My journey begins in London, with a
familiar lover. It takes roughly two days, a few huge rows and my
first visit to a therapist to straighten my head out after three
months decadent living in the countryside in Yorkshire, being spoiled rotten by my mum, living well...brain becoming spongy with
telly and comfort, indolence and stagnation...the cosy quilt a
traveler rarely enjoys.
It was such a shit hole though...the
free place loosely termed 'guardianship contract' Mike had found to
live near Crouch End in North London. An abandoned office empty cold
and filthy, full of other people's rubbish and junk...but after hours
of a joint effort in cleaning many layers of muck and mice shit from
the kitchen floor and surfaces, 6 bin-liners full of other peoples
left over stale rotting food, half empty cans, bottles and dead house
plants, we had a reasonably homely kitchen and bedroom. Everything we
needed we could salvage directly from this strange abandoned work
space, rented out to a bunch of artists for years...everything from
CD players to amps n speakers, working fridges, pasta, spices, a
super nice glass desk, lamps, bed mattress, bed covers (we washed
them), cables, candles, mirrors, human plaster castes both full size and bust size and plastic flowers, one framed for
decorative effect, a cosy heater that looked like a real fire if you
squint late at night, upon which I could keep my also salvaged tea
pot warm and drink delicious calming tea, sprinkling rose geranium
oil on the top, filling the stagnant decaying cigarette filled air
with the pungency of exhilarating flowers.
It had become a lovers' paradise, warm
and spacious. After dealing with my somewhat irrational behavioral
patterns, I found it wasn't so hard to be a sweet and kind lover, and
I got used to the filth, cigarette smoke and acclimatized vaguely to
Mike's decadent need for the heater being on all night. I began
falling In love again, with the person who has been the only staple
in my life all this time, for the umpteenth time my eyes felt glossy
and my heart swelled among other things for Mike, I didn't want to
leave our love den in the slightest, but I had to didn't I? I am
nomadic. My stomach turbulent to the point of needing to vomit, voice
shaky, a bit pissed and stoned, dark rain in black sky pummeling down
determinedly outside, exaggerating the ambient interior. “You
choose to live this lifestyle Claire, you're the one who wants to be
free, you have to bear the consequences,” he says, my heart
fragmenting. “I think I am quite free.” There is nothing to argue
with this statement, so I lay my head down on the salvaged pillow and
tried to breath through all the horrendously painful emotions that
were bubbling inside me, simultaneously admiring Mike's emotional
desert and seeking solace in that statement... we are both free and
it is beautiful.
I finally booked my flight to Bombay
after months of saving up in relatively arduous casual work whilst
squatting, both in South London and at my mum's, . I didn't know why
I was going, why I was leaving, yet there was nothing really to keep
me in London. How long realistically could I maintain this sweet tasty bubble, without my soul beginning to harden and bitter like an apricot
stone? “I love you Mike...”
“I love you too baby.”
The next thing I know I am being picked
up by Pranav in the oldest car I have seen on the road in years, the
first car anyone in his immediate family has ever owned, the one he's been
telling me about for ages as we drive over a vast and bumpy fly over
in the dark of Mumbai... I have no idea what we said to each other
but it's surreal as fuck and I'm too emotionally exhausted to care, I
am simply trying my best to deal with the inner fragmentation, to
breath, to trust that things will fall into place. Remembering all
too suddenly about the lack of road rules in India, running red
lights, driving through junctions with cars coming at you from every
direction, wondering how it is possible that there aren't more
accidents, once again taking my life in my hands, living on the edge
and almost never falling off.
I am still in pain, I am still missing
Mike, but I am so grateful to him. I am writing this somehow because
of him and I am definitely enjoying & learning Hindi, largely
because of him.
