doesn't live there – I'm not one of those!) and then thought, well I'll worry (read: think/deal) about all this when I get back from London. I was quite excited by it; I still am. I like where I'm staying – apart from, maybe, one or two things – and I'm tickled right royally pink by the idea of it all, so random, so silly, so sort of spontaneous and ridiculous and free (in comparison to a great many other things that I'm aware of) and, above all, it seems like all that's available to me. There's a strange thing going on inside me; that is, I just can't be bothered. That's weird to me – I mean, I'm 31, I'm sort of normal, I'm employed and I've got stuff and I'm not broke and there's no reason for it – and yet I've made myself of no fixed abode and I just don't seem to have any inclination to do anything about it – that's the weird thing. Not the fact that I've done this thing – no, I thought this would be a way of fixing things – but that I don't seem to care, don't have any desire in my bones to change anything about it and – well, I think that must mean something. I trust my feelings, I trust my desires, my urges to make things happen at the right place, the right time – they've always worked for me in the past – so to see and feel them so absent…well, it must mean that something's going on, that there's a reason for it. A change of scenery? An unexpected twist? Or just a slight hiatus, a little break while the cogs squeal and turn and work themselves into place? I don't know; we'll see, I guess. And that explains that.
So I was all bummed out and missing those London times, those London people – which is a sad way to finish off such a great weekend, if you think about it – and then I started to realise a few things – one being that, probably, I was missing people, and had been for some time, and it was only by having been sort of social interaction that I realised that, that it touched me there – in my heart-box – and then showed me something about what I liked, what I wanted and what I hadn't been getting. I mean, that's a pretty messy and vague sentence, but what I'm trying to say is suddenly I saw that, wow, it's been a long time since I really did a social sort of thing – probably like since I lived in Charlottesville, some ten years ago (and I was such a different boy then!) although I'd really have to say my communal times in Mexico and Colorado at John Milton's place – or, even, at Dhamma Dipa, at the Vipassana meditation centre – should be counted, too, given that I was seeing and hanging out with the same people on a daily basis, for say a two-month stretch at a time, even though it wasn't 'normal' life – ie, it was spiritual/commune life – and wasn't really for that long. Point being, it seems like a long time, and I realised just how much I've kept myself to myself, and become a bit of a recluse, and sort of missed out on many things by not associating with people, by preferring my own (read: Pacman's) company. I don't know how it happened; I guess I just never found people I could get along with once I came back to England, outside of Dhamma Dipa (it all seemed to be booze, or TV, or boring stuff) and I kind of gave up. Then I was in a relationship for four years, and I was happy with that for company, save maybe a four or five hours with my one good friend in Canterbury, Matt, for a bit of squash and some blokey giggles. That was fun, and I was happy with that – but no it occurs to me that I wasn't really living my life to the full, wasn't getting out of it all that I could have – and also, especially, that I sort of missed something of those post-uni, first forays into the working world years. The very years my
I guess what I'm saying – in a really rather odd way, even for me – is that company is good, and that man is a social creature, and that you can really learn so much more by interacting with others – and feel so much better, feel far less crazy – than you can sitting on your own. I think I used to think it was all about the power of the individual – that one had to be strong in oneself, and not need anyone else, and that the best way to do this was to not be with other people – and while there's some truth in this – I'm sure we all know people who go too far the other way, who can't bare to be alone for even the shortest of times, who need other people waytoo much – I'm thinking now it's better to be with others – far better – and that an hour alone each day is plenty enough, that if life is for learning and growing and having fun – and I really can't see what else it could be about – then time spent with others, lived as the social animal man obviously is, really is just natural and necessary and the way to go. That sounds pathetic typing that – pathetically obvious, considering people don't really seem to have a problem being with people – but I guess it's sort of a revelation to me. LOLAM! (Laughing out loud at myself.) In any case, I'd like more of that – to be a part of what's going on – to hunt in a pack – to be the social creature – to feel wanted and liked and loved.
(I realised too that I still find that hard – this whole thought about feeling wanted, and liked, and loved. It hurts me somehow when I think about it; I feel a pain, a rawness, a something inside that is crying, a child, a weeping and unsure soul. It's strange, that – and it's also maybe an explanation of why I've gone off on my own so much, so I didn't have to face it. It's strange because I'm generally a very confident person, and don't really doubt myself too much – and yet I still find it so hard to believe that I'm liked. Being liked brings up those feelings, and that's why I avoid those situations (being hated is easier; you don't have to face them). I guess there's an unhealed part of me somewhere deep within – mother, is this you? :-) – and it's a place I can't quite put my finger on; too sore, I guess. How wonderful it would be to sort that out though!)
And anyway…
By Friday, something changed: it all started when I spooked my lovely Brazilian volunteer, Angela, by hiding under a table and creeping slowly into sight, giving her a gorgeous little shriek and jump and really putting a smile on my face. I don't know why but that cheered my up considerably! :-) And then after that Joan, one of our elderly ladies – she's about seventy-seven; a darling, sprightly, always laughing soul – came in and the thing with her was that she was kind of the victim of some of that crime I've sort of talked about recently in that we have this cage out the back of our shop that we keep the bin in and some vandals – we'll call them 'binners'; they come 'round at night and go through all the charity shop bins and take things we've thrown away, for God knows what pitiful purpose, that makes my heart bleed too – some vandals had broken the door off and she'd gone out there one day, unbeknowing, and the broken door had fallen on her and she'd had to go to hospital – and though she was kind of all right, about a week later she'd gone down with sciatica-type pains and hadn't been able to come in and that was really bugging her because, honest to God, she's such a lively and get out there kind of woman and, man, I love these old ladies, they're so full of life and wanting to do stuff and it's like a circle that completes itself because the fact that they do stuff gives them life and they just keep on going and our oldest one's like eighty-seven and she loves a laugh and my poor old gran who just watched teevee and didn't get out there and do things just sort of shrivelled away and if that isn't a lesson to us all then I don't know what is but, anyway – poor old Joan had taken a bit of a beating, and that had made me pretty mad with these binners – and made me go on my little crime-fighting spree, cunningly catching shoplifters on film and pursuing them down the street and taking their picture and then waiting here till three a.m. one night to catch the binners in action and have them police-ified and hopefully dissuaded – and not only that but I also felt responsible because I could probably have done a better job of securing the broken door (it was padlocked on, but she removed the padblock – like I say – unbeknowing) and that was kind of breaking my heart that this gorgeous old lady was suffering and maybe I could have done something to prevent it, had I known, benefit of hindsight, etcetera – well, you know what I mean (time to get to the point?)
Joan comes in on Friday – just to say hello; her leg's worse than ever; she can't do any work – and I make a point of saying to her about my healing kind of trying to get it across and saying that I'd like to do that for her (backed up by coin; always hesitant in situations like that) and this time she went for it and I was really hoping she would get something good. So we cleared the back of the shop, and asked the others to go in front, and we sat down and did our thing, and Joan – God bless her! (as she would say) – within seconds of me putting my otherwise cold hands on her pain spot was saying how she could feel heat and things moving and a certain confidence that gave me and the feeling came and every now and then she'd be talking about how relaxed and good she felt, and how she could feel the pain easing – and how great it was to see the happiness and joy in her eyes when we'd done! And how triply lovely to watch her stand up and walk, flat on her foot and ninety-percent sprightly again when but ten minutes before she'd barely been able to put her toes on the ground, couldn't rest her heel on the ground, was hobbling and in such discomfort! I mean, I've seen things like that before, but I'm always amazed when it happens, even though it seems so natural, just to take that step back and think, wow, that really works! I mean, she was like a thousand percent better – as though time, the healing process had been sped up by weeks – and I just felt so glad to have been of help, and to see the improvement in her, and to see that she saw it too and understood and was loving it as much as I was. I mean, Hallelujah! Praise God! And all that other stuff besides. I mean, thank You God, for Your wonders; I don't know how You do it but I'm sure glad you do! And good old Joan, Lord bless her! Good old Joan…
I've been wanting to do the healing thing for quite some time; it pains me so much that it hasn't been a part of my life – because it's so good when it is – and that fact has sort of caused me to start mentioning it more, when I haven't really done in recent years, for one reason or another. I mean, when I first 'got it', back in ninety-nine, I used to think that whenever I met someone who told me something was wrong with them, that was sort of a sign for me to mention that I had that, and then to take it from there. Back in the real world, I guess, I just sort of forgot about it – and, as well – especially working with old ladies, God bless 'em – there's barely an hour goes by without someone telling you what's wrong with them – and when you get things like that in such frequency it's just too difficult to see them as signs, you just become blasé I guess. And, more so, I suppose I just haven't been living a very spiritual life the last four or five years, since I went to uni and gave up sadhuism, and I kind of let it slide, didn't think to tell anyone about it – I mean, every now and then I did, and it was always good when it happened but, on the whole, no, I kept it to myself – not wanting to be weird, not wanting to be different, I guess – and not wanting to make the effort of going through with it all, the stories, the questions, and the possible challenges and misunderstandings and sort of tricky times that don't always flow so easily when you're not doing it professionally, in a proper place, in the proper way, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I've been wanting to do it more, and I've been telling more people, and I'm sort of determined to see it happen – while trying to make sure I don't do it an ego, pushy sort of way – and that can be kind of tricky but then with situations like with Joan it all seems worthwhile and somehow part of the divine plan and good – and I get hopeful that maybe things can move and 'take off' and that it can become a somewhat regular part of my life from there.
Joan's healing put me in a right happy place, it did, and I think I've stayed there ever since. My post-London blues were washed away (was it just a matter of readjusting? Just the onset of winter, that first chilly days' depression that comes with the realisation of cold?) and now I'm on another high. Friday passed in a blissful, in-the-shop haze; Friday evening was spent with Angela and her boyfriend chatting and eating copious curry and big-belly-bloated fun and giggles; Saturday, likewise, another full and happy day in the shop – I mean, I might as well live here at this rate! – and then off in the evening to be brought to the edge of despairful tears by 'Atonement' (that's a joyful and glorious despair, because it's movie-induced) and then more up-till-the-early-hours socialising with another lovely new chum with even more giggles and fun conversation and lots and lots and lots of sex talk and then somewhere in sleepy-eyed that we discovered my bicycle wheels had been stolen and I was going nowhere. First thoughts: "sons of bitches!" (smiling); "aw, doesn't my bike look sad without its wheels?" (sad); "oh well, I guess I've done worse things to other people" (brave face; recognition; reality). I've said before I think all my nice things are going to be taken from me – probably until I've paid for my bad karma, at least. I mean, I know I don't do bad things anymore, and haven't done for years, but I guess I've still got a debt to pay – so fourth thought would probably be: "oh well, that's another one I can chalk off the list – I wonder how many to go?" (convincing). That's just the way it is, eh; you've got to accept these things – worse things happen at sea (ships get their rudders stolen); I could count the number of times I've heard that on the palm of one hand (titter titter)…
I walked this morning up from Hyde Park (right by where I spent my happy teenage years in my dad's first guitar shop, in his house, in the pub, and with my friend Tim a little later, on Chestnut Avenue, on Britain's most burgled street) and up the hill then carrying my sad and wheelless bike over my shoulder thinking how glorious it all was, a beautiful and warmer morning, the trafficless streets; the first stirrings of non-rowdy and purposeful students; the gorgeousness of Leeds around and across the university and then down into town behind the Town Hall and The Headrow and how beautiful the old market building is and nearly all the upper-stories of the tall old shops in town. On a morning like that
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