So the most extraordinary meeting I ever had with a girl was back in the summer of '99, when I was touring around New Mexico. Me and some Sikhs were driving from St Louis to a yoga festival near Santa Fe, and not too long before we got there they sort of stopped outside this large organic supermarket to get some snacks. I'd been driving and was quite happy to sit in the car and wait, totally uninterested in supermarkets and snacks at the time, but after a few minutes I decided to have a wonder in. So I did.
I wasn't really sure what I was doing there; like I say, I had no interest in supermarkets at the time – I'd been off in the deserts of Mexico for months on end before that; supermarkets actually really freaked me out on my return to civilisation – plus I had no money and wasn't as hungry or greedy as I am now. But I had a little wander and soon came upon this stand offering some free heart or head or hand check-up (can't remember what it was) and I thought I'd give that a try. I got in line and filled in a form and waited my turn. I'd do anything back then to gain some extra insight into myself.
So I gets to the front of the line and there's this girl there with a clipboard; she asks me my name and, probably, I tell her – and then…something happens. It's hard to explain what; it seems so bizarre. It makes no sense and no doubt to some of my readers it will appear that I have lost my mind but…
Hysterics, man! Without a word we both suddenly crack up – in absolute hysterics! And – listen, I get the giggles a lot, and lose myself in laughter – but I swear I've never had it like this. I mean, it was out of control. I mean, it was beyond all thought or semblance of normality; tears were streaming down our faces; the laughter rang throughout the supermarket; there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Did it last for five minutes? Ten? I don't know. Every now and then I'd think, what the fuck is going on? – but, like I say, there was nothing I could really do; it was like something else had taken over me. In the meantime, our eyes were locked into each other, big beaming smiles, a real feeling of joy and love. I was seeing colours and shapes – like people talk maybe metaphorically about seeing colours and light – but I was seeing them – reds and golds and greens – all around her – it really was a sense of some altered reality; that there was no supermarket, no time, no world – just her and me and our laughter and tears and these colours and our smiles. And finally it ended and we threw ourselves into each other, in a great big, open-hearted hug and held on tight right there in that supermarket by her little stand and, God only knows what anyone else was thinking but, I honestly swear I've no recollection of anyone or anything else being there anyway.
I don't know what we said next; probably nothing – possibly, "I love you" – but I remember sort of leaving, and then deciding to turn back and ask her for her phone number – which I'd never done before, and don't think I've done since – and she happily and merrily gave it to me. Still we'd hardly spoken. And then we said our goodbyes and I left the supermarket somewhat bewildered, I suppose, but mainly just really ecstatically happy and overjoyed and grateful. I wondered if perhaps I'd "met someone" – but back in the car I switched on the radio and there was that song, "If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife…" and that just made me laugh and think, nah, I haven't met anyone, it's just another one of these amazing, synchronous, mind-blowing encounters that I'm kind of getting used to now. I guess I put it out of my head and off we went, me and my turbaned and jolly chums to set up tents and get all magically high and divine up in the mountains with Yogi Bhajan and three thousand flowing Sikhs. It was just kind of normal, for those days.
Anyway, the festival was a blast, and I had a pretty amazing time, and met the most lovely people, and at the end of it myself and two new friends decided we'd go off back down to Santa Fe to meet Amma, the hugging Indian saint who my friend Shawn had told me about, who had changed his life so dramatically, and so much for the better. I had a real strong urge to see her, and from what I'd told a few people – "there's this Indian lady, and she hugs you, and takes away your pain, or gives you a real taste of the Divine" – they were into it too. So down to Santa Fe we went, to get our hugs and – well, you know, that's another story all together but – further amazing that was too. I was in love with her from the get-go, and my hug was higher than acid. Life changing? Sure.
So me and my two chums – a Texan called Donna and a Dutchman going by the nom de Sikh of Siri Darma Singh – went on another little tour of New Mexico, visiting some like holy Catholic healing shrine, and then some of those old ancient Indian cliff ruins – magic chanting in that ancient dust – and at some point we wound our way back to Santa Fe to drop off Joost (the Dutchman's real name) and then Donna and I decided we'd go over to Albuquerque to see Amma again.
Before leaving Santa Fe, though, I thought I'd give this girl a ring – even though I hadn't really thought about her during the two or three weeks since our incredible and strange meeting, it seemed like there was something there. So I called, and called again, and could never get an answer; no one home. I tried one last time and then Donna decided we had to go and I thought, oh well, and back on that desert highway heading to Albuquerque, in my seat and happy, despite not getting an answer. To be honest, it was just one of those things and I was always far more interested in what lay ahead.
About ten miles down the road, though, Donna goes, "I want a coke," and chucks the car into a u-turn, and heads back towards Santa Fe. It seems a bit weird to me – you know, wanting a nasty, nasty coke after two weeks of good clean living (I'd been soda-free for six months) – and we had places to go but, oh well, it's her car and I'm just there for the ride, you want a coke I'm not gonna talk you out of it. So I just settle back and do my passenger thing.
We pull into a gas station; I go to the payphone and try this girl one more time – and still there's no answer. I get back in the car; Donna comes back with her coke. She starts up the engine and just as she's about to pull out, another car comes in at the side of us and both our heads whirl strangely around to take a look, as does the driver's head in the other car, to look at us, and it's the girl, Grace, and I'm just thinking, wow.
I can't speak; we're just looking at each other and, once again, the world has disappeared. Our eyes are locked but this time there's thoughts in my head, and the thoughts are scaring me. The thoughts are going: oh my God, I love this girl; oh my God, I think I want to marry her; oh my God, this is insane. It's overwhelming and although I'm loving being there and resting in her gaze – we're smiling into each other; it's peace and light and all the good stuff that was there before (minus the giggles) – these thoughts are seriously freaking me out. I need her to say something – and she does. She says, "the answer to all your questions is 'yes'" – and I freak out just that little bit more. Finally, I can't take it and I get out the car. She does the same and we hold each other there in that parking lot and it is magical and good. I don't know what Donna's thinking; I don't really know anything. All I know is that I like the way this woman feels and that I want to kiss her; thing is, though, I've been pretty hardcore celibate for quite a while (well, three months) and keen to stick to that, what with my supposed 'spiritual quest' and all that, it seems like the way to go. I'm wrestling with that, and then my head is filled with some other words – words from my freewillastrology earlier that day, which I've been reading religiously for years and which has always been strangely and spookily accurate – that said something about "taking a bite out of the apple", in an Adam 'n' Eve sort of way – and I feel like I sort of have my answer.
My face slides down to hers, cheek on cheek, mouth seeking mouth, and we kiss, long and deep and with ease and naturally, as though we've been doing it forever, as though we aren't just two crazy people who have met twice in crazy ways and barely spoken a dozen words to each other. It feels ecstatically good and I'm starting to think I've met my soul-mate.
Finally, we stop, and step apart, and manage some words, all the while standing and grinning and feeling something pretty incredible. She tells me she's off to Colorado to see her spiritual teacher; I say I'm doing the same too – but first I've got plans to go to Albuquerque. I look at the trunk of her car and see myself putting my bags in there and going with her – and knowing that it would be accepted, and easy, and good. I want to go but I'm afraid – and I've got my plans too. I think of a quote I'd read recently in The Alchemist – something about, "whatever happens once will never happen again, but whatever happens twice will surely happen a third time" – and I say that and it seems like some sort of an answer; it's like letting go, and trusting that this strange and magical power that had brought us together would do so again, if it was meant to be. Later, of course, a tarot reader tells me I should have gone with her, but…oh well, at the moment I'm happy to let it go, and just dig the amazingness and the synchronicity of it all. She's happy too, and in our smiles and in our goodbyes, all is well. I get back in the car next to the bewildered Donna and we two go off on our way to see Amma again – and, as it turns out, the girl I began my last entry with, Kellie, the Liv Tyler-a-like.
The story ends – I suppose you want to know how the story ends – actually in some confusion and uncertainty, and I've still no idea what it means. Basically, I went to Albuquerque, met Kellie through the friend of a blog-reader, bonded – but just in a purely super-friend style way – and then after a few days I went up to Colorado to see John Milton, my first spiritual teacher who had lead me on a six-day wilderness solo in Mexico and really put me on the path to sorting myself out and discovering the wild and wonderful world of the spiritual reality. I was up there with him in Crestone for nearly two months, training for and eventually completing an even longer wilderness solo high up in the Sangre de Christo Mountains, this time of twenty-eight days duration. And an amazing time that was. And all the time I was thinking about this girl, and thinking we were going to be together. I made plans to go down and see her.
Mid-September, I left Crestone, got picked up by a southbound Sikh who put me up for a night and bought me a curry – and who introduced me to the world of the CWG books – and then I made Santa Fe. My last ride there took me all the way to Grace s house – a fun young guy and his female friend who I told a little of my story to and who told me in turn a story about hitching hundreds of miles to see a girl he was in love with only to find out that she had a boyfriend and end up heartbroken, all the while, ironically enough, while he's telling his story The Zombies' 'She's Not There' is wailing in the background and I'm thinking – and smiling – u-oh, this is sounding kind of ominous. And, of course, we get to her house and, well, she's not there.
I wait a few hours and then a roommate comes home; she's real nice; she tells me Grace's moved, and offers to take me out there. She says she's heard about me; I'm encouraged by that and we chat in a super way that makes me feel better about things. But when she drops me off and I see Grace again I realise something's changed – she doesn't look the same; I don't feel any connection; I'm thinking I'd like to go back with the roommate. But I don't, and we head inside and talk.
In a nutshell, both the signs proved true: she'd found a boyfriend, someone she was in love with, and, also, she wasn't there. She wasn't there when I first turned up, sure – but, more than that, she wasn't there in the way that she had been before, present and open and true, right there in the moment, full-hearted, giving; it didn't feel like the same person. Well, sure, she had reason to be guarded and protective – and, sure, no doubt I'd changed as well, given my experience up in Colorado – but…well, it made me sad. I cried, and my heart broke, and, given how spiritually high and kind of out there I was, I was like a little boy lost, unable to understand what was going on, bewildered, really. We talked for a few hours but I have no idea what was said – and how I wish I could go back and ask possibly better questions, to try and put the mystery together, and to make some kind of sense of this whole dramatic and otherworldly episode – but I guess I just wasn't able at the time. I left her in the dark New Mexico night and slept in my sad sleeping bag by the side of the road, alone in the night, in the world, not knowing which way to turn next. The next morning I opened my CWG in the hope of answers and stumbled upon the chapter on relationships – which I had somehow managed to miss, even though I thought I had read the whole book – and which contained the answers I needed. I guess I got them when they were required; I don't think I would have understood it before. That made me feel better, and even though I was still open and tender and raw, I found some optimism, and hit the road once again, and ended up back in Albuquerque. I visited Kellie, and poured out my heart, and cried at Notting Hill, and within a few weeks we were in love. I never saw Grace again but I do wonder about her every now and then – as you can see – and would love to know, one day, what her take on the whole thing was. Bizarre is mine – but magical and incredible too. Certainly, even though I've had some pretty amazing meetings with other women – X was absolutely love at first sight, and with her and with others signs and dreams played a big part in bringing us together – nothing has come close to the altered reality of that supermarket encounter and the strange synchronicity of the second gas station meeting and Donna's unaccountable desire for coke. It boggles the mind. It really does.
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