So I met my ex outside a little discotheque in Todos Santos, Mexico, and that was a pretty magical encounter. Me and Shane – the "star child" (lol) – had been in there having a bit of a dance and on the way out some drunk Argentinean had accosted us and was sort of going on about something and then at the end of it asked us where the women were, and me and Shane sort of looked at one another and realised that we didn't actually know any women, and hadn't done for a few weeks – there had been plenty around before that; all gorgeous and open and lovely – and all totally platonic – and there was this feeling there between us that it would actually be really nice to meet some girls and make some feminine friends. So off we went, leaving our drunk Argentinean behind, and what should we find waiting outside the nightclub but three girls – two Canadians and a Californian – and we just sort of fell into them and started chatting, real effortlessly and with ease, as though it was meant to be, as though they'd been waiting there to meet us. Me and Shane were all into manifestation at the time – or what is now known as 'cosmic ordering' (thanks to Noel Edmonds) – and we just thought, wow, you put out your intention and look what comes…
Shane was chatting to two of them, sitting down, and me and one of the Canadians just stood there and sort of fell into this gaze of smiles and nods and silence, and it was all pretty otherworldly and unreal – here we go again! – and I guess that was what you'd call "love at first sight"; I couldn't think of anything to say; there didn't seem any reason to; it was all good as it was; not awkward; peaceful; happy. I guess eventually we introduced ourselves, and made some small talk, and I said something about wanting to travel across to the Copper Canyon and she said she'd like to do that too, and then Shane and I went our way back home to the Way of Nature with the girls saying they'd come and visit, and I swear, man, I was skipping and filled with happiness at this meeting and thinking maybe I might have a gorgeous travel companion to continue on my way with and who knows what else?
During my seven-week stay at the hot springs canyon I'd really been treated to the experience of Life taking care of me, of providing me with my every need, of bringing me all I required, even so far away from everything, to the extent I thought that, one day, my lady would come and all I had to do was sit there. Well, a splinter in my foot took me from there on the appointed day – and Shane had been a visitor to the canyon – and I guess it had worked out in one way or another…
The girls came down and started spending a lot of time at The Way of Nature, and we three bonded, and I fell in love. It wasn't as intense as the meeting I mentioned yesterday – but then it was far more all-encompassing, and long-standing. My feelings at the time were too strong; I scared her away and in the end I left and we lost touch. Two years later, though, I had a series of dreams about her, and tracked her down, and went to visit her in Canada. Again, I was in love, and I changed myself and my life to become more acceptable to her, and a year after that we got it together and became an item. Our relationship lasted four years; it was pretty incredible and wonderful and intense. And now it's gone. That was a pretty weird way to meet a lady.
In between all that, however, there was my Parisian affair, with a woman six years my senior – she was 30; I was 24 – that I met on the Amma tour in Toulon when her and her (sort of) partner decided they dug my vibe and decided to take me under their wing, and then ferry me around Europe, and then asked me to live with them in Paris. I had zero money at the time, and just one change of clothes and a lovely woollen blanket to my name; it was the zenith of my sadhu phase. And they – and she – were to be the end of it.
The energy between us, almost from the very beginning, was electric; it was as though a force larger than either of us, and larger than the sum of our parts, was pulling and pushing us together. Sparks flew off us when we hugged; nothing could keep us apart. Her boyfriend could see it and could do nothing about it, surrendered to the inevitability of it, and mysteriously committed to driving me around, feeding me, and losing his girlfriend to me in front of his eyes. He had money, and lots of it – he had a really wealthy family – and she joked how she "left him for a homeless" – but there was nothing anyone could do. If anything was ever written in the stars it was that her and I should be together.
It happened back in Paris; she told me that she was going to spend the night with me – and she told me "we're going to make a baby." I was mister hardcore sadhu at the time, but there was an undeniable and joyful truth in her words and I was down with that. She left the room and I rushed about looking for some confirmation, some clue, that it was the right way to go; a makeshift ouija board and a random book spelled out only "yes" and "april" and I gave in to my fate.
When we made love it was like I was making love with every woman I'd ever been with; it was as though they were all summoned there, as ghosts from the past, and seen again, for one last time, and let go of. I was cleaned of something; I was made new. It was pretty cool.
We got into something then – madness, I suppose it was. We said we'd get married, and she was my Mary Magdalene, and we'd do something great for the world. We were off our tits on spirituality. We travelled to Mexico; she took me to the edge of despair; I questioned it so much and went crazy with it all. We three – her, and I, and her ex – and another French spiritual chum were this little enclave of God-seekers, always wanting to get higher, channelling this and that, discovering new wisdoms and insights and secrets, rushing onwards for our imagined enlightenment. Truly, we were mental – but it all seemed so real at the time. And in it all my Frenchwoman and I made our love – wonderful, wonderful love – and slowly moved ever onwards towards April.
April came – it was the Good Friday/Resurrection weekend – and I could feel the appointed hour draw near; the clock hands counted down, but there was one last thing to do: I needed to ask her if she'd been with anyone else since we'd been together.
"You ask me now, in the middle of sex?" she said.
"Have you?" I said.
"Yes," she said.
I pushed her off me; she protested. I grabbed some clothes and walked out the room, upstairs to the shower, under water and steam and staring blindly into the tiles and all that is in my head is this: I'm gonna wash that girl right outta my hair/I'm gonna wash that girl right outta my hair/I'm gonna wash that girl right outta my hair…
I leave the house and walk, me and my grey blanket and in the woods I find a huge sequoia and curl up into a ball at its base and stare and stare and stare, and there's nothing much in my head. I'm in shock, I guess; trauma. I don't know what to do because now my world has crumbled and the woman I loved is no longer the woman I can be with, and all dreams for future and babies and life have gone, and I'm an alone young Englishman with not a penny to his name, and no home or past to return to, and I'm somewhere in the French countryside – at her ex's country home; no idea where it is – and I really haven't a clue what to do with myself.
I'm in a ball under a tree and, in almost every sense of the word, I'm a baby. She has made me a baby - we have done it together. Her words have come true. And it's exactly what I'd needed.
I left them the next day – but not before I'd headbutted the forth member of our troupe, her one-time lover (and not for what he had done, but for his arrogance and disdain when I'd tried to dialogue with him about why it was wrong) – and I returned to England and cried for several weeks and months, and found myself reborn – resurrected, even. My spiritual illusions and delusions crumbled – although, in truth, the process took years – and I got myself back on the Earth. This was the gift she gave me – and the gift I had come to her to receive. Life, of course, had tried to teach me in more gentle ways, but I had failed to listen, too eager to carry on with what I saw as my quest, too blind to the necessity to stay human, to not ignore and neglect my body and my emotional and physical aspects and needs. My old friend Stevie Jay used to say, "never get so high you forget your zip code" – but I'd gotten so high I didn't even know what a zip code was. I got what I needed, and what I deserved – but still it hurt like hell.
And that brings me to the end for another day. What will tomorrow bring? I'll be buggered if I know…
No comments:
Post a Comment