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Click here to read an introduction to memoir.
non-subject: "awakening"
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It was finally Friday, August 28, time to head north from New Paltz, NY, to the town of Woodstock. The Authentic Writing Workshop was starting that evening at Fred and Marta's.
The workshop was my reason for coming to NY. Yet, even the trip up and the time in New Paltz and the adventures at Bethel Woods on what was once Yasger's Farm had been cleansing, poignantly real, substantiating, revealing, grounding. I had experienced some dissociation and flashbacks on the drive up from North Carolina to New York. I was glad I'd made the trip alone, allowing me the freedom to experience and feel and process. "Process," such an overused word these days.
Prior to the journey, I had told my counselor that this NY trip was like a pilgrimage. Little did I know at the time how true and clear and distinct that word pilgrimage would ring. Though I had begun my journey only 5 days previously, I had time traveled some 30 years into the past, at the same time being very present in the now.
Before departing New Paltz for Woodstock, I walked through the hostel searching for Lito, the host. I wanted to tell him thank you and good bye. I ventured upstairs, where I had not previously toured. The walls were brightly painted in golds and purples and prism hues. There were scenes and pictures painted on the walls. They were magical and mystical; mermaids and volcanoes, various murals. I wish I had written about them then so I could recall the details. The only picture I recall in detail is a life-size comical caricature on a downstairs door. It depicted a balding man in boxers and a wife-beater tee with a beer gut; a talk bubble above him stating something like, "Keep the door closed! I don't work all day just to pay for air conditioning."
I sallied out to the front porch. Ahh, the front porch with its tables and chairs and glider and the vinyl bench seat from some old vehicle. The bench seat, that brought back memories of when I lived with Frank in the North Carolina foothills when I was 17. Frank was 24 or 25 and we were going to get married. I lived with him for around a year in that little cabin with no electric heat or indoor plumbing. In that summer of 1976 I bathed in the tin tub outside. There was a long dirt drive from the dirt road up to the cabin. In between the cabin and dirt road were a couple lines of trees; a fallow field overgrown with wild weeds, wild flowers, and a bit of tended marijuana; and a staggered row of low brush. It was perfect privacy for a sun-warmed bath in a tin tub, slightly heated with rose hip tea that I brewed using the wood or camp stove. I had plenty of warning of any approaching vehicles since the driveway was so long. We would get visitors regularly, but some had seen me nude anyway so I wasn't too concerned. Plus I kept a towel draped over a good-size rock right outside the tub. All that memory, plus more, from that old vinyl bench car seat on the porch of a New York hostel.
Memories from 1976 through 1982 floated to my awareness during this 4-night stay in 2009 in this international dorm setting, this artistic hostel, this multiculatural college town of New Paltz, the landscapes and backroads to and from Bethel Woods, the Allman Brothers live at Yasger's old farm place, meeting Roger and his wife and learning he had been a Mormon Bishop and left the org some 15 years ago. No wonder he took such an interest in my poetry and writing.
Lito wasn't on the porch, but Rhia was sitting there talking on her cell phone. I had met Rhia my first night, Monday, at the hostel. We had talked a bit, not in-depth. Yet in-depth enough for a first-time meeting around a dining room table in a hostel. She had said to me that first night, "I see a sparkle about you, above your head," making a twinkling motion with her fingers above her head to describe what she sensed or saw. I noted it at the time as a New Age type statement and true for her. She was kind, observant, intelligent, warm, and a good conversationalist. I had given Rhia some Arnica Thursday night, or maybe it was Wednesday night. She was in some pain and mentioned that she wished she had some Arnica. "I have some in my car," I responded. At the time her eyes lit up, "You do?" I gladly shared the remedy with her.
So there she sat on the porch. I waved at her through the screened door and she motioned for me to come out. She was on the phone so couldn't talk to me at that moment. She handed me a chocolate bar, dark chocolate. I was still looking for Lito, so motioned to her that I'd be right back.
After one last round for Lito, without success, I went back to the porch. I was rather anxious to get on the road to get to Woodstock; I wanted to see a bit of the town before the evening workshop began. Yet I wanted to tell Rhia thank you and say bye to her. She got off the phone shortly after I returned to the porch.
"I wanted to give you something," she stated kindly.
"Thank you!" I responded. "I'd like to share it with you. Do you want some?"
She graciously accepted and we began to talk in between chocolate chews. One of the subjects was about dreams, the kind of dreams one has when asleep. I shared one of my dreams from years ago, about a gentle giant who was a gardener. I'd name him John. He was significant for me because at the time of the dream I was involved in a religious group and was going through some changes.
"What group?" Rhia asked wrapped with attentiveness to my every word as I was sharing about the significance of what had become part of me, my dream-friend the Gentle Giant John the Gardener.
"It was a fundamentalist Bible group. I was involved for 28 years. I exited the group in latter 2005." I don't recall if I told her the name of it was The Way. "It's the reason I've come to New York for the writing workshop. I met one of the workshop facilitators on Twitter. She wrote a book, 'The Guru Looked Good,' about her involvement with an ashram, one not far from here in South Fallsburg."
Rhia's eyes got big and her mouth opened slightly, a small jaw drop.
"Gurumayi," she responded with surprise, slightly questioning, somewhat mystically; perhaps with a hint of timidness and a hint of hope.
"Yes!" I responded.
"My ashram. My guru." There was a whisper in her voice, almost childlike.
She sat in silence, somewhat stunned. Then her story began to trickle from her entire being as she formed words endeavoring to convey the tip of a mammoth volcano stirring beneath the surface.
After almost two hours of exchange and some tears she asked, "Do you believe me?"
"Yes," I responded. "Yes, I believe you."
My pilgrimage had just taken a turn into territory I never expected.
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Click here to view the memoir index: Journey through Memoir (an index)
Here for New York Log I
Here for New York Log II
Here for Each Voice Matters
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