Reminiscences (One)

I was talking with Tom this evening after work - about diving, and sailing, and having a lousy sense of direction - and I thought about my old travelling diaries. I opened one up, thinking I would blog about sailing the open ocean, but I found instead this entry. I thought I would share it with you.

Wellington, New Zealand 06/04/92

Singing & dancing together so many times - on the front doorstep, in the tea garden, by the back door, in the kitchen by candlelight, in the TV room & upstairs on the landing. In the street in town when we meet our friends, and on the road outside BH when the Magic Bus arrives to take us away... confidence in my voice growing every day - sometimes it doesn't yet sound right and sometimes, sometimes I surprise myself because it's pure and sweet and clear - just having the confidence to let go, to let it out and not worry about the wrong notes means that it gets better and better - Aotearoa has been music & song for me - a new tune sung with each new place, each new friend - beautiful beautiful Aotearoa.

John wrote a letter to his friend - described all of us - and about me he wrote "she knows" - and I was surprised and delighted and wondered if people really saw me that way, and during my time at Beethoven House I realised that yes, maybe now, in some ways, I do. I've learned so much about myself & about giving & receiving & about love, maybe that's clearer & shines out towards those who are on the same path.

John. He wrote in this diary that sometimes it takes a while to recognise old friends, but when at last you do, the depth of knowing is obvious to both of you. We realised that history we share the night in the kitchen when I heard for the first time, someone telling my story - and it was his story too - and the realisation that someone else went through that and felt the same way as I did was so incredible - sitting there as he spoke of Jen with the tears pouring down my face, someone else had an Andy, and he'll miss her for the rest of this lifetime, just as I'll miss Snoopy.

I've thought a lot about when my path of life separated from the path chosen by most of my friends - when did they choose to settle down & when did I choose to walk the path alone? I guess it's been a gradual process which began with the air tickets to Bangkok eight and a half years ago, which moved through cycles and circles, in & out of other lives, never staying still, always on the move, rejecting those who would tie me down without really realising I was doing it.

To hear John putting into words what I was feeling and which I had tried to speak of, describing that rough & rocky path down which we walk - I recognised the truth - the whole truth, perhaps for the first time, thought I've said it & thought it before, but it finally crystallised into reality because I saw that here was a person who also walked that track - the understanding of two people who meet on the road and see that their hitching signs have the same destination written on them.

I know this path is hard and lonely, and it would in some ways be so easy to push my way through the brambles onto the straight, level, bitumen highway, with its cat's eyes down the middle and white lines to mark its edge so you don't ever swerve off it in the dark; but I'm so so GLAD I'm on the rough forest path, with its twists & turns, stones to trip on, creepers across your way, never being able to see very far into the woods - because I know it's the right one for me - I have no plan, no map, no companion, I can choose to take any of the many routes through the forest and I now know that I'll never really be alone - even though sometimes I walk by myself, I always have myself for company - and I love her very much now, she's my friend in all her different costumes; and I also know that on that path I'll meet other travellers who walk it too - and the understanding of each other will be in our eyes as we acknowledge old friends and walk alongside them for a while... and the forest will always be alive, ever changing, always a different view around each corner and we'll live our lives to the full - dancing & singing & laughing & crying through every moment because we're alive and free and happy to be ourselves and to let the fates work their magic upon us.

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