Lightfoot

What a pleasant day.  Woke up in time to check out without penalty.  19-year-old Belarus knockout fucking her boyfriend in the adjacent room.  Put a flame under me and drove me distracted for an hour or so until I passed them in the street and suddenly snapped out of it.  Smiled.  Reset.  Whistling along.  Got my train ticket down to Kuala Lumpur without a hitch; bought at 12pm and the train sets off at 11pm, so a bit of time to kill.  Decided to hit up my spot on top of the big mall with the excellent WiFi speed and reception, dig in and get some Sam Rockwell films uploaded for Sean.  Spent ages on art work and details, not to mention bouncing and shifting details around to build a new YouTube profile and get it verified, and spent several hours uploading a few films there, only to find they were immediately recognised and pulled (even though everything was set to Unlisted and Private .. guess that just doesn’t fly for them).  Oh well, then used the account bandwidth allowance to just push the films into the online Drive and then share the link to the folder with Sean instead.  Easy.

Meanwhile, a lovely blonde Western lady in an aqua pattern summer dress got herself a drink from the kiosk and smiled at me.  We ended up talking a bit, sharing websites useful for travelling.  Emilia, Russian, has been everywhere.  Says she wants to go back to Europe next and do a trip from Finland on down south.  She’s been before, but never made it to Greece, so she wants to give it a go.  She was sweet and unassuming and wanted to tell me about the things she’d seen recently in Malaysia, the people she’d met and water she’d swum in and food she’d tried and where she’d stayed.  I was glad she just wanted to share, easy like, without feeling lonely or asking me anything.  In fact, before we even got into it, she said she was headed to Kuala Lumpur the next day, and then back to Russia, to St. Petersburg, to get some visa things sorted and a few bits of paperwork, and she invited me with her, on the spot, dead serious.

I’m still kicking myself, but only a little bit, that I didn’t say Yes right then and there.  I told myself, before leaving for this journey, that I wouldn’t go following women around and get distracted by them — no white rabbits of the Western Eyes variety for this Mr. Alice -- and I would like to stick to that plan.  But I liked the upfront nature of herself and her kindness, and the upfront invitation, very much.  It’s very tempting to look up prices to St. Petersburg and my own visa requirements and then see if I can find her once in Kuala Lumpur … just see what happens, yes?  Very tempting.  But I’ll leave it at just being made happy by the invitation.  That’s enough.  And I want to get my head and my body and my attention back in balance on top of a surf board, probably in Indonesia, preferably soon.  Chasing a lovely lady up to Russia and beyond, that would honestly just be backtracking, and isn’t the kind of adventure I’m looking for.

Well, I got nearly all the films uploaded and sent the link for the folder to Sean.  I also emailed a response to an ad I’d seen pasted on a phone box on the local street.  A yacht, 42 metres long, looking for some crew, no experience necessary, for travels around this side of the world.  Price negotiable, see the sights, learn to sail, etc.  Now THAT is the kind of thing I have no problem saying Yes to.  So I shot off a little essay about me and my dreams and why I’d like to join the crew on the boat.  It all felt a bit strange, coming out; probably too dry and serious.  But I’ll cross my fingers anyway.  We’ll see.  They say okay and the price looks right, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Over nine hours in one hard mall cafe seat; the snickering and flirty little giggles from the guy and girl behind the nearest counter turned near the end to looks of concern and a sort of nervous pity.  But while I was uploading and waiting I was also collecting old inspirational songs from movie soundtracks, the likes of Last of the Mohicans and Chariots of Fire.  Remembering my youth, my craving for climbing, for exploring, my intense spiritual focus in the opening days of California mid-childhood.  Reading and reading and sitting and listening and emptying my head and focusing all my energy, before grasping or dealing with a vocabulary that included “energy” or “meditation” or similar.  It was simply the response to what I felt was a calling, close and blood-deep, from Life.  This is you, this is your life, this is what you do, go deeper, go out there, you’re built for it.  Without those words, that was the magnetic will I couldn’t help but respond to, say Yes to.  Somewhere along the lines I came across the word and idea “shaman” and this ripple of recognition shocked through me like an earthquake made of light, and suddenly the things I was learning and feeling and exploring that I didn’t have words for or a means of sharing with other people made a lot of sense.  This hardcore spiritual sensitivity, without the branding of a prescribed religion, and (so) at the cost of a certain kind of current-world-ly social community.  But it felt positive, felt fitting, and like a direction that made as much easy sense as breathing.

So, I spent some time with some of the music that coloured those emotions and journeys back then, and some recent tracks that have reminded me of that exquisite response to my nature and my calling, and even, with their own tone and colour, feel like they are calling me back, from way over the other side of my life’s horizon.

Walking out of the mall, feeling lighter on my feet than I have in a long time (oh perception and perspective, you are such worthy human body toys), I was singing and untouched by concern for what anyone might think.  I love that space.  Like a child.  Like when I used to sing Dave on the streets, and just let those screams roar out.  It lifted me; it made me lighter.  Singing and singing, all down the street to collect my backpack, then all the way back to the ferry terminal, not minding the light rain, actually finding it refreshing, where the night before it simply bothered me until it stopped.  Tapping and humming and spitting out some of the lyrics on the ferry crossing over.  Then down to my 11pm train, near the end of the album, at this point listening to old David Gray.  How I love his sounds when I’m on the move.  I thought of Sara.  Wondered where she’s gotten to and let a silent tear of gratitude slide down, so thankful to have met her.  Got washed over by, washed up in, and overwhelmed by Flesh.  “It’s simply now or never, putting flesh on the bones of my dreams.”  Had a good cry in the gangway outside the sleeper hold between the toilets, warm fists and pounding knee, feeling the train pull away, the movement underfoot, that blessed sensation of movement, of transit.  Picturing how brittle those bones have become, and feeling how tender and delicious is this dressing of those bones with the flesh of action, of response, of breathing life into my dreams.

“This diamond in our hearts / there’s no need to nail it to the ground / there’s no need to smother it with sense / Just listen to the rhythm of your heart that pounds / and trust it all to chance / Cos we’re standing face to face / with the angel of grace / and don’t it / just / taste / so / pure."