Paper sailboats

Its my birthday. I'm making a wish.



I wish I'd written down all the wishes through my life. A line of past Julias jostle for attention as they whisper their deepest desires.

As a child, I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me. I just wanted black hair.

As a teenager, nothing quite fit. I wished only to be the same as everyone else.

Later, I wished to be different.

When I was 18 someone told me about Taoism, and for a while I wished that everything would just carry on being as it was supposed to be.

When I was 19, my mom died and my first love broke my heart. I wished that life was supposed to be something else.

At 21 the drama faded into peace. I wished that I could always stay grounded like this.

At 24 I spent days in front of a computer screen and ages dreaming about sex. I wore tight suits and wished for the day when I could call myself free.

At 25 I shed my skins and sought adventure. I wished for coincidences, and mystery, and teachers.

At 26 I realised I had no idea what I was doing. I wished for clarity on the wandering path of the lost.

And now, at 27, I am suddenly content. I survey my kingdom and find it wholesome. If I look, really look, I have found my heaven.

I send my wishes away on paper sailboats that bob across the lake, falling apart in its watery hands. My thoughts get carried away and Fucking Hell I realise I'm in paradise. And now it's my birthday and I find myself searching for something to wish for. It feels somehow foolish to wish for anything more.

And so I wish that I should always be able to see my world like this, in the golden light that falls with joy. For it is my choice to see my heaven or to not; it is always there, beautiful, waiting. The veils of time and circumstance simply tint my view with emotion, and I need only peel them apart.

I wish that I might hold that picture for a while, gently looking. And then I wish to forever remember that here, in this precious corner of paradise, in a lake lost in the clouds, I have been truly happy.

The whispers of sickness

My body is purging. My stomach churns and I have no desire to eat, only to return to my classic self-space -- in bed with the rain.

I only burn two candles tonight. Their flicker chases shadow creatures in erratic bounds over the iron roof.

I don't mind the sickness. It gives me the exuent, the opportunity to bind myself in blankets, cocooning body and mind. I recognise and salute the fact that my body can take control where the mind is too blind, taking me out of a situation and forcing me to process.

Given the daily bliss I exist in right now it is almost difficult to pinpoint what is being digested, or not, as the case appears to be.

I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. The angular constructs of my brain begin to fade.

I see a dark cave, and as I walk in I see only a short distance ahead of me. The light falls in soft grains.

The vision dissipates as my analytical mind sets in and tries to steer, placing fantasy objects in the cave and trying to validate the vision with constructed mystery.

A bang on the door brings me out of my dreaming and silence falls like petals around me.

The farm is perfect. I have a huge garden, a magical forest, perfect climate and breathtaking scenery. I have fulfilling things to do everyday and I am constantly inspired by those around me. I invent wildly and regularly in a fully-equipped kitchen and I retire by candlelight to a glass-fronted attic room. I wake up to a pink sky and ethereal lake through the expanse of glass. I have a sauna, musical instruments, library and pets. And wherever I am, cloud-hugged volcanoes loom over my vision.

But there is always something. One always feels the need for more.

Even when I have all my needs met, I find myself searching for something else - coffee, sugar, the long, open road. Family and long-lost friends. Dubstep and a dirty dancefloor. Real cheese and smoked salmon. My dress collection, hidden in the attic of my father's house.

Of course, the search comes from within. That Void inside, ever hungry, growing and contracting in muscular darkness. Most often I stuff the gap with food or exercise and it seems to lessen. Sometimes I pump it with weed and it feels satiated for a while, but the smoke lacks substances and dissipates quickly, leaving a monstrous hunger unable to be sated.

Life on the farm is as wholesome as it gets. I am more balanced than I have every been. The Void seems like a dark shadow of the past, most days.

But then, when I am least expecting it, that cold edge will touch my heart. A subtle knife point. Dark strands, webbing my core, tangling the shining silver of my breath, questioning. What is all this for?

Wherever I go, I will never find what it is I am searching for. Because I don't even know what that is. I don't even know if I'm searching any more. I suspect the search itself may be the goal.

I live here, on this magical farm, a place built for no purpose other than for people to exist. A place where anything can happen.

The farm is a place that does not exist except in imagination. It is made of our minds, of paper that cannot burn, where time stops and reality clicks along in star-sparkled clockwork. I am part of the product of an elusive man, a flute-playing yogi from China turned shaman in Peru and magician in Guatemala, who bought some land a year ago and magicked a whole world into being. It has literally exploded into life from the seed of his dream.

From here, daily worries, the horror of current affairs and the mediocre complexities of existence in the twenty-first century are the things of another life. This shiny reality seems to be all there is.

The only truths that can breed in this place are those bred in dreams. Everything else fades away, until we realise our Selves are out, again, searching for more, and we understand we need to pursue our integration with reality with more determination.

Even in paradise, one needs constant vigilance to stay true to oneself. I know it makes me happy to start my day with meditation and yoga, to steer away from sugar and smoke and to work a long, hard day. So why when in a routine do I seek disruption? As a Covent Garden fortune teller once cried to me; we are our own worst enemies.

My life is there on a plate. I have placed within it only good, pure things. But just because it is there, doesn't mean I automatically connect, and certainly doesn't mean I am present and fulfilled in every moment.

And at least I know I am in-tune enough to recognise when I need to renegotiate. Here in my glowing bedroom I step back, examine, and re-enter. Self esteem is directly linked to self-discipline. And self-discipline relies on a non-attachment to passing things, to Void-Fillers.

My insides feel less empty the more my thoughts unravel. Instead of sweeping over this darkness, I stare straight at it. Colours soak the edges of my view.  For at its depths I find only quietness. And in quietness, truths pierce.

Rainbow realisations

"Today I am neither a warrior nor a diablero. For me there is only the travelling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart.  There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is for me to traverse its full length.  And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly."

The Teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda.

I am walking in the Parque Central when the woman stops me, asks me if I speak Spanish.  When I say yes, she begins the interrogation.  Name, nationality, vital stats.  Why I am only wearing one earring.  "I hadn't noticed," I reply. 

She is excited by our meeting and I do not know why.  Without doing anything I seem to be satisfying her.

I say I am going to eat and she tells me she will accompany me.  I agree because I think she might say something that I could interpret as divine instruction, and right now I need some help with my decision making. 

We eat quickly and force conversation, and by the end of it I am searching my mind for questions to ask this strange woman.  She has no children and lives with her aunts.  She has never been outside of Veracruz state. 

I feel that familiar embarrassment edging over my face as I explain my story.  I don't know why, but I feel ashamed of my money, especially as in my own head I have very little. 

To them, I am rich.  How many nuances within perception.

I ask for the bill and I see her eyes dart over to me.  I can see where this one is going, so I put down the money for my own meal and push the cheque over to her.  She looks up at me and I stand, quickly, and kiss her goodbye.  "Que te vayas bien, amiga."  Go thee well.

Although I seem to have pleased the woman, the awkwardness of the impromptu dinner makes me feel uncomfortable and  I realise I'm slightly lonely.  I can't understand why I crave my space so much, and then feel lost when I have it.

I wander through the square, dulled by low cloud.  It has finally stopped raining.  People stare at me, as they always do in these kind of towns.  I must be the only blonde they've seen in months. 

My clothes are beginning to dry.  I'm not quite sure how to entertain myself next.  And then it hits me. 

I think I've done enough random wandering.

It is a revelation.  I believed I would travel forever, the eternal nomad.  Of course, I'm certainly not ready to return to England, but the idea of trading my backpack for a wardrobe, building a nest, seems heavenly in comparison to my bare hotel room. 

It is blindingly obvious now I think about it.  My reasons for travelling were largely to do with finding purpose.  Remember - remove all purpose from my life in order to reveal the true calling?  Well perhaps I've found it. Or some of it.

It no longer seems so necessary to break boundaries and do things that no one else has.  There was a time when I chose to study Physics, because I wanted to become an astronaut.  Not because of a deep desire to be on the moon, but because of a deep desire to do something no one else had ever done. 

But I realise now that I am doing that, every day.  No one else does what I do, in the way I do it.  I see how I touch people without even intending to, and its not me that does it, its whatever I represent to that person.  To the woman in the town square, I could be a manifestation of her dream to travel.  I could be an exotic friend, or a child to care for.  I haven't done anything and yet I'm now part of her story.

Its not about marking yourself as special, its about recognising your talents and using them to better consciousness.  All of this journey has been about finding my little ripple on the world but as I am the one making the ripple, not feeling it, how could I ever sense it?

Half a rainbow hovers uncertainly over the town.  Here it is called arcoiris.  Arcoiris… I roll the word around my tongue, thinking about that face of nature I identify with the most.  If I were likened to anything I would like it to be to one of these.

Rainbows are entire circles, the other being hidden behind the horizon.  They are formed in restless conditions, the elements coming together in a sparkling, snatched spectrum, enlightening observers in brief seconds before fading away to nothingness.  Shifting from place to place, cloud to cloud.  Sun and rain, air and earth, bound by colour.

Visible without ever actually existing.  As the townspeople continue to stare at me I resonate with the rainbow even more deeply.

The true triumph in my journey is this absence of urgency or desire I feel now.  I have, for the moment, stopped seeking and started being.  Literally and figuratively, other than this brief sojourn to Mexico, I have entered a phase of stillness.  I am at peace with where I am and where I am going.

Like the rainbow, I appear and disappear quickly back into non-existence.  But if I can momentarily lead people up into the sky and back down again, then I could say I've found my purpose.

Waterlogged

We close the farm for two weeks as July swans her way in on a chariot of thunderclouds. Morale is low as the wet season's sickness sets in and the realities of living on an isolated farm, with far too much to do, become less bearable.

Besides, my visa is almost up.

Mexico calls me with her brassy tones.

A year ago, I left San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, for Lago Atitlan, Guatemala, hoping to find my truth. Now, I leave my truth to get perspective in Mexico.

Sweet symmetry.

I learned early on that to read the last page of a book first ruins the story. Thus, I usually steer clear of divination. However, before I leave I get out the medicine cards - each one with an animal and a story from Native American tradition.

The frog hops out at me, symbolising cleansing. That makes sense, I suppose, thinking with downturned mouth as my eyes trace the artwork on the card. It tells me to be careful of becoming waterlogged, caught up in emotion and logistics.

Reading this makes me nervous, as I am facing a return to San Cristobal de las Casas, my home of last summer. So much happened there and it wasn't always positive. The streets will be paved with memories. I wonder if the nostalgia will be too much.

As I hop over the border with my amphibian legs I am captivated by drifts of clouds, snagged on the furry green of the northern Guatemalan mountains. The land flattens as we cross the border and the sun burns my arm through the window. The rain starts, as usual, in the early afternoon, and I watch as the road flows down a hill.

I'm not sure what I expected but I am somewhat underwhelmed on my arrival. I quickly move through the market and the french bakery and then find myself at a loss. Although it is pleasant to return to a town I know and love, I understand instantly that I'm going to have to look elsewhere for my inspiration.

The ghost of my former self runs barefoot along a street flowing with rain, hand in hand with the ghost of my former boyfriend. But the vision raises little emotion. Perhaps my frog skin is thicker than I thought.

The restlessness of indecision plagues me for a day before I decide to simply start walking to the bus station. On the way there I pass a banda boy I said hello to in a shop earlier. I recognise him because his legs are strange in some way, the feet bent and small. He has an inviting smile under tiny glasses.

I stop to say hello again and the greeting turns into a coffee. By the end of it I have a page of scribbled notes and an instruction that starts with getting the night bus to Mexico in 45 minutes.

I'm on the move again.

Two days later and I'm in a nameless city on an unseen map, somewhere on the Gulf Coast in Northern Veracruz. I've wandered the streets and indulged in my first bit of shopping for months. I've written a poem. I'm damp.

The rain hasn't stopped since I arrived, alternating between a light, but quenching mist and furious sheets that fall so hard they fill the air with spray and turn the streets into instant rivers. At the farm, I frequently talk about how much I love the rain. Now, I remember what it's like to travel in it. Once wet, always wet, as they say. Who says? Only me, perhaps.

But its true. You just have to get used to being damp. Or sodden, as is the case during today's visit to the El Tajin ruins. The site is different to the other ruins I've seen; so different in fact that archaeologists cannot understand who built it. The temples are covered in spirals.

My attempts to dodge raindrops fall flat as I feel my trousers sticking to my legs. I try to evoke images of bustling streets in pre-Colombian Mexico, building the temples up in my mind, drawing energy through my feet as I slosh through the puddles. I sit down on what was once someone's house to eat a huge mango and I think about how clean everything is underneath the water.

After two hours I collect my pack from the entrance with a sigh and trudge through the rain to the motorway, trying in vain to mentally ascertain an onward route from a plan that doesn't exist, on a map that I have never seen.

I duck into a collectivo going to the nearest town and wipe the steam from the window with my sleeve.

I see a hotel and impulsively tell the driver to stop. The room is cheap but has hooks to dry my clothes. I make myself some guacamole and ground down, pulling myself together, solidifying my thoughts from their fluid-flowing escape. When I am satisfied and more-or-less dry, I go out.

It is still raining.

I am wandering the streets of this new town, trying to make the most of my decision to stay, when I remember about the medicine card and laugh out loud.

Waterlogged. They have to be joking.

Skins

I slice open a ragingly pink pitaya fruit.  Hold it for a moment, captivated by colour, then look down at my left hand, where a large pink patch delineates the awkward union of boiling water, a broken thermos flask and my skin. I wiggle the fingers, carefully. The burn no longer hurts.

I've followed the progress of the injury carefully, from the first hot days of juicy swelling, through to the flaccid, moist, collapsed blister, hardening in a dark brown layer before peeling and fracturing over a pinky white new lamina, completely smooth in its perfection.

Yesterday, Nick and I passed the afternoon on his balcony, each taking turns as the story teller, weaving tales of past lives and sketching worlds for the future. We watched as this naked opening gradually took on the wrinkles of my old skin, pinkening in the sun, exposing itself for the first time to the raw elements.

Since this morning, deep ridges have appeared, parallel along the back, slicing down from the knuckles, then crisscrossing in folds as they grow out from my thumb joint, like cracks in breaking ice, or grooves, written in to a record.


I am literally watching myself age.

Most of the time I forget how old I am until I look at my hands. More and more scars, every year, skin drying up, wrinkles becoming deeper.

They tell such stories. Their arching lines follow the textures they've caressed, flicking as they dance and pressing strong as they support my weight. They reminisce on food they've fed me and feel the ripples of the seas they've swam. They radiate the warmth of the other hands they've held.

I often question the idea that we are all on one constant growth cycle, in one body with one lifetime. I wonder if all the souls in the world simply bubble up in different locations and times, flickering in and out on some other dimension and appearing in time and space in different bodies, like a badly-received tv signal, living a million lives in the span of one lifetime and a million lifetimes with just one life.

At other times I wonder if the real us remains hidden forever, showing itself in glimpses through papery layers, perpetually falling away. Like a wasp's nest, the perfectly constructed sum of everything around.

Either way, we morph, constantly. The events of my life are imprinted on my soul and in the big pink patch over the back of my hand, whispering from every wrinkle and marked with every scar.

Nick and I realise how fortuitous life must be for us to have met here again here - in mental and spiritual space as much as in physical - after nine years of wandering our somewhat directionless paths. As schoolchildren we moved in different circles. Whoever he was then never connected with whoever I was then.

Now, he resembles perfectly the child I went to school with, but he is so completely remade he could be anyone. We have flowed along our winding, separating channels and come out in this lake, only to find that, with all of our individual metamorphoses and layers shed, a new friendship lies waiting.

I turn twenty seven next month. The years line my face and I realise how much I must have changed as well, or rather how robustly that new self has grown out of the old, like ferns from a rotting log. I see that I will continue to grow and die, shedding skins and revealing the new.

In nine year's time, the Nick I see here might not recognise me. But he might recognise himself in my layers. Even now, he weaves himself into my story just as much as his words weave pictures in the air. As my skin grows, he, just like all the other characters in my expanding community, grows into it. Our shared space reveals a new corner of life on the lake.

In nine year's time, looking back, we might find it hard to place our thirty-six year-old selves in a twenty-seven year old's memory. But just like now, when I recall laughing at his poems in English class, he might remember a time when half of my hand was raw and newer than the day I was born.

There might be barely a scar to prove the vision, for the memories will have grown deep into my skin.