Pool of Positivity

When you are completely lost you are completely free

White bed, white sheets, white curtains, white bath, white lavender body lotion, white noise.

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"Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials... he discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.’ Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces."

London

I had the most amazing birthday in London. I turned 26 on a Barge in Paddington wearing my DiMaggio Yankees shirt that Tess bought me in New York and I went to my old local pub with lots of old friends from home that turned into even better friends overnight. My girlfriends made me a cake and I bought lingerie in Soho. We went to Bath and had picnics, got drunk in the park and swam. I stole the scrabble pieces from the pub and hid them down my playsuit. Then shimmied them out of the bottom in the park and Steve made words out of them on the ground. I spent the afternoon with boys in the old open air baths playing Marco Paulo and making chairs out of noodles. Banana and chocolate pasties taste like garbage.
I hung out with friends and friends of friends in East London – slowly running into more and more people and more and more types of booze. Cider in London fields, bloody marys in Hackney, dinner in a Dalston gastropub and beer in an ex African-American club with too many attractive men for my brain to handle. I went back with Poppit later, danced and kissed a boy called Sebastian with slicked back hair and a killer moustache.
Poppit and I live together for a couple of weeks in a room in Hackney. We spend nights in Dalston drinking red wine and falling over each other. Roasts in Stoke Newington at the Rose and Crown or The New Rose – dimly lit pubs with wooden walls on rainy Sunday nights, hungover and lying in the leather booths listening to The Horrors. We have the same conversations over and over and speak in shared jokes and repeated quotes. We’re not perfect spending 24/7 up in each other’s video but, like sisters, even doing the laundry turns into a peaceful adventure of smoothies and rose tea.
My two childhood friends kissed in London. I went to my favourite pubs and bars and got really drunk on Whiskey with people I love. We have five hour jam sessions at each others’ houses. I swear off hangovers. Then I remember how much I relish them. Days partying are interspersed with days in bed watching Barfly and Beverly Hills episodes. Being embarrassed becomes second nature. Acting like a twat becomes forgivable. And leaving it all behind, hard.

France

I would say Paris because that’s the only place in France I was meant to go to. But I missed my plane and ended up on one to Lyon and on a train to Paris.
I met a wonderful, eccentric couple my parent’s age on the plane to Lyon. He reminded me of Jacques Tati. They offered me a ride to the train station and gave me a tour of the city on the way.
Everyone in France is amazingly friendly and my faith in humanity is restored.
In Paris I am sick with the flu. I’m locked up in a beautiful apartment in Montmartre watching Black Books and blowing into tissues. I only came here for the crazy horse and Monet’s garden and I am well enough to do both, but I am too sick to explore Le Marais and Rue Cler again. Or enjoy the sun. But I do ride a bike through the countryside and have to take refuge in a lovely inn for lunch when the courtyard gets flooded with a passing storm. Dianne and I ride back in yellow rain ponchos and laugh so much we have to stop. There are wildflowers and horses and grug plants. I look forward to seeing Poppit on Tuesday and I breathe through any tension in Paris that will soon leave.

Spain

Spain is hot. It is hot and dry and the only thing I love is the graffiti that covers it. There are tourists everywhere and I resent being one of them, but the tapas is great. The water is cool and I listen to a jazz band on the beach - the drummer used to play with John Coltrane. I meet an amazing blonde Swedish man who has been traveling in a van with his dog and living in caves.
I spend two days alone in Granada, visiting the baths and having gin and tonics with a likeminded woman. I wander the Alhambra grounds and sleep in a beautiful hotel. It is bliss and I am alone.
I visit family in Alicante and swim in their pool and drink lots of tea while talking about what my grandpa was like when he was young. There are palm tress. It is like an oasis in the desert.
In Barcelona, Di and I stay with a wonderful couple in their bohemian apartment on a mattress on the floor and a rooftop that looks over El Borne. We go to the beach and eat good food and smile and have a week of interesting conversation.
I learnt so much in Spain. I always thought people said that as a compromise to saying “I had such a bad time” but now I understand. I had opportunities to change my path and when I didn’t take them the universe hurled more and more abuse at me until I understood that one must follow their own path, even if it means hurting someone else. Because otherwise, you’ll hurt them anyway later, and yourself too. It’s the non-judgement it should be done with that is such a challenge and I was wondering how the universe was going to kick my ass for being so inept at it. It seems like such a simple lesson but I learnt it over and over again; a friend clarifies it as “recognition and detachment”. I feel she is a genius even though it seems like such a clear truth.