Frank cuts my hair. He’s early 30s; Italian; gay. We get on very well; the conversation always flows effortlessly. But, last week the conversation reached a new level of depth. I could tell immediately when he began talking that something significant had changed in his life.
He started from the beginning. He’d moved in with a person who also worked at the salon. She was there with him all day at work and at night in the apartment. He felt imprisoned in a situation that he had come to detest. Unable to speak to anyone about it, he felt he was going slowly mad.
A good friend of his, a single mother was to come to him for a weekend in the big city. Frank lives right in the heart of the area where there is an abundance of wonderful cafes and restaurants, beautiful stores; great entertainment. But, he told her he didn’t think it would work this weekend, given the situation. She immediately suggested he come to her in the country. It isn’t really Frank’s style but something told him to go, he said.
The clever girl involved a friend in the weekend; a woman who is into meditation and healing and it was this woman who said “What’s the matter Frank?” She was sitting in the back seat; he in the front. He didn’t answer. “It is a relationship, isn’t it Frank?” “Yes, it is,” he heard himself say.
They took him for a walk; a very special walk up 1000 steps. Then, they took him to a place where he joined them for a group meditation. He said he found it extraordinarily easy to do; that it was the most blissful, wonderful and enlightening experience.
I think it was probably clear to them that Frank was open to this; that all he needed was to be shown how to find his own internal happiness and salvation. They had a healer work on him, giving him love and they also had him come to a sort of church service where the person leading the service said that he had noticed Frank; felt his energy all the service and that he had messages for him; that his grandmother in Italy was proud of him; that she was proud that he worked with his hands and carried the family name.(They worked on the basis, without knowing anything about Frank that he had not truly believed that his family had accepted that he was gay.)
The whole time he was telling me this story (and I can’t type it all because he was telling me so much so fast, I can’t remember it all at this moment) he was the most animated he has ever been. I know this will sound odd but in the few months since I had seen him last, his hair had grown curly and now his eyes were beaming with life. He really was a much, much happier man.
He told me all this because he knows I have studied the chakras and meditate and so on. He doesn’t know that I am really ‘a doll’ but he senses something, for sure.
He told me about his past; about his mother. When his father divorced his mother, it sent her into a deep depression and she has been in a psychiatric hospital several times. The youngest son, he felt obliged to mother his mother all this time but he told me that he has learned that he must tell her now that it is time for her to act like the mother and for him to act like the son.
He kept me at the salon long after my hair was cut; playing with it so that it looked like he was still working when he was really just wanting to talk. He told me he was going to Bali to a meditation retreat and I asked him for the details since it is a great passion and desire of mine to do that. I am sorely tempted to go with him!
We reached a very new level of friendship on that day, Frank and I. He showed me how to hug, heart to heart, and we practiced it several times, much to the amusement of the busy salon that late afternoon, I suspect, but who cares?
He walked me to the door. “I love you Frank,” I said. I don’t recall what he said in reply because I was too busy watching how his face softened to hear those words. It all felt much deeper than the relationship I have with people I have been socialising with regularly for years. I was on a high myself. This sort of interconnecting with another human being is so very special and important to me.
This morning I read over a chat between D and me. I was wearing Mr. Ringo and I was clearly very, very happy – on the high of being so low. It had come out and it talked in the way that only it can. It is a slut, no doubt about that and it is giving, peaceful; ditzy; happy. It is the best of me.
The opportunity to interact with people who have explored the workings of their inner lives and come to terms with themselves in a way that allows them to shine and to spread joy is a wonderful gift for me. It makes my life rich. It makes me realize I have so much more to learn; so much more to give. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
I don't have religion. I'm one of those people who doesn't believe there is a God in the sense of a supreme being that sits in judgement over our lives. I don't believe in an afterlife, or the idea of heaven and hell. I believe that all organized religion is, by its very nature, tribal and therefore inherently adversarial and bigoted. I don't need the fear of divine retribution or divine forgiveness to motivate me to do good and shun evil. I don't believe in the idea of Original Sin. I believe that good deeds speak for themselves and I take responsibility for my actions, right here and now. I believe we live on after we are gone in the hearts and minds of those whom we have loved and who love us. That's all. No hellfire and brimstone, no land of milk and honey, no coming back as a rabbit or whatever. We are what we leave behind. We are in the end no more than memories, part of a chain of consciousness that is handed from generation to generation. An accident of nature perhaps, but a wonderful one that continues, ever changing.
ReplyDeleteMy parents taught me right from wrong when I was child; taught me that the consequences of our actions are felt every day by those around us and we have a duty, as human beings, to look after each other and to pass on what we have learned to those who come after us. I believe we have but one short life each, in which to get things right. I believe we are here to learn and to pass on our wisdom so that others might avoid our mistakes and be empowered to make better, more informed choices. I believe in enlightenment through learning. I believe that giving is better than taking. I believe that progress is not linear but cyclical, that we are no more advanced than the ancient Minoans. I believe that technology is no measure of civilization and everything is temporary.
We all have so much to learn. We should all cherish the interactions we have with each other and the opportunities we have to discover our differences and similarities. I am a Humanist, and proud of it. And I _love_ your final paragraph.
RollyMo: There are some fascinating comments here as well as insights into you.
ReplyDeleteI am rather a 'Lion King' person myself and I think you probably relate to that film too: parents feeling that responsibility to their kin and even to the whole of "Pride Rock". There is a sense that we only have so long to prepare the next generation and then we are gone. I totally get that.
In latter years, my feelings about life have changed. My grandmother on my mother's side was Catholic and the love of church seems to have rubbed off. I adore to walk into a church and feel the spirit in there. The only little tiff my husband and I had on our European holiday this year was because I wanted to sit in on a church service in Rome and he wanted to go. I am very uplifted in spiritual places even though I am aware of the frailties of the system that are man made.
And, I am no longer sure about the afterlife. It makes sense, of course, that we only have one life and then we are merely a memory in a stream of memories handed down to those remaining, but something tells me, there is more. I am inclined to think that we take what we have learned here somewhere else. I guess we may never know.
Getting close to Frank was very special. When someone touches my soul, I feel enriched.