The knock from below.
I’ve had a shocking time to be honest.
The storm I thought I had weathered got worse. There came a
knock from below when I thought I couldn’t get any lower and I had to return
home the beginning of this year due to the death of my Father, Nicky.
In the months that followed I had to end a relationship and have been technically homeless and very very lost. Creativity has always been my way to escape but there has been no flow, no escape and a lot of darkness. With no light to grow and no air to breath I have been suffocating for a long time.
In the months that followed I had to end a relationship and have been technically homeless and very very lost. Creativity has always been my way to escape but there has been no flow, no escape and a lot of darkness. With no light to grow and no air to breath I have been suffocating for a long time.
I tried in Bristol but even the stars said it was going to be a pretty
shite time and basically to not bother. Life started to feel like swimming through sand and I was very sad with my perceived underachievement’s in the
city... I did become a lesbian though, which was a good life achievement. Finding love is problely one of life's greatest.
With permission from the universe to get the fuck out of
here, I decided the only reasonable option was run away to America and see
some of the world with my girlfriend. This idea broke the minds of our
housemates and we were told we’d have to leave forever if we decided to broaden
our horizons worldwide. I didn’t agree but still packed up my whole life
(again) and put it into storage.
And then we jumped. We literally jumped and smashed face
first into the worst fires in Californian history- scenes from the fiery pits of hell. A terrible sign.
Our high hopes of San Fran were brought crashing down with the reality of life with no healthcare. Homlessness is epidemic and mental illness is the norm. It was heartbreaking, distressing and eternally haunting.
We were out of there in 3 days, traveling through smouldering buildings and miles and miles of burnt out land, picking up stories of all that was lost on our bus journey to the wild lands. It was an uncertain time. Most of it I can't talk about. Overall it was fine but got extremely hairy after being held up in a cabin in the mountains for nearly 3 weeks by a mad-man. We decided to cut our losses and escaped a few days before Christmas to Mexico- No plan, no nothing. I would now advise making a little plan. Floating into the unexpected is great but sometimes the flow is fast and dangerous, there’s sharks….and they will eat you...
I must stress it is so important to be on the same page of
the same book of the person you travel with too. I felt restricted as my travel
buddy did not have Mayan ruins or climbing volcanoes on their experiences
agenda and I felt like I missed out on a lot. Technically I can only blame
myself. I should have broken free and just done the things I wanted to do, but
I felt like I had the responsibly of another less able person and at some
points chained to a very temperamental child. Again this is my fault and I
should have followed the advice that I would have given to anybody else.
Overall, my time away was an enormous test of patience.
Mexico, Belize, right through Guatamala, Costa Rica and Colombia-I struggled. Sadly
I’ve been affected first hand from people with drugs and alcohol related
problem throughout my entire life and I didn’t really want to be doing this on
holiday. My understanding nature was getting tested on one of the most challenging
trips of my life. I can only assume it is my cosmic karma to withstand such
torture.
We went from the beautiful beaches of Mexico to Belize for
New Year. A ‘magical time’ with friends but the cheap tricks sent a few minds
backwards and there were crazies on the rampage. Happy new year!!! YAY
There were a few magical moments; escaping on the golf
buggie we’d hired driving aimlessly round the potholed dirt tracks (pretty fun
tbh) screaming WWWWHHHHHHYYYYYYY!!!!! I ended up being thumbed down by 8 boys
playing huge drums looking for a lift to their next destination hustling money
from tourists. I picked them up gladly. It must have been a cool sight, an
overcrowded, colourful and loud assemblage of drums hurtling towards you. That,
the illuminesos jellyfish and a spot of diving could have been my highlights,
except all the coral was dead. Too sad. After the
fragrant New year it was a good idea to leave so we zoomed to the shit hole
that is Livingston and then got a very dodgy boat across to Guatemala.
Lake Atitlan was beautiful, A natural wonder of the world
indeed.
There are many different villages around the lake accessible by boat
but San Pedro was the one we choose to call home for a month. We found an
amazing hostel called Brothers. It was full of beautiful souls, interesting conversations,
theory’s on life and the universe….
This was like nutrients to my mind and it was
an inspiring place to stay. My partner got a job in a bar. This seemed like a
good idea…. She could do her favourite thing and I could occupy my time with
things like volunteering building mud huts for familys that needed them.
Sadly
the strain of her job was not conductive to happiness. San Pedro was lovely,
but it’s a party place full of cheap tricks for party kicks and we decided to
cut our losses and get out of there and zoomed strait to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica baby!!!! What a place! So many good things to say
about Costa Rica. We were only there for 5 days …..but it was simply stunning.
The beaches, wildlife and bio-diversity were mind blowing.
Sadly it’s not as
economical as other Latin American countries and our extremely small budget was
not really worth living on. So we were on the move and with my 32nd birthday
looming, I wanted to be somewhere that I thought I would enjoy. I choose the 2nd
largest carnival in the world- Barraninquilla. Shakira’s home-land.
The colour, costumes, music
and dancing was crazy crazy and we ended up staying in what can only be
described as a squat house with 69 random couch surfers right on the firing line
of the carnival. This place had 3 floors of concrete a skull breaking sound
system, one toilet and two pregnant Chiwawas on the brink of giving birth. The
whole place was rammed with drugs, sex, foam and party. There were people
EVERYWHERE. Every tiny piece of floor was covered in bodies and the bits they
needed to stay toxic. The 5 day 2/4/7 party didn’t suit my partner and after
the worst time ever on Valentines day- I nearly escaped…..But my impounding sense
of responsibility kept me bound.
We got over it with promises, and I got sick.
After the awful carnival we desperately needed a nice time
and things got better in Salento, a beautiful place in Colombia with sky high
coconut trees and epic landscapes. My partner wasn’t convinced by nature, they
wanted the buzz of the city but she soon changed her mind and we rented a
beautiful tent thing at the top of a mountain covered in flowers. PERFECT. All
this time had been manic and hard and uncertain and finally we were somewhere
where we could breath real fresh air. I was in a good, calm place. I felt good
here.
I felt inspired by the nature and the beauty and I started to
want things out of life again-something I hadn’t felt for a very very long
time. I put together some ideas; The usual Christmas number 1, learning to
drive, successful bla bla and even sketching out a sequel for Sing For Your
Life. I started to believe shit could happen and I felt better. We got a sweet deal accommodation wise in Medellin
and decided to head back into Colombias’ capital city to prepare to housesit
for the rest of our stay. Things were looking good for the last part of our
trip.
The Call
Right before leaving Salento I got a call from my brother
that sounded important. He said he’d speak after my nine hour bus journey and
the whole time it weighed on my mind. We checked in, made our bed in the mixed
dorm and I called my brother. He went on to tell me my father had passed away.
There is no good place to receive this kind of news, but lying
in the mixed dorm of a party hostel in a country over 5000 miles away was
really up there with the worst place ever. Everything fell away from me and all
I could do was cry hysterically down the phone. I was left alone for what
seemed like an eternity curled up in bits while my girlfriend tried to organise
another more private space to grieve. Sadly International House Hostel was
neither accommodating nor understanding and I was told they couldn’t move us
and we wouldn’t be refunded if we left, despite walking in off the street 20
mins ago. I was so angry, so devastatingly upset I fell down the 4 flights of
stairs to confront the people in charge. Utterly hysterical and physically
violent, they returned our funds and we fled into the night and into the
heaviest storm I’ve ever experienced.
I cried all day every day for a week. My girlfriend had
never met my father and I found it hard to feel any comfort from her. The words
I needed to hear weren’t there. The grief couldn’t be remedied and I ended up
feeling so incredibly alone. Being far away from friends and family or any
connection was horrible and it took a week before I could I get on a flight I
could afford.
I don’t remember much. I think my mum picked me up… and then
I went to see my brothers and Nickys partner at their house. They had been
grieving together for over a week before I arrived and I was surprised by their
good humour. I guess they had had each other for comfort. I didn’t want to let
the side down by being in bits but I just wanted to cry all the time. I then
had to spend a week living in the house, picking up the pieces of a paint and
decorating job that my brother and Nicky had gone out to get extra supplies
for.
My other task was editing/re-writing the synopsis of his
life that would be safe and tame enough for the grandchildren/ religious
partys. Being there, living there…. Hard, horrible… Torturous. I couldn’t look
at photos, didn’t want to see his face. His chair was achingly empty at the
table we had always sat at but his voice echoed round the house through my
brothers.
After the painting was finally done and with no home to go
back to, I went to live on the floor at my mothers house. I found her hard to
be with. I have never experienced grief first hand whereas she has sadly lost
many. I felt she wasn’t as sensitive as I would have appreciated and eventually
I hated her even mentioning Nickys name. My sensitivities were extreme and I
needed to be loved in a different way to the one she expressed. In honesty I
needed something no one could give me.
Sadly she had her own bad news and the dreaded C word was
mentioned. She had a hysterectomy very quickly and I was there helping her
recover, carrying her shopping, making food and cleaning. My girlfriend was
still in Colombia trying to get back. The time difference made communication
more problematic. I wanted to be a priority but it always seemed like she was
occupied with other things. I didn’t feel important and even when she did make
it back I felt we were out of our depth. There were times when she was present
and aware and trying to be supportive, but then it was like she had completely forgotten.
Issues re-arouse and despite living apart, I was finding it difficult spending
time together.
After living on my mums floor and helping her recover I
moved in with friends. They cooked for me, got me out of bed when I felt like I
couldn’t move and taught me how to drive. I decided I needed to do something
with monumental focus and I choose driving. I also got relentlessly stoned. I smoked a crazy amount of weed. I
smoked from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. I would
cleverly choose official driving lessons in the morning so I could smoke
earlier and was getting so, so SO stoned even I was worried about my mental
health. I forgot words mid-word. I couldn’t string a sentence together, I
wasn’t o.k….but I had nothing else. No inspiration, no tools to create, just an
endless amount of sadness.
Smoke, eat, sleep repeat was literally all I was able to
manage….. There were more testing times with my partner. I was finding it hard
to find the strength to support myself and I needed someone who was going to be
nice to me all the time. After a full blood moon, the predicable unpredictable inner
child left me emotionally wrecked. My dreams were littered with needles and I
was coming out with rashes which I suspected were emotionally triggered. I had
to cut the chain that bound me, I didn’t have the strength to ‘understand’
anymore.
After the splitting with my girlfriend I went into hiding in
Alton. I didn’t want to be a burden on my friends forever, despite them saying
the opposite. I have built up a good reputation as a house-sitter and am good
at being homeless so kept extremely busy with my temporary stately home. There
were lots of animals to love and be loved by.
I went back to the city I’d learnt to drive in and passed my
driving test with only 2 minors. I totally cheesed up the driving examiner and
he fell for my powers of flattery and utter amazement at his really average
life storey. I didn’t realise how passing this test would affect me and I cried
a lot. I cried loads more in secret. I first learnt to drive with Nicky when I
was 17. He would have been so proud and I’m so so sad he never got to see it.
All my best memories are of us driving like loons, talking and driving and talking
and driving. He loved driving.
NICKY
The storey of Nicky is a wild one and one not many people
will believe. Tall tales they call it, but Nicky was not prone to exaggeration.
He was a religious man. Born a Jew but forced into the Jehovah’s Witness club
young to preach the word of god. This son of an inventor was an entrepreneur
from a young age, money meant something and he turned a profit in the
playground selling yesterdays donuts as well as going through the pockets of
church goers whilst banished to the cloakroom for fidgeting. He didn’t brush his teeth because he thought
he would get new ones when the world ended in 1975…But it didn’t end and the
hold of god was weakening, just like his teeth. He married young, had a string
of successful window and cleaning businesses but with the new children and wife
demanding more money, cars and fur coats he decided to rob banks- Obviously. He
robbed 9 of them; With a sawn off shotgun, fake Irish accent and a moped as a
getaway vehicle. This was the downfall of the operation and he got caught up
with. He made a good effort to avoid a huge sentence by eating his own beard in
the cell and claiming insanity. The man they arrested had a beard and clearly
he did not.
While in jail the woman he’d married moved on without his
knowledge. He dabbled in drugs and sadly tried Heroin for the first time. He
retuned into the world and started a successful restaurant and an affair with
my mother bringing another 2 children into the world. These achievements went up in smoke with a
full blown heroin addiction. The later part of his life he retrained as a drugs
and alcohol councillor and then as a total cosmic healer using astrology,
crystals and laughter therapy. LOL. Despite his religions upbringing, he was
certainly no saint. He was called Tricky Nicky for a reason. His story will be
told better in finer detail by my older brother eventually.
Because of an addiction he was not around so much when I was
young. He let us down a lot but came into back into my life when I needed
someone most. At 15/16 I was going through terrible troubles with my mind; Depression,
bulimia, self-harm. I dropped out of my A-levels and was not in a good way
mentally..
After years of hating
him, I came to understand that he was suffering from an addiction, a disease.
My lifelong anger dissolved as my mind evolved and he helped me immeasurably
when I was finally open to it. I said I didn’t want to see him if he was
smacking up and over time (probably longer than I was made aware) he did make
it through. With the help of his partner he found stability and a new
relationship with his children emerged.
My mother didn’t like this. She couldn’t see how I could
forgive a man that had been so bad. But I did, whole-heartedly. I can still
remember the moment my resentment lifted and I was free of my past. It felt
amazing. My mum started to loose the plot and I moved in with my dad and his
partner. I got my act together and went to art school. He taught me to drive
for the first time, astrology and chess. I think I beat him once.
He taught me how to think better, how the mind was the most
powerful thing and if you mastered that then you have mastered everything. I
caught on quick, understood concepts easily and was able to apply them to my
life almost instantly. Instead of wallowing in depression and angst, I started
to change to positive thinking, forgiveness and transformation. He was a
mad-man and a genius and I loved him very much despite everything terrible he
had actually done.
It’s taken me a long
time to write anything at all…...This has all been incredibly difficult but
essential for me to move forward. My ex girlfriend and I are in a good place.
She is doing the things she needs to do to grow and I am finally finding my way
out of a tunnel.
I still feel the need to recover, to get out of the sad
sandpit I’ve been swimming through….. and it feels like I can do it. Like I
said I started writing literally a few days before Nicky died and I am planning
on picking that up- In Portugal. London will
devour my energy just trying to survive but while i’m homeless/ housesitting I’m
working ‘normal’ jobs and saving money
so I can sustain a period of development out there.
I am finally feeling some light on my face. The green fog
has lifted. I have a plan and I think it’s a good one. So hopefully you will
hear more of my adventure away, and hopefully the light from this tunnel isn’t
just a mirage.
brilliant... xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, your honesty, told with a thread of sarcasm and irony throughout it doesn't detract from the raw facts, what a shocker - I hope you get some good your way soon. If it helps I have some small storage space to offer in Deptford. Danny X
ReplyDeleteWow. I’m so sorry for your loss. Sending positive energy and healing to you x
ReplyDelete