There were three weeks of comings and goings with Bhumi, sharing many feelings.. working together.. eating together.. saying goodnight and good morning. We put up a wall against physical intimacy, but we met at the wall every day and learned a lot about each other. We had time to dissolve some illusions and projections. Despite the troubled situation I saw everywhere in Bhumi's physical spaces, she impressed me again and again with her insight into feelings, the lightness of her spirit, and her capacity for joy. I was drawn to the light in her big brown eyes. Whenever I felt that this light was there especially for me I felt transported.
The decision about sailing hung heavily over the last week. Now it meant not only leaving this place where everything seemed to be going so right, but it also leaving Bhumi while something was growing between us day by day. At the beginning of the last week I decided to go do two days of work at Maison du Compte. This would be a little leaving before the bigger leaving to come. I had an intuition that something was off with the scene there and I was right. I felt stranded with too little real connection with these people who were, for whatever reason, too pressured by their own agendas to slow down and have a leisurely meal or conversation. And I could feel the absence of the special connection I had with Bhumi. Here was a person who was inclined toward me and was there beside me the whole day through. And I missed this. At Maison du Compte I was in a warm house with a big private bath with plenty of hot water, but with a cold heart, missing Bhumi's cold flat with the bathroom two flights down and a limited supply of warm water, but with a warm heart.
I had decided some time back that I would go sailing. I decided that I had to leave France at some point and that this would be the time to get perspective on what I had experienced and how I had changed. I could come back. I believed that I would. Maybe in the summer. Maybe in the fall. Almost as often as I was resolved to go I got a clear impulse to stay. Then two days before I was to leave the intimacy wall came down for Bhumi and I. The holes that had been intimations became invitations and finally the invitations were accepted. We became lovers. Once again I had to decide whether to leave to go sailing. I felt split down the middle, but in the end I…. we…. decided that there was something in this experience for me. Maybe sailing was important for me. I needed to at least go and find out. It was precarious for me to merely stay in this place without having my own center line.
I got on the bus in the early morning. Then the train. The train delayed. Another bus due to the delay. That evening I was back in Barcelona. Bhumi was in my thoughts and my heart every hour and mile. I had arranged through 'couch surfing' to stay with a 55 year old American living in the city, and he invited me to join him for a supper party. Not very pleasant. Too many people crowded into a small place and too much noise. The hostess was cold and anxious. Norman was a kind man, but lost. He came to Barcelona for love and was left alone from the start. Two years now and he is going back to San Francisco. Still looking for love..? or just sex, I don't know. He tells me that he is too old for these Barcelona women to be interested in him. He also reports this to the women he meets as well. Maybe he wants them to turn this negative belief around for him. Obviously, they don't do this. I drank some wine and was prepared to enjoy myself. I met three or four people who I could talk to in a meaningful way. With Fidel, a gentle open Barcelona man, no wife or children, who says he thinks of making changes… traveling… but then he says 'it's complicated'…. or ……' I am a fearful person'. I tell him, "It's not complicated. Fear…. OK…. maybe you are afraid, but you can choose to go ahead and do it anyway." I ask where he would like to go. He says, Asia. Then he tells me he came to America last year and drove across on the old Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, and his friends said he was courageous. I tell him I would love to talk to him in 6 months and find out what he decides to do. And then an English woman, Jean, who is tall, elegant, black and attractive, but says she only works at her job… why? … security. When I tell her I am in love, she insists, "No, it's lust." I say, "No… love". She refuses to believe this. Shakes her head and says "Lust". I don't argue, I say, "So you have given up on love." She says "Yes." . I say "It is true that if you want love, you have to feel the pain too." She agrees… not interested in going there. Sad. Then Olga from Barcelona, who is about my age. Seems centered. Maternal. She asks what would I like to know about her city. I say, "What is Barcelona without the partying?" She says, "Flamenco." I like this answer. Yes…. big passion… music… dance. When I tell her I am in love, she asks "Why are you here? Why are you going to Canaries? You should stay with her." She believes in love. I say, "Yes, I will go back." She says, "Forget the Canaries… not so great… go back… now." I say, I have to go away some time because of the visa. She says, "Go back. If you love her, you can marry her and stay." I feel foolish. She is looking through me and my poor excuses. I feel warmth, clarity… compassion.
Next morning I got on the plane and it filled up with passengers. I am trying to look forward to sailing but I think it will not be so great. I say, "in a week I will know more." I am afraid. It's not complicated. I have made it complicated so that I do not have to step into the fear. Afraid of what? I want to keep all the possibilities open. I seem to want something 'out there' to tell me what I already know. That love is the only thing that really matters and it is worth risking everything.
I arrived in Tenerife in the early AM and gave myself a bit of a tour of the island on the way to the ship. The ship was grand. The crew lively and congenial. I had an adventure to look forward to, but I could not escape the dismal feeling of being away from my love. I could not imagine a month of this. There were troubles and misunderstandings with Bhumi already around phone calls and messages. Wifi and everything technological produced an endless stream of complications, roadblocks and frustrations. Things were already starting to go weird between us at such a distance. Tenerife seemed like a big rock pile overgrown with pretty tourist accommodations totally lacking soul or beauty. On our sailing day I was seasick crossing to La Palma in high seas. The third morning I told Nikki, our 'captain', that I really had to return to France after this first week. Everyone onboard knew my predicament. Nikki gave me a warm smile and her blessings. One week would be enough. Over a month.. too much. I called Bhumi who had been doing her best to support me in my decision to sail, and she was delighted. We made plans to meet on my return in Provence where she would be on a family visit.
La Palma, our new location, was worthy of it's reputation as a place of beauty. A colonial Spanish outpost with old streets and real character… and tourists, but not like Tenerife. That evening many of us went back into town for a few drinks and I ended up sitting and singing and drinking red wine with three ancient islanders, Antonio, Oskar, and Trotsky. The sailing experience was starting to brighten for me. Then another crossing to a port on Gomera across high seas with a strong wind, but less discomfort, more exhileration. A walk through the small town, situated on a narrow skirt of reasonably level land beneath dramatic cliffs and a black sand beach, heavily populated with Germans.. At sunset Georgia, another passenger, and I made a 10 minute swim back out to the boat. Out on the quiet water our ship with it's black hull was flanked by another tall ship, a white hulled square rigger from Denmark on the left, and on the right, the red orange sun just touching the horizon. Seabirds wheeling lazily against the sky. Half circled behind us by cliffs marked and crossed by geological heiroglyphics in shades of ochre, grey, lavender, and white, rising 500 feet or more into the sky. I laughed out loud there in the water. It was hard to believe that this was real and that this place and this moment was my life. Some kind of perfection.
But I know that even this is not enough. In the life I lived before I always made the best of these moments and tried to feel that life was full. But I was lonely. Always looking for something. If the opening of my heart that I have had with Bhumi did not happen before with others it is no fault of whoever I was with. I know I have changed. I can stand outside of myself and see that I am able to move comfortably into all kinds of relationships. The old men in the bar, the guests at the party in Barcelona, the people of France or on this ship. I enjoy this openness. But these places and people can pass and be replaced by others. What I have found with my new love is something deeper. I feel that I can finally give myself in devotion to another and receive the same in return. This is what I have been looking for. The little girl in 12th night cake showed up at the moment I was ready to recognize this in myself. So I have made Bhumi my destination. I don't have a plan. I don't know when I will be back in VT. I am not making commitments to sail in Maine in the spring. We will work it out. Or not. Doesn't matter. I don't really have a choice. My head complains that I could be making a really big mistake, but my heart just keeps saying YES!.
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