This Is All (80 page)

‘I’d rather bike it.’

‘You’ll get soaked.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Nar! Get in. I’ll strap your bike on the roof.’

‘No, thanks.’

Now I find out why he unsettles me.

He grabs my arm and pulls me off my bike and throws me to the ground, face down, his knee on my bum. He pulls my backpack off, grabs one arm and then the other and binds them together behind my back with string.

I shout and scream and kick but he pays no attention, doesn’t even tell me to shut up. He knows he doesn’t need to; there’s no one to hear.

He finishes tying my wrists, pulls my head back by my hair. My glasses fall onto the road. He stuffs a wad of cloth into my screaming mouth and ties it behind my head. His knee in my back is so strong and painful I can’t do more than thrash about with my legs. But now he turns and catches my ankles and ties them together.

I’m trussed up and immobile and more frightened than I ever thought possible. I can’t help myself: I urinate and feel the warm wet spread over my middle.

Cal stands, lifts me as easily as a sack of potatoes, carries me to the back of his van, opens the door, bundles me inside, throws my backpack in after me and slams the door.

Next the noise of my bike on the roof.

Then Cal climbing into the driver’s seat.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘Don’t fret. I’ve got your specs. And I’ll take really good care of you.’

He starts the engine and drives away.

>>
Mothering
>>

Know / Knowledge

Know
:

To be, or to feel certain, of the truth or accuracy of a fact, an idea yourself, another human being, etc.

To have a familiar understanding of someone or something.

To experience deeply.

To distinguish and discriminate.

To have sex with.

*

Knowledge
:

The facts, feelings or experiences known by a person or group of people.

The state of knowing.

Awareness.

Consciousness.

Erudition or informed learning.

Specific information about a subject.

Sexual intercourse (‘carnal knowledge’).

I long to know everything about Life, everything about myself.

I long to know everything about at least one other person, the one I completely and exclusively Love, and to be known completely by at least one other person, the one who completely and exclusively Loves me.

I know these are high ideals. But I promise myself that I shall always try to live up to them.

Language

What could we say without it? Nothing.

What could we do without it? A lot less than we can do with it.

In my opinion, the definition of a human being is: a language-using animal.

In other words, without language we are nothing but beasts.

I only know what I know and what I think and feel when I put it into words.

Which is to say, we are what our language allows us to be and to become.

I love language. And there is no love without language.

The end.

PS: Julie set us a puzzle the other day:

‘Does thinking always require words, or can you think without words? Discuss.’

Much argument, but we never reached a decision.

All I can say is this: Even if I do ‘think’ without words, it isn’t until I’ve put what I think into words that I know what I think.

It’s too tiring. I’m going for a cup of tea.

Laughter

Essential, but see 
Humour
.

Love

As my pillow book is in one way or another about love, because I think it the most important thing in life, it would be tautologous and therefore tedious to write anything about it here.

Me

Statements that seem to me to be facts of Life:

1. The letter M is the very centre of our alphabet, number 13 of 26. I am the centre of my life. I am essential to myself. How can it be otherwise?

2. But Love is the main subject of my pillow book, so I am not the central character in my story. Because:

3. Love means directing yourself towards someone else. It means attending to someone else totally. Therefore:

4. Though I am the centre of my personal alphabet and Love is the central subject of my story of myself, it follows that someone else is the centre of my attention.

5. I try to be totally conscious of myself and of my life. But to be conscious of myself I must completely know someone else.

6. You cannot know yourself if you are not known by someone else.

7. I read somewhere the following:

I think, therefore I am
.

I am, therefore I am observed
.

Every I is a You, every You is an I
.

I believe this to be true.

8. I am me because you are you.

9. I am nothing without the Love of Another.

10. I am nothing without the Love I give Another.

This is my story, the story of Me.

And I think it is the story of Everyone.

Such I Am. Such, I believe, are You. Such is Life.

11. How pompous I’ve become.

12. Shut up, Cordelia.

Meditation

Scene One

Julie says, ‘You’ve done well in a short time.’

‘Done well!’ I say. ‘I still don’t feel I’m doing it, only trying to.’

‘Trying to is all we can do, so you’re doing well.’

We’re sitting in her front room, drinking tea after meditating.

‘But sometimes,’ I continue, ‘in fact most of the time, I feel like I’m doing nothing.’

‘Doing nothing is doing something.’

‘But I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like I’m groping in the dark.’

‘Good.’

‘Good? Why is that good?’

‘Because at least you’re going somewhere, even if you don’t know where. And that’s better than giving up and going nowhere, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? I don’t know. Oughtn’t I to know where I’m trying to go to?’

‘It can take years to find that out.’

‘O lordy! I wish you’d explain a bit more about it.’

She smiles to herself. How annoying! What is she smiling about?

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Go and make a cup of tea.’

I give her a wary look. ‘I’ve just made one.’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘I have. We’re drinking it.’

Without another word, Julie gets up and, leaving me and her tea behind, goes up to her attic work room, where I know I’m not allowed unless invited.

I feel miffed. But I know her well by now. I know she’s not being rude or dismissive and she’s not in a huff. She’s done it before, when we’ve been studying a poem or a novel and she wants me to think out a problem for myself. She’ll come back in a minute, expecting an answer.

So let’s see: I’ve made a cup of tea, but I haven’t made it, so go and make it.

Made, but not
made
?

I can’t work it out. I’m in a cul de sac and up against a brick wall.

With a difficult poem, she always tells me to look for the key words.

Key words: meditation, make, tea.

Then it hits me.

I take up my meditation posture and ‘make a cup of tea’.

Fifteen minutes later, Julie returns and sits in her chair.

‘?’ her look says.

I unfold myself and sit on the sofa facing her.

‘Did you enjoy your tea?’ I ask.

‘What tea was that?’

‘The one I brought up to you.’

She smiles and says, ‘If you say anything more, I’ll hit you
over the head with this cushion. Twice. And if you don’t say anything, I’ll hit you over the head with this cushion. Twice.’

And off she goes again, up to her work room.

She can be
infuriating
at times.

I puzzle over this and am in another cul de sac, till I get so fed up I decide there’s no possible answer, so there!

Fifteen minutes later, Julie returns, and as before sits in her chair and looks at me, ‘?’ smiling.

Nothing annoys me more than people being enigmatic.

I go to her, snatch up her cushion, and hit her with it twice on the head. She makes no attempt to stop me or to protect herself. Which is just as infuriating as being enigmatic. Then I hit her twice again.

‘There!’ I say. ‘That’s the answer.’

I put the cushion down and return to the sofa.

Julie picks the cushion up, comes to me and hits me with it four times on the head. Not really hits, only taps.

I can’t help laughing, which sets her off. We end up having a cushion fight, accompanied with giggles and squeals, before we settle again, breathless, side by side on the floor, our backs against the sofa.

When we’ve calmed down, I say, ‘Was that a test?’

Julie ignores the question and says, ‘I haven’t explained for all sorts of reasons.’

‘Name nine hundred and ninety-nine.’

‘One,’ Julie says. ‘I wanted to be sure you’d persevere, that it wasn’t just a fad. I wanted to be sure you’re truly keen and curious.’

‘I am. Two?’

‘You can’t force a spiritual life on anyone. They have to long for it.’

‘I do. Three?’

‘I’m not good enough at it myself to be your guide.’

‘You’ve years and years of experience. Anything you tell me will help, don’t you think? Four?’

‘In the end, nothing anyone can tell you is actually much use. You have to find your own way.’

‘But surely someone has to show you the way at the beginning?’

‘I’ve taught you how to sit properly when meditating, and how to focus your mind. And I’ve tried to encourage you and help you by keeping you company.’

‘But surely you can explain how you do it just a tiny little bit? I mean, for example, you’ve explained about your icon, but you haven’t explained how you use it.’

She comes over very serious and inward. Her eyes are looking inside herself, not out at me. It’s as though everything except her body has gone somewhere else. I recognise this. It’s her deep intuitive-thinking mood. I’ve seen it before quite often. It never happens at school. She’s always outward there.

I wait.

After a few minutes she comes back into her body and looks at me with a frown and says, ‘All right. Another day.’

I say, ‘I know what “another day” means. Another day never comes. Tell me now. Please.
Please
, Julie. I really need this.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘And you’re ready.’

‘Is that what the business with the tea and the cushion was about? A test to check I’m ready?’

‘Kind of.’

‘And I passed?’

She sighs and says, ‘I indulge you too much. Against my better judgement sometimes.’

‘We all make mistakes,’ I say. ‘And I love you too!’

Scene Two

‘All right,’ Julie says, adopting her meditation posture and looking at the floor as if there’s something on it I can’t see. ‘You’re asking me to explain how I meditate.’

‘Please,’ I say, folding myself into meditation mode also.

‘The basis of the method I’ve learned,’ she says in her teacher’s voice, ‘is one used by many religions. As with everything in life, there are basic practices that work for most people. As I’ve taught you to do, I start by choosing a word and a physical image. The word might be from a poem or be one of my pack of word cards. The object might be a picture or anything I like. Or I might choose a word from my icon, like ‘Balance’, while looking at the holly segment – because holly is the wood associated with balance and with personal growth.’

‘And you do that to give your mind something to satisfy it, something to think about?’

‘Yes. To keep it quiet. The mind wanders all over the place and is easily distracted if it hasn’t something to focus on. You know how I sometimes put on music that helps create the right mood.’

‘Like Izumi’s old Japanese music that I use.’

‘And I like to be dressed in things that make me feel right. Now and then, I burn a stick of incense.’

‘I burn oils. To create an atmosphere.’

‘Yes. That’s why people like to meditate in groups. It helps them to be in the right frame of mind and to keep concentrated. And it’s why they like special places where people have meditated for a long time – where they’ve prayed, if you like – such as old churches and holy sites like Stonehenge.’ I think: And the White Horse, where I was conceived and the old church where Will and I first made love.

‘It’s easier,’ Julie says, ‘to meditate in places that are numinous – that are full of spiritual energy accumulated over many years.’

‘So you get everything right and pick a word and something appropriate to look at. I understand that. It’s what I’ve been trying to do. But then what?’

‘I concentrate on the word. The word leads to a thought. The thought leads to a feeling of being interested – of being
engaged. I go into the word as if there’s a secret at its heart, which can only be touched if I go carefully. You have to woo the word. Woo the image. You have to hold it, caress it, make love to it. Then the truth behind the word reveals itself. Love is the centre of meditation, the key thing. As it is in life. But to find the truth behind a word takes a great deal of gentle practice and also care for yourself. So while I’m thinking about the word I don’t force myself onto it. I try to treat it gently, with understanding, so that I’m ready to hear what it has to say to me. Just like I would treat a lover. This leads me to the Silence. But that only happens if everything is exactly right.’

‘That’s a big if.’

‘Very big.’

‘This is the part that I want to know about.’

‘It doesn’t happen every time. Nowhere near. I’d meditated for years before it happened at all.’

‘So how did you know it would?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘But you went on trying?’

‘Because I believed it would happen eventually. I knew someone who’d achieved it. She encouraged me and kept me company while I tried.’

‘Like you with me.’

‘I hope so.’

‘So what you’re aiming for is what you call Silence?’

‘Which isn’t just the absence of noise. As I’ve explained to you before, it’s a wordless state of being. If you try to say anything about it, you destroy it. You’ll find out for yourself one day, if you go on meditating regularly. Thinking hard about something, thinking about it deeply from every angle eventually takes you beyond the thought. To its heart, as it were. You have to get to the heart of the matter. There’s no Silence around the edges, only at the centre.’