I woke still groggy from last night’s excursion. Lionel was nowhere to be seen, he’d scarpered taking his magazines and his tics with him. I guess it is up to me to find my way back to base. Homebase. Basecamp. Basecamparama. I’m starting to sound like him – ha!
I really miss a hot shower in the morning. It is something that helps delineate night from day for me. When it’s not there a kind of seediness, a graininess carries over. The boundary blurs and a dusky grayness starts to extent further forward into the day and back into the night. Is there a name for this I wonder? Some sort of syndrome? The more I know about, and hang about with those with tourettes or aspergers or autism or bi-polar the more I see that these syndromes and disorders aren’t something different from me, they are just extensions of what I already am. The difference is simply one of degree. There is no line.
As I rise and survey the dawning landscape around me, it looks as if this is where I am heading. These are the paths, woodlands, tracks and escarpments I am doomed (why ‘doomed’ I wonder?) to traverse on my way back. They do not frighten me at all, in fact right now, standing beside the campfire’s ashes they are more comforting to me than the wide open highway of rationality (so-called). This has I think something to do with being closer to the end. It is Monday – the ducks, turkeys and other morning birds remind me that I have only two full days to go before I start the walk back to civilization. I am lost now, and I guess I just want to make the most of it. I want to listen to the birds talk, the crickets and cicadas sing in unison. I want to find the dead cat underneath the berry bush. This desire is as much of me as anything else.
What is the name for my strangeness? This strangeness the grips me, grips the pen in my hand? Am I merely escaping here? Is that why I veered yesterday? Partly I think this is true. I do not feel worthy (roadworthy, toadcurly, spokencurliness) to be amongst the shining and shiny cars, vans and articulated lorries that sweep past me at break-neck speed. My stepping away through the narrow gate is as much for some peace and quiet as due to a sense of alienation. I want to stand in the middle of the road with my hand out like the fifth policeman and stop the traffic, bring it all, you all, to a standstill, but I do not feel worthy of the uniform. So instead I seek out Lionel or Frank or some homeless guy and we take a walk, and I end up here.
Does it matter if I don’t make sense to anyone? Does anyone reading this understand? Understand me? And if you do, so what? This is my syndrome not yours and understanding does not cure me, or better yet does not make me acceptable, credible (edible, eatabull, delicatabully, bullybullygoodytwoshoes).
It’s Monday morning, the 6th day. There is one full day left after today. I will find my way back so that tomorrow I can re-organise myself, re-pack myself into a suitable case of some sort for the journey back. ‘Back’ in itself concerns me. Back to where? To what? To whom? Caroline has become home. To be beside her is to be free of symptoms. That is where I want to go, that is where I came from, and that is where I want to return to. That she does not wait for me in the place I am returning to is …. troubling I guess. That place is another waystation, another rest area with a wooden table and a rubbish bin, and …. a hot shower!
Dawn light is here. Should I meditate or have another cigarette? These choices are two points equidistant on a circle, one to spark the madness, the other to try and quell it. I sit ambivalent somewhere in between. At least I am aware that this 6 day journal now reads something like a descent into madness. And why descent I wonder? Perhaps I am nearer the pinnacle of my human capability. Perhaps madness does not only lie beneath, perhaps it is up there too, sitting squashed between God and cleanliness.
It rains UK rain, misty, hardly even there, and as I sit and wonder (smoking rather than meditating) I find a sign. I am given a sign. Thank you God. Thank you Universe. It points me to the way forward. It gives me hope and direction. My sign was there yesterday in amongst Diana’s words, it was there in a book I found in a Sutton Charity shop and carried with me across the water to this place, it has been there for the longest time in the spirited hearts of my closest friends.
“ Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ram Dass. In India that means servant of God, and is another name for Hanuman, the monkey-god who lives only to serve Ram. But in recent years I have come to take the letters RAM as an acronym for Rent-A-Mouth. I figure that this evening you rented my mouth to say back to you what you already know. How do I know you know? Because when I say something that I think is particularly wise or far-out, you nod knowingly. If you didn’t know why would you nod? And if you do know why do you need to hire me? The only conclusion I have been able to draw so far is that out of some evolutionary necessity we need to keep saying it to ourselves over and over again until we hear it.”
Some evolutionary necessity. It’s not about the uniform, it’s not about credibility, it is about necessity. I need to believe that we need to hear it over and over and over. This then, in this moment, is my salvation. This is what can give me the strength and the courage to stand up and speak my dharma. My syndrome, my compulsion matches an evolutionary necessity. This is what leads me back, what returns my focus to the path ahead. I cling to this as I scramble through the undergrowth of my mind. Like Max I have been where the wild things are, except when I get back it is not dinner time but time for breakfast.
Thank you Ram Dass for bring me back safely. Today I was once again present in my activities, I have all but finished the CELTA Pre-Course assignment, there are 3 or 4 questions I will need to use the internet for so those can wait until I am back in Auckland. I have also written more of my dharma course/book. I have made a good start on my way of saying the same thing over and over.
I showered again today – it was easier this time round and just as pleasant. It was a blazing hot day which ended in heavy rain and thunderstorms. The rain was heavy enough and consistent enough I would think to get some of the healing done. I am ready to go back to Auckland, in many ways I am ready to go back to the UK. My time here has made me feel more connected to Cari and more distant at the same time. It is no surprise to me that she has been with me here, every morning and every night, when no one else has. That is the way it is. And now when I think about leaving here I would like to be heading back to her. Not just yet though – as it is, not as you want it to be – good ole Goenka.
I am rationing food, cigarettes and my book which I am only a handful of pages away from finishing. Tomorrow I tidy up, zen Jim’s house and pack my bags ready for an early start on Wednesday. There is 18 miles / 30 kilometres between me and Wellsford where I will catch the bus from, and I reckon that’s a good 8 hours walk, so I am planning to leave about 7.00am and if everything goes to plan I will be on the 4.00pm bus headed for Sky City. I am hopeful however of cadging a ride seeing as I will be walking roadside the whole way. Well that’s Wednesday, there is still day 7 to go yet.
day seven…
day five…
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
