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While growing up
my mother gave me some simple advice:
“Be happy and
just be yourself”
While this
sounded pretty easy, it was actually quite hard to follow, especially in a
system which muddled, bullied and dizzied me with conflicting rules, clouding
up my young mind. And then I was
blinded by sensual things, sugar, coffee, beer, the touch of a hand and love
affairs that flared up like a meteors and then were gone like a fizzled black
rocket with nothing left but a sherbet of emotions.
Barraged with
advice, often from those who are deeply muddled themselves, I took many a wrong
turn. It was hard just to pause
and settle and let the dust fall to contemplate and let a pathway appear with
signposts happiness rising up.
So my youth and
early adult years resembled a two year old deprived of toys. I rushed from one attachment to
another, and was guilty of tantrums and dramas should my manipulations fail and
I’m ashamed to say that I have hidden my light in a bushel for fear of it being
extinguished by poisonous beings I’ve allowed too close.
My authentic self
was shielded off in walls, protection and padding and there was no safe space
for the broken neurons to connect like green roots.
What I admired
most were those travelling heroes had smashed open their inner truth and
arousing the sleeping divinity within.
They had become rooted in their deepest beliefs, values and
truth and living a life that is a true reflection of them.
I also wanted to be true to myself through my
thoughts, words and actions. I wanted to sacrifice any relationship, situation
or circumstance that violated my truth. And leave a Relationship that is not in
accord with my truth.
But there I was,
still with Etienne.
Etienne was
extremely handsome. He was
charming, attractive and his dark skin caught glances from women, sometimes causing a passion of jealousy to flame up
deep within me.
We’d been
‘seeing’ each other for years and were on holiday in Croatia
In ten years, I’d
hardly ever held his hand, for I was always afraid that holding his hand might
frighten him away.
It was about
teatime in the month of August, in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Over the noise of
holiday-makers paddling between the rocks of the bay, families bathed on the other
rocks, with their clusters of children. Etienne was happy sunbathing. The distant
promontories of the Dalmatian Coast went pale like faded photographs. His tanned body had a plumage of dark
chest hair and his black hair stood out against the blue veined water of the
harbour. Above us was a deep blue
sky and the warmth of the
sun had baked the rocks dry.
I was on the next rock along, wearing my favourite butter-yellow cotton dress, and while I watched
him, I noticed the islands beyond. It is said that Homer had spent 7 years living
out on the Croatian islands. Homer
had called Delphi Pytho in his Iliad and it was a rocky place, just like the
rocks we sat on here. The oracle, Homer said, was “truth translated
from the lapping of the waters, and the rustling of the trees and wind”
So I asked the
question: ‘is Etienne the one?’
But it must have been a silly question,
because for a long moment there was no answer. My mind was just an empty vacuum, and nothing entered it, no
truth, nothing. I waited a few
minutes, maybe more, and still no answer came.
So finally, impatiently, I got up and
sighed loudly. My movement made Etienne look over at me.
“What are you
doing?” he asked puzzled.
“Nothing”
“Let’s go have an ice-cream, I’m
thirsty,” he said, sitting up smiling.
Seeing his smile, my heart opened in affection. I smiled back and picked up my towel
and my bag. We both stepped over
the rocks until we got to the path at the harbour wall to find ice-cream.
Etienne had come
into my life at the same time as my friend Faith has suggested I start
travelling.
I was greatly
troubled because the man I loved did not love me back. Except for me and Faith, there was no
one on the park bench to console me. A canal barge piled high with coal, slid
before us gracefully.
“You’ve worked hard in life, Izzy” Faith
said “and life will help you along in the world: travel!” and she looked at me
with earnest, gentle eyes.
I was living in
Paris. That summer flies were
dancing in the air like a silent ballroom and ants were shooting over my body
like a film on fast forward.
“You have to give
Jim up!” she said, shaking her head gravely. Her black eyes leant nearer, and
she looked into my eyes while a tiny sparrow, light as a dragonfly, also
inspected me with bead black eyes.
“Give Jim up?” I
cried. The idea of giving him up
was literally horrible. Jim was a
kind of drug for my mind, and dreaming of him made me permanently high. “But I
can’t give him up”
She frowned and
for a moment we watched “You are no use to any man unless you’re comfortable
alone. Travel!” she insisted again.
I blinked. “But
how can I be without him?” I said, “I love him so!” The insects and birds
scooted about us. I wondered if
they too were marooned in love.
“But where is
he?” she asked. I looked around
me. Near to our park bench, a toddler trotted like a drunkard. Bees spiralled around the entrance to a
hive. I shook my head. She frowned. “He’s not requiting your love! You have
to give him up”
“You speak of
love as if it’s a bad thing, like a dangerous drug!”
“It is when it’s
one way! When you fall in love there’s dopamine and serotonin rushing around
your brain” she explained, “If you don’t give him up, you’ll be marooned in this state forever … like Mrs
Haversham in Great Expectations”
“What happened to
her?” I asked
“She sat in her
wedding dress until she was an old lady, waiting for her man to return”
My heart was
struck with a painful sensation.
“I can’t bear
giving him up”
“Change your
thoughts in travel?” She stood up from our bench and scooped up her bag.
“Travel?” I said,
with a sulk, disgruntled to see she was leaving me.
“A tour of Europe
for instance?” Faith suggested,
while moving off.
As soon as Faith
was gone, I was left alone on the park bench and though her bleak prognosis on
love left me in a dark emptiness, it was out of the question that I travel.
I was a whiny
pain-in-the-neck, who couldn’t last ten minutes on my own, let alone travel on
my own! Alone, scared and
isolated, I stood up and set off for home, hurrying for the bus stop, in the
hope that the moving motion of the bus would take my mind off the dismal state
of lovelessness.
At the Gare de l’Est,
I cut across the station to go to my flat, an attic room on the sixth floor
where I would return each night to retreat into its trap and dream of my dream
man.
Though I had
tried, I had not been able to give his fantasy up. The fantasy of love was such a comfortable daydream. It protected me and I loved to switch
on my imagination like a warm fire and be with my true love. I lived inside a fantasy.
But while crossing
Gare de l’Est station I heard a woman’s voice calling. She was calling out “Prague”. It was the train announcer.....
Read on at https://www.amazon.com/Lover-Traveller-Gets-Engaged-ebook/dp/B01C0SELZO/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1500220122&sr=8-10&keywords=Keziah+Shepherd
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