Otherwise What?-- Chapter 7-- Lookout

    “Oh. By the way, Silvia. The Carpenter came by few days ago looking for you. He said Marco is coming to the Moon Festival.”
    “Marco! Yay! That’s wonderful. Thanks, honey. Hmmmm, if Marco is coming then I might have a favor to ask you.”
    “Anything you want.” I would be happy to do something for her, for a change. I gained so much just watching her do ordinary things.
     One of the things I learned from Silvia was to have personal rituals to keep me grounded spiritually throughout the day. This may have been the most valuable lesson of the entire summer-that spirituality, like morality, is not a spontaneous roll of thunder that nocks us from behind unawares. (Although this can happen too, I had found). It is a practice.



Silvia smudged the space, inside and outside, with a sage stick, and then lit incense by the green Tara, every morning when she entered the Cafe. I also saw her close her eyes briefly, as if she were saying a prayer, before eating every meal. Lila, who lived on the other side of the bridge with her, said Silvia does a long movement routine every morning and chants in the evenings before bed. Inspired by my mentor, I initiated my own morning ritual at pool in the stream.
    I would go to the Cafe first and brush my teeth. Then, early in the day, when there was hardly ever anyone around, I would cross the field, walk up to the stream, and wash my face in it. Then I would stretch a bit on the soft shore of decaying pine needles and sand. After that I began another tradition, sitting cross legged on a large flat rock, with a beautiful view of the waterfall entering the pool. I would move my arms upwards and together and then out, around and down three times on the breath, each time releasing a concern that was hindering me. I did this quickly, without planning or censuring the stresses which came to mind first that needed purifying. That way they arose in their most honest and raw iterations. After breathing out my three worst worries for the day, I would open both my hands, forearms parallel to the ground, and speak out loud the forces I intended to devote my energy to that day. For example, Honestly, Fun, Creativity, Humility, Wonder, Gratitude, Respect, etc. In closing, I would stand and dip my hand in the fresh water.
    I anointed my third eye with my moist fingers and then the middle of my chest, above my breasts, to symbolize my aspiration to balance knowledge and intuition. What part of myself can I trust, and when? As soon as adults stop patronizing me, they expect me to start lamenting how I’m getting old. That’s why I gave my glory up, into the service of something higher, beings who penetrate deeper than self-doubt and human foibles. Day after day, when I was acknowledging and releasing my worries, I thought of Blondie, Desire, and Fear. I wanted him to take interest in my art, to think I was pretty, to think I was the best. I thought I could trade my power for him to love nothing more than me. It became clear that my expectations were leading me back to the Path. I needed to do something, to free myself again from seeing only what I want to see, rather than accepting what is.
    “I needed to go deeper into the wilderness.” I decided.
    Weeks passed and I was feeling more like my old self again. Having Lila as a friend was invaluable. One of us was always happy to manage the Cafe, and we egged each other on artistically too. Sometimes in the middle of a busy lunch, she would take out her flute, sit on the stone wall, and play and sing. “Even the way she wraps scarves around her head and accents her crazy outfits is enough to inspire me to write or draw or arrange things in a meaningful way.” We played like this every day without saying a word. My morning ritual, making soap, cooking, and cleaning all day, and then reading and writing at night, created a nice rhythm. Silvia had loaned me several books, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Stephen Hawkings, and Autobiography of a Yogi, and I wrote my own poetry. I also began running up to the lookout and back, which was good exercise and helped lift my spirits. Feeling rejected by Blondie was an ongoing buzz kill, but I kept these feelings to myself, shoving even deeper into my unconscious the belief that I was unlovable.

.......


    Something had to give. One day at the market I had a break-through.
    “I won’t go back to the States!” Excitedly I posed this scenario as the perfect escape from the Path, and all the parts of myself, of my country, that I no longer identified with. I wanted to get away from the disapproval and disappointment of my father, who never understood my art, my mystical side, my longing to reject consumer culture. I wanted to turn off the guilt of being rich, of being white, of being American. It is practically impossible to live in Europe of the US without standing on the necks of innocent people and damaging the Earth. Finally I had found a community who didn’t buy things that pollute, condone sweatshop labor, and disempower consumer nations by outsourcing their industries. This too would set me apart from Blondie. He would go back to his girlfriend, and maybe get his Masters. I would stay here, someday build a house out of sod and mud bricks, develop skills to steward the life around me.
    At the festive market, trying to get Blondie out of my head I wondered, “Is there even any clear-cut definition of a follower?” I looked around at everyone at the market. Surely they could all be possessed with varying degrees of follower compulsions. Maybe they were not so unlike me, even though they looked more in touch with the primitive, some dressed in hide, many wearing clothes which were obviously handmade. They were pre-occupied with what needed to be done in their immediate lives, not what they were getting paid to worry about.
    “Maybe being a follower is just the fear of being oneself. Which is worse: never doing what you want, for fear of making a fool of yourself, or being a fool, acting however you feel all the time, not wanting anything at all?” This idea put a spring in my step. I widened my gaze, and suddenly felt much lighter.
    Fresh vegetables in baskets were spread out on the ground under a grove of swaying eucalyptus trees. The market was hidden from the road by a wooded knoll. Chickens galloped, their paranoid faces lurching back and forth, around clusters of people gathered around food, tools, and activities. Over a small fire candles were being dipped, led by the man who sells honey every week. Three of four ladies were weaving, on back strap looms, attached to a bogenvelia vine growing up a large rock face to the edge of the clearing. Tempting pastries and bread were laid out on fresh linen. The fish truck was there lined with coolers. Plums, pomegranates, lemons, and many other fruits abounded. The most popular place is always the coffee stand, where the smell of roasted candied nuts, fried egg breakfasts, and chocolate sauce over strawberries filled the air. As the adults sipped coffee, children learning to crawl rolled around near the feet of the musicians serenading the whole scene. That day Lila’s boyfriend Millan, his straight dark hair in a short ponytail, was playing accordion with a someone on clarinet, who was wearing cut-off plaid shorts, a loose necktie, a short brimmed black felt hat, and a fancy vest over his tattered white t shirt. On crest of the hill, under a large weeping willow tree, a group of friends talked in a circle, their seated figures silhouetted agains a clear sky and the sunny plains beyond.
    Since I had nothing better to do, I cleaned up the scraps on the ground as the market was ending, and I carried everything over to the compost near the tall rocks and covered it with a layer of Mediterranean oak leaves and soil. The compost from the previous year was padded around the base of a blossoming magnolia, growing in the shade of an enormous ficus tree, which someone must carefully water every week.
    As I returned to the dwindling crowd, the woman who often traded most of my soups, to distribute them to her friends in the hills, beckoned me.
    “See that man with the big straw hat?” She pointed to one of the farmers getting ready to leave, the one with the cute little twins. “I told him to save some cantaloupes for you. Is there anything else that you need?”
    “I’d like to learn how to sew. A needle and thread maybe. And I always can use paper and things to write with. If you have any.”
    “I’ll bring you some sewing stuff next week. I’ll pay you for the soap with cash next time, so you can ask the fish man to bring you some paper.”
    She smiled, her tan skin soft as worn in leather. Her gray irises were welcoming, like lily pads on a dark lake, and her heart was as warm as roasted chestnuts in one’s pocket. Just as I was about to go fetch my cantaloupes, she called after me.
    “By the way, the verbena cinnamon soaps are the most popular!”
    I gave her thumbs up.
    As I thanked the guy with the straw hat for the cantaloupes, one of the other farmers came over and handed me something wrapped in a bundle of newspaper. Opening it, I found it contained thin slices of dry salted ham, the dark meat which is top quality. The man’s chubby face looked a bit like a baby pig, and he patted me on the back cheerfully.
    “Thanks for cleaning up the ground.”

.......


    That night Lila, Blondie and I walked up a trail I had never been to, on the far side of the where the market was during the day. I was astonished to see that a sleepy little town lay just over the highway. I was disoriented and thought we were in the middle of nowhere. The road was far more visible on that side than from my lookout. Red tail lights and bright headlights came and went, little reminders that no matter what you think you know, there are many who knew it before, many who will refute it, and infinitely more things yet to discover.
    The crickets knew I loved Blondie. They cacti knew I loved Blondie. The stars knew I loved Blondie. The rocks under my flip flops knew I loved Blondie. Blondie knew I loved him, and Lila probably did too, but in the warm night air, swimming with the noise of cars, wind and songs, a hard line was drawn between fantasy and reality. We were too young and selfish to deny it. Yet is was not just fear of rejection that held me back. Something wiser was keeping me from succumbing to the desire to crawl into his chest, to finally be seen, to be the one. Something geneticists, biological engineers, defense ministers, and pharmacologist should take heed to, something held me back. My Conscience said, “Do not simply act because it can be done.”
    With my pocket knife, we cut up the cantaloupe and paired it with Jamón Serrano. Blondie rolled a spliff of some nasty dry weed he said he brought with him, although he didn’t have any peanut butter to share. We passed the joint, looking out at the towns sprinkled across the Vega like flung embers. I only took two small hits, because the last time I smoked had been two years before, in the mountains not far from where we were. Easily stoned, I wondered if the piglet guy had thought of giving me the ham before or after he knew I’d be eating melon. It was such a yummy combination!
    Since Lila didn’t speak any English, and Blondie’s Spanish didn’t suffice to communicate, we took turns singing songs, lounging on the steep rocks overlooking the valley. Light pollution from Granada haloed the low ridge across the highway. The uncivilized noise of the highway, almost straight below us, whooshed in waves, pulsating like bizarre emotions along the confused vein.
    Lila sang La Calle Del Olvido, by Remedios Amaya, with inconsolable emotion.

“I know
I cannot be without you
I anticipate your arrivals
And when you will leave
My body calls out
To your body your green eyes
Drown me
Among waves of love awaken
I awaken

If nothing else
The moon is out
I sleep below the roses
On a bed of thorns
Under a roof of shining stars

I am the vagabond
From the streets of the forgotten
Poet and dreamer
Who paints without color
Senseless things
Drawing naturally
That which rocks in the air
A bed of thorns
And a roof of shining stars

My heart is calling aloud to you
Because it needs the energy
You once gave me
You made me feel sure
In this world so dark
Where I no longer feel at all
The bottom of the earth swallows me again

My world turns around
The imagined purity of affection
For friends long gone
Betrayed by this world so strange
They don’t know me at all
The bottom of the earth reclaims me

Ay I am taken
Ay I am brought back
Seas moons
Moon of the seas with no water”

--Remedios Amaya

    My heart brimmed with appreciation for my free-spirited friend. Lila is completely non-flirtatious when she is having fun, which I love. Blondie groped through his archive of lyrics he knew from memory.
    “What’s that song.....‘I’m going to rent me a house, in the shade of the freeway.....’”
    “Jackson Browne! I love that song.”
    I was amazed Blondie knew Jackson Browne’s music. Being high as I was, the hypocritical irony of it was lost on me. The familiarity of my first language was amusing, as was singing, unbashfully like kids, with Blondie. The two of us did our best to remember all the verses. I  was sitting in the middle, crammed between rocks as pointy as saw teeth, with all of our legs almost touching. I could make out a smile, hearing us speak English, on Lila’s shadowed face. She perched slightly above me, one arm around her knee, her Medusa-looking hair like a dark contour cut out from the sultry maroon sky. Life is a gift, every single moment. Sometimes it’s almost overwhelming, the perfection of the rough stones massaged my back, the closeness of Blondie’s shoulder next to mine.
   
“Gonna pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening?
I’ve been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
When the morning light comes steaming in
You’ll get up and do it again
Amen

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out of the cool of the evening
Strolls the Pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

Ah the laugher of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And they tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight

I’m gonna find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each other’s paint-by-number dreams
And then we’ll put our dark glasses on
And we’ll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We’ll get up and do it again
Get it up again

I’m gonna be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Though true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

Are you there for the pretender?
Are you prepared for the pretender?
Say a prayer for the pretender”

-Jackson Browne

    “Ole!” Lila applauded.
    Finishing the remnants of our picnic, we departed the view coursing with electric lights, clashing like flashing billboards with the stillness of the night. Leaving the disembodied business of that world behind, we headed down from the cliff, trusting our feet on the moonless pathway through the forest, guided by starlight only. As we crossed the sleeping marketplace, I had an idea. “Should I try gleaming with Blondie?” I quickly gave up the thought. Even the beauty of the Cafe gardens were lost on this guy, each flower a jewel radiating like a stained glass window. I returned my focus back to the present moment. Lila led the way barefoot, and Blondie followed her through the dark. Returning to the now brought a homecoming sensation. The silence seemed to caress my shoulder with a mysterious message.
    “You don’t need a man behind you. You are always being watched.”     

.......

    When I woke up the next morning, there was a poem I could not recall, written in my handwriting, in the little stab-bound book I’d made from recycled papers beside my sleeping bag. Then I remembered the night before, how we’d walked home in the dark, and Blondie had stunk up the whole shed with peanut butter.  I had forgotten how lame it is to see artwork later on that was made while being high. The cryptic words read:

Bridge fuzzy automatic portal
Does sweetness balance fullness?
Fertile invitations to nothing
Timeless crucial boundaries

    My heart leapt as I recapitulated the night before, walking back not seeing what was ahead on the trail, realizing only the present moment is real. Then I noticed I was tired, which always happens to me after I smoke pot.
    “Something about eyes all around, not feeling alone.....”
    I went to the Cafe and then the pool. The surface was perfectly still, and the colors of the woods were replicated exactly in the water. With a seamless shift of intention, the reflection gave way to the recognition of what lay underneath. Visible simultaneously, through the mirror, awaited stones, light and shadow, and the occasional chunk of debris. The bottom of the pool was like the background of a song, the key, the rhythm, and the chords. This foundation is easy to forget, as is the nature of a reflection, but without it there would be no work of art. Otherwise the melody would be just a scanty personal ditty, devoid of mood. Moods are universal. They precede emotions, which precede images, which precede thoughts, which precede words, which precede everything humans do. Moods create things to be vessels which can behold them, learn from them, personify them, which is different than taking things personally.
    Bird sung merrily in the tree tops out of sight. Different ones than we have in New York. Archetypal birds without names. There was a palpitating sense that much more was going on than what meets the eyes, invisible earthworms, animal tracks, ancient stories. I never learned to read the calligraphy of the landscape in school. It seemed to contain some mystery of myself, how plants metamorphose from flower into fruit. I wanted to learn this language, and to find my role in the community, and somehow keep making art. Like people become more beautiful the more connected they are with nature, the more healthy we become the more we do art. That morning I drew a circle on the forest floor, sprinkled dirt in the four directions, and put a dry twig in the center, like a column between earth and sky. Then I released three tensions and said my intentions for the day.
    Back at the Cafe, Lila was up. She lounged with her bare feet crossed on one of the tables and was playing her flute, in a cute ruffled miniskirt, when I arrived. I wanted to frolic in the grass like a maniac every time she played. I brought her a cup of coffee and sat down next to her with mine.
    “So, you and Blondie!? You seemed to have a lot of fun last night. How’s it going living in the shed together?” She leaned forward and tilted her head in an erotic and humorous way, how women do when they want to talk about sex.
    “There’s nothing going on.” I said stern and definitively. “He’s got a girlfriend, you know.”
    “Well, sometimes it’s safer to like someone who’s unavailable, for whatever reason. You don’t have to worry about trying to make things work.”
    I had never thought of this. I could think of several previous crushes of mine that fit. “How come Lila is so wise?”
    “I’m definitely not in love, if that’s what you’re asking. A flood of excuses to deny my feelings stood by, at the ready, but I stopped my lips. Who I was trying to convince, Lila or myself, that I wasn’t using Blondie to confirm I was unlovable?
    “He’s so arrogant,” I whined. “Why would I want to be with someone like that? He only thinks about himself.” Bitching only made me feel worse.
    “Well, I think he’s cute.”
    “I do too.” That much I owned up to. “How are thing with Millan?”
    “It’s been kind of hard lately. Actually I’m not even sure if we’re still together.”
    She looked extremely sad.
    “What happened?” I asked, worried about her.
    “I think it will be fine. I just need to relax and stop picking fights with him when he wants to do things without me. He’s been talking about selling his pottery at a bunch of festivals this summer, ‘cos a friend of his will be taking a car.”
    “Could you go with him?”
    “I don’t really want to. I’d just be sitting around while he plays music and sells mugs and stuff.”
    “Well, don’t just blame yourself for the fights. Does he do anything to reassure you not to worry if he’s away a lot?” I sounded like an expert on this, but it had been a struggle for me too, setting the person I love free.
    “He tries, but it seems like he’s afraid I’ll box him in, or something. I just don’t know if he’s ready for a serious commitment.”
    “Is that what you want?”
    “I think so, but not if it means fighting all the time. You should be glad you’re not in a relationship!”
    “I’m actually really lonely, Lila. I feel like I would be learning so much more if I was with somebody. I’ve been thinking maybe I should move on, go somewhere else.”
    “Really? Everyone here likes you a lot. I didn’t know you felt this way.”
    “It’s just a recent idea. Don’t tell Silvie yet, OK?”
    “Of course not.”
    “I’m sorry about things with Millan. I’m here for you, always.”
    “I know. It really helps.” She sounded tired.
    “I’m gonna water the plants before it gets too hot.”
    Lila finished her coffee and hugged me when she left. Blondie showed up and prepared himself some bread and jam and coffee. As usual, he treated me like a friend, or a piece of furniture. I didn’t want a friend. I wanted a deity. Blondie ate his breakfast quickly and went out back to continue the brick project he was working on. It took a long time to water the potted garden. The air on my skin, in my lungs, renewed itself, unnoticed like I was. The brand new day was full of grace, but I felt empty. Crystal clear water from the hose ebbed into the verdant pots, drenching the plants’ roots, while I thirsted. There was nothing I wanted more than to love. Maybe one thing: to be loved. To be in love is awful. Is love nothing but need?
    “I want to quit the word love. I want to quit love altogether. I want to be free, and I want to be able to let the person I desire most be free as well. But I don’t know how. They are better off without me, in that case. Does anyone know how? To love another person freely? Do you have to be a saint? How far away am I? My love, I miss you desperately. In my very nature, I feel like I am love, but I fear I am unable to love exclusively or unconditionally.”
    As I watered the plants I indulged in this private rant.
    “I have a surprise for you.” Silvia scared the shit out of me. Gesturing with her eyes for me to come to the farthest end of the terrace, I followed. It seemed like she didn’t want Blondie to overhear.
    Silvia had told Blondie “no” about the chimney idea. She told him our stove and oven work marvelously, which was true. Plus, there was already someone in the community who builds beautiful cob stoves as his primary means of survival. She wasn’t going to endorse lower quality stoves, being installed by some foreign entrepreneur, at the expense of her friend’s trade. I had the idea of using the heat resistant bricks to make refrigerators, using the cold from the water pipes, a more high-tech version of what we already had under the sink. Blondie was making a large one of those outside behind the kitchen, winding the water pipe back and forth inside the bricks. If it worked, he could to donate the bricks so other people could do the same, thus getting the gratification of feeling charitable. Silvia seemed to be getting fed up with Blondie too.
    “Would you like to visit The Vines?” Silvia asked me. “Candela, a girl I’ve known since she was a baby, is having a mother’s blessing the day after tomorrow. Do you want to walk up there with me and spend a couple nights?”
    “Yes! I would love to.”
    You have to watch out what you ask for. Once again, without me saying anything, Silvia seemed to know my thoughts. This could be the beginning of my new life. Maybe I would stay in  The Vines forever. I could feel myself coming closer to home.