So it’s the end of the month and the end, I think, of this year’s period of looking back. Just a few loose ends to tie up. Like I must mention that I’ve been thinking lots of that girl Grace I weirdly met in miraculous circumstances all those years ago in the summer of ’99. It’s one of the few loose ends in my life, I suppose. One of the few things I never did that I probably should have done. A big regret. And despite the wonders of facebook and everybody being connected, she’s someone I’ve no way of contacting, so therefore a story left hanging. I had other regrets, of course – not going to Bretton Hall, which I think has been rectified with my BA and these current studies – and not snogging a certain girl when I was sixteen, which has also been rectified quite recently. But Grace...mystery there, and wondering. A desire to know the rest of the story. A writer wouldn’t just leave it there.
That’s, I suppose, why she’s been in my head too: in my proposed fictionalising of my young life and my ‘Discovering Beautiful’ story – ‘Around The World With Eighty Quid’ – the character that she’s a part of ultimately gets with the character that’s basically me. That’s how Hollywood would’ve had it if Hollywood
And then I’m always thinking about wanting to go back to the States, maybe heading on down Colorado/New Mexico way and seeing what happens. Girlfriend comes home the other day with a book about long distance bike riding and starts getting all excited about taking a trip somewhere. She’s desperate to get away. Really got the travel bug and struggles to stay put in cold sunless Leeds . She started off thinking about the overland route to Australia – but now she’s progressed to what’s known as The Great Divide Cycle Trail, which goes down the spine of the Rockies from Banff to New Mexico Montana
Already I need to start thinking about the distant future. It’s annoying: it’s so far away and I’m so terrible at it. My final deadline handing-in date for uni is September 10th but the last class, as such, is the middle of June. Then it doesn’t matter where I am. I had ideas about maybe doing the Amma autumn tour, maybe finishing it off with a visit to Mother Meera – maybe emptying myself of every little thing I am and have and was much as I did in 2001 just before I was mysteriously jetted to Canada
But remembrances of years past. When I made similar plans, and followed similar unfounded spiritual dreams, and missed out on opportunities which I came to later enormously regret. Confusing fantasy with what was good for me. Getting ahead of myself and not taking notice of the things that were right there in front of me. I did it earlier on in 2001 and if you’ve been reading this blog you’ll know how much those mistakes have pained me. And you’ll know, too, how much I’ve been reminding myself that I need to get it right this time.
Things flow, and things take care of themselves, and spirituality isn’t really about getting high and chasing mad dreams, it’s about the doing of what your heart requires from moment to moment. In 2001 I wanted Amma and I wanted intoxicated divine bliss – but what would have served me better would’ve been a countryside university campus just down the road from my mum’s house. Now here we are again. Living in Leeds . Several months ago chasing jobs and worrying where my income was going to come from – and then finding it almost effortlessly and accidentally in refereeing, which is not just income but also learning and growth and fun. A cheap flat appears. And for all the plans and worries and gumtreeing, it all falls into place. And now…
And now another opportunity rolls into my lap. Through the refereeing someone who says they spotted my obvious passion for the game has put me forward for a coaching scholarship for one of the uni teams and this afternoon I had a meeting with the benefactor, who’s all gung-ho to get it on. What it involves is taking some courses and learning the basics over the next few months, up till May, and then taking on the team from the start of the next academic year, from September. I had thought it was something that was going to begin a bit sooner but apparently not. To their credit, they have made it as easy as possible for me to say yes – it’s as if they know I’m a commitmentphobe – and have said all they’re looking for, as a minimum, is a pledge to run the team until December and then take it from there. September to December. With the summer off. It rules out a few things. It also opens a few doors. And it gets the brainstalks a-churnin’…
There’s a part of me that’s been wanting to play “yes man”. There’s a part of me that’s been expecting something unexpected to come into my life, and that when it does I should probably go for it. And there’s a part of me that has more than once thought about coaching and thought that it’s something I’d like to do. Thinking also that they’re always looking for coaches to fly over to North America . That’s the one part.
Then there’s the other part: the part that knows there’s very little for me in this world. That dreams of nature and simplicity and sunshine. That thinks back on mystical experiences and magic and the days when I was an inspiration to others and knows that I’m a long way from those days now. That longs to get back to it. That believes it’s possible. And believes that getting out there and throwing myself on the world and relinquishing all these ties to the material would be the way to do that.
Another voice says, yeah, but remember the last time you were in the hot springs
You went to Israel and you were ready to come home after ten days – and that was when you were living in London
And now you’ve moved to Leeds and you’ve been here four months and you’re more content than you’ve been in years. You play squash. You do your reffing. You come home from that and either feel great ‘cos you’ve had a great game or feel determined ‘cos you’ve had a bad game but you know what to do next time. You sit in your little flat and apart from sports buddies and the girlfriend you don’t really see anyone and you don’t mind it at all. You’re happy. You like Leeds even though you hardly even interact with it. There’s none of the wanting to be elsewhere that you’ve so often experienced, even when you’ve been travelling.
But how will it be when my degree’s ended and I don’t have that to lay the foundation for my life?
Musings, musings – and all that really needs deciding is this: do you want to train to be a coach of a football team? And do you want to commit to being in Leeds from September to December? Could you do that, knowing the girlfriend might not be here? Knowing that you’d have to give up on breaking into America
If I was being “yes man”, the answer would be “yes” and no more questions about it.
Just say yes to everything and let the river of life take you to your glorious destination.
But is that really how it works?
So those are the thoughts of the future – which is ironic given that I had wanted this entry to be about thoughts of the past.
But beyond Grace, I’m not sure there are any.
I would love it if I heard from her and she cleared up the mystery of those two weird meetings of ours, all those years ago. It’s sort of a longing of mine.
And, yes, foolish Truman Show collaged faces cut from magazine dreams of the weirdness of life and the strange mystical possibilities that the world spits up every now and then – like two actual souls giggling in a supermarket
or snogging in a gas station
and then saying goodbye when goodbye was probably the last thing we should have said.
Fear, it was. And now my soul wanders on forever wondering back, and perhaps in another universe some other more smiling, more confident version of me followed that road and found out where it went.
Perhaps he could clear up the mystery too, if he could find a way to get the information to me.
Or if I could open my ears and hear.
<(O_O)>
And then I weirdly read this entry, followed by this one, and it’s as though I could have written it today. Except it’s over seven years ago now…
Answer?
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