It’s eight-thirty and here I am again typing, despite not really being awake yet. Didn’t get in till three-thirty: was round at Simon and Harry’s for a midnight game of Balderdash and some long conversations about women, sex, ourselves, and spirituality. Simon wanted to know some of my actual experiences and I told him. Seemed like he got it. The substance in the words hitting him somewhere inside. Would be cool if that was true, and turned into something. Maybe all life not absent – extraordinary life – here in Leeds .
Staying out late and interacting, and enjoying the interacting more. The approach of official springtime perhaps having an effect. The long hibernation of winter at an end. It’s been a pretty good, mellow, simple one, here in my little cave. Though not so many sleep-ins as I would have liked, what with poor girlfriend having to rise around seven. I don’t go back to sleep.
I also met up with Laura, to share words about writing. She’s penning a children’s book; was cool to pass on tips and wisdoms. Even things about the “story arc” that I mostly ignore myself.
Spring and sun and passing things on.
But now it’s time to get back on the Mexico
To rise. To prepare the tea. To get down to it…
Where I was with…Shane. Shane and Craig. Craig and Allison. At Yandara. Down on the Baja beach. Dwelling there in paradise in a tent tiptoeing carefully around rattlesnakes and surrounded by – hands off! – yoga girls. Where I was helping Allison transform a yoga manual she had written into a publishable book. Feeling useful. Feeling like I was paying for my keep, which is something I wanted after Mexico City; after leaving there feeling ever so slightly dirty because…
…I never told you about Lucio. Lucio was my friends’ vet. He had a lovely top floor apartment that he’d decorated like some kind of interior jungle. Had branches and vines with plants growing from them, the walls painted in savannah scenes, everything shells and bamboo and then a whole roof terrace tropical greenhouse garden. Everybody fell in love with Lucio’s place. He invited me over to dinner, to chat and to hang out and also stay. He was Mexican but not a Jew. Spoke perfect English. Veterinarian to the upper-middle class and their billion pooches. Smart dresser and good lifestyle and…
…a friend of his comes over one night, a cool Mexican girl who’s lived in London
…and Lucio so smartly dressed and sophisticated and…
…me there thinking that maybe…
…but then he’s always talking about women we should chase and…
…my feeling then…
…the one day when I’m on his computer – still editing my book – and I see some pictures of him posing smiling with a group of smart sophisticated (clothed) smiling posing well-dressed other Mexican guys and…
…the thought back to the massage he gave me the first night I went round to his, and the freedom with which he worked on my thighs – my upper-thighs – no hang-ups like you’d think Mexican guys might have about rubbing their oiled up hands over some guy’s thighs, maybe a hint of buttock, maybe…
The photos confirmed what I’d long suspected and felt – no one in the Jewish circle knew, I don’t think – and that left that goodwill massage feeling a little bit yucky, plus several other things besides. But worse than that, later when I was staying with Mariela she told me she’d heard he’d offered to let me stay at his longer if I chipped in with a bit of money for rent and I’d refused and left for hers. That caused friction between the two of us: she suspected she’d got a freeloader on her hands and lost her trust in me, and it made me paranoid, not knowing who else had heard this rumour, or who else believed it. Suddenly I was this alone foreign guy in La Condesa who wasn’t sure what to believe and double-thinking on all the goodwill I’d received afraid it wasn’t genuine and that it was maybe even resented. I longed to defend myself, get to the bottom of the source – no doubt Lucio, for some strange reason – and blurt out about his secret gay life and inappropriate massages, but I kept it in. No point rocking the boat of his life. No point creating a scene in a place I was about to leave.
But it soured my experience there, and I knew how I would be thought of when I left, even though I had chipped in and paid my way as far as groceries went, if not for rent and treats. The whole thing made me deep down sad – still does – and determined again to not go to a place where one is relying on others. The fine line between accepting the kindness of strangers and looking after oneself. And yet here I was again, staying at Yandara, being provided for as far as food and shelter went, and wanting to give something back…
…which I was able to do with the book preparation, and that felt good, although I wanted to do more. I did give Craig money for groceries – though he ended up paying me anyway for the work I’d done on the book. But what I really wanted was to be able to contribute to the place, share in some ways the things that I had learned over the years, perhaps in meditation or perhaps in the grounding experiences, which I felt I’d mastered the hard way and which they sorely needed. Allison wanted me to do something like that too – said she felt I should be there, wanted me to get involved – but the vibe from Shane was one of hypocritical platitudes of being grateful that I was around and for what I brought to the place but in making little effort to actually interact with me, and from Craig a sort of confusion of mixed-messages that again spoke of liking what I had to offer but also feeling that having an outside guy around all those girls was a bit untenable. They were going through stuff, he said. Having a guy around wasn’t good for them. Outside girls were fine. And inside guys. But an outside guy…
…although he did one day acquiesce to Allison’s request that I get to take part in a campfire on the beach one night with everyone, having done the job of gathering all the wood and hauling it down there. That was nice of him. And there I was, in the circle of the yoga girls, sort of tentative and on best behaviour, not wanting to say anything guffawing or rude from my dirty life – yet cajoled into playing the ‘My Girlfriend’s Nice Song’ and joyfully relieved when all the pure yogaheads dug it and laughed and didn’t wince at the sex references and…
…there was one girl there that I did have my eye on, I must confess. A Canadian called Brittney. She played guitar and sang beautiful songs. She also looked on the whole Shane and Craig thing with a refreshingly withering eye and was always getting told off for disappearing down the surfing beach with her guitar and maybe coming back late or skipping classes and she seemed about the only one who had her feet on the ground. We had a few fun talks but Craig warned me off, said she was going through some difficult stuff. I didn’t buy it but, man, his house, his rules. Anyway, she and I were the last ones by the fire and we talked and played right through the night and then when the fire went down I hit her with this idea I’d had of burying the coals under the sand and lying on top of them, which weirdly worked, and worked too well, the coals slowly heating up the sand and getting us sweating in the blanket we were wrapped in, too afraid to nod off in case the whole thing caught fire. Man, those coals were like three inches under sand! But you’d have sworn they were just exactly then scorching a hole in Allison’s lovely thick blanket. Not easy to relax. Of course, no hole was scorched but it was too hot and nervewracking for sleep. We giggled into the dawn. We spooned most innocently. I was ever-conscious of Craig’s admonitions, even though I fancied her like mad. But her fingers began to explore my hands, as they always do, when all you’re doing is innocently cuddling up – yeah right – but innocent we remained. I was chaste. I didn’t want to give Craig any reason to doubt his trust in me, gorgeous and lovely though she was. And naughty too.
She went back to her tent and slept, and I stayed on the beach till the sun rose. I’d been a good boy. I’d done the right thing. I’d missed out on beautiful times with a beautiful woman but…
And Allison. Allison who liked spending time with me. Allison who was nice and good but also a bit batty with the whole New Age spiritual thing. Who took some time out from the whole place and went and camped in a little trailer on her own down the beach a ways and invited me over to laze around and chat about all things under the sun, fielding calls from Craig unsure about the time we were spending together – he should be unsure, if he judges all men by his own standards – but nothing devious in it beyond my own intermittent thoughts of maybe screwing him over for all the shit he done cause Patti, my friend of ceaseless goodness.
But Rory has his standards and Rory’s standards try to keep him from doing things he’ll later regret or cause other people harm where women are involved. And so…
Strange days at Yandara. In paradise and surrounded by bliss and love but often skulking around and needing to avoid certain areas and getting into weird moments of wondering what the hell I was doing there, and wanting to leave, but then being persuaded to stay by the very people who didn’t seem to want me there, and getting even into playing internet chess – right there, a few hundred metres from the Pacific! – and the oddness of Allison-Craig-me – she wanting me around, involved, him always umming and ahing – and then mostly Shane, to have such a good close friend you’ve been through so much with, but at the same time to be at such loggerheads…
…his arrogance with regard to his role of spiritual teacher…
…the contrived and condescending way he would read quotes from books, slowly and carefully picking over the words, seeking to imbue them with meaning, making them out to be holy and about to any second blow our minds, breathing ‘em in putting on soulful gazes and then – for God’s sake! – repeating the whole paragraph even though it’s just me and one other girl – trying to impress? – and I’d rather talk about football, to be honest. Making his weird hand movements and spouting teachings he’d heard when he was in India – half-teachings; teachings not the whole picture – while at the same time still remarking – bragging – slipping it in there, as he was ten years ago – that he’d never read a book.
Come on, man, you’ve read books, I say. You were just reading out of one now. You’re always reading books.
But, ah, he’s never read a whole book – that’s the point. Some big spiritual triumphalism to separate him from the masses, to show that his wisdom is his and his alone – despite quoting teachers, reading paragraphs here and there – because it’s the whole book that counts. Same old bullshit statements of self-grandeur I once probably made myself.
I’ve never read a book. Sheesh.
The climax of it all came when I watched the first part of the movie Zeitgeist and I declared it the dumbest movie I’d ever seen, pure stupid. Shane didn’t take well to that. Said he couldn’t believe anyone he considered a friend would use a word like “stupid”. Defended it and got pretty aggro and we actually argued over the whole dumb thing. To me, it was clear – I’d studied certain things that the movie touched on – you know, the whole “this myth of Jesus has been told over and over again pretty much exactly the same, down to date of birth, etcetera, in cultures all over the world” – and I knew enough to know that plenty of what I’d seen wasn’t simply incorrect, but that it was bogus, fabricated, and made up. The rest I researched, and pretty quickly was able to dismiss that whole first part – I haven’t seen any of the rest of it – as laughable.
But Shane leapt to the defence.
Well how do you know what you believe is true?
Books, my man. Reading
He whips out his iPhone. He rushes for evidence to challenge me. He’s bubbling with anger and I can’t help but think a lot of it’s because I’ve made my laughing criticisms of this “dumbest movie ever” in front of a girl that he likes and a girl that likes that film too.
Well, the debate gets heated. He hates that I’ve been so scathing of something he loves and used words like “dumb” and “stupid” – remember, to a New Ager, the greatest crime in the world is to be judgmental – far worse to judge a murderer, in fact, than to commit the murder in the first place – and I can’t believe that this otherwise intelligent, level-headed, thinking man would fall for such a piece of sensationalist homemade trash as that Zeitgeist fiasco. Imagine watching that and taking it for history! But whatever we do, we just can’t find no common ground, and for the first time in my life I’m seeing a side of Shane that doesn’t want to understand, doesn’t want to meet half-way, and doesn’t want to deal calmly with things and talk about our feelings and find out what’s going on.
Just being human, I guess. I suppose that should be refreshing. To finally see the man lose his rag and come down from his high horse. But I suppose I couldn’t let go of my expectations that he was better than someone who could be petty and lash out and say childish mad things patently designed to piss another person off.
It took said girl that I figured he fancied to sort things out. The next day things were still brewing and when another attempt to smooth them over failed she sat us down and whipped out her conflict resolution skills. She was good at it. Impressed me no end. Had us talk out what we wanted to say and we reached a place of understanding. Took a few hours but the outcome was of really hearing why the other person felt what they felt and learning to be okay with that. Was actually quite fascinating: for Shane, it didn’t matter whether something was historically true or not, it was the feeling that it gave him. It felt true, and that was enough for him. Weird as I found that – head-shakingly weird, in all honesty – it was what he believed and once I got that into my head I had no problem with accepting it. And having been able to explain myself – that whether something was true or not – ie, whether it actually historically happened – was of absolute importance to me – and being heard in that in full, I was satisfied. He heard me and accepted that that’s was what was important to me, and I had no need for him to feel the same way. Perhaps it was just the wanting to be heard that was the problem – and being opposed is, well, the opposite of that. We were doing it to each other, by trying to convince one another of our respective viewpoints, and maybe that’s where the friction came from. Afterwards, I felt great, and connected and close to him again.
Though naturally I still thought myself right. ;-)
Anyways, I guess that was about the end of it. There came a point where it was finally apparent that nothing was ever going to happen – that Shane wasn’t interested in spending quality time together – that Craig was forever going to um and ah about things that I could do while simultaneously pointing out the logistical impossibilities of the whole thing – that the yoga girls were going to come and go – that Allison wasn’t going to get her way – that whatever gifts I had to offer weren’t desired – and, beyond everything else, that it just wasn’t the place for me. All the getting high – all those weird-ass staring competitions and falling into each other’s arms and gazes – all the words of honey and puke, telling truths, expressing hearts…it wasn’t where I was at. I had little interest anymore. Grounding seemed more sensible. It all seemed a bit pie in the sky and up in the air. I was sad that I didn’t fit in there any longer – didn’t fit in there just as I didn’t fit in in London – but, hey ho, the road warrior must move on, such is his lot, ever evolving, ever changing, maybe tomorrow he’ll wanna settle down…but till tomorrow he’ll…
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