Vincent Square Chapter 4: The Fire

"According to most writers, groups of souls tend to reincarnate again and again, working out their karma (debts owed to others and to the self, lessons to be learned) over the span of many lifetimes." - Many Lives, Many Masters - Brian Wiess, M.D.

In our lifetime there are a handful of moments that alter us, define a path that transitions the light of how we see our world.  Moments that covet our internal gauge and guide us into the next chapter.  If you are fortunate enough to have the cognitive ability to interpret your intuition you can be aware of such moments, feel them with every nerve ending and embrace that what is being placed in front of you is for a reason and regardless of the outcome, you should jump fully, and uninhibited into the fires of fate.  

I was standing right in the middle of one of these moments, broken glass at my feet, outside of my body, watching him walk towards me.  

I needed an escape.  A moment to catch my breath.  To compose myself before the fiery leap.  A moment to build strength, take in air and release the vibrations.  Unlocking my stare I looked around and to my right found a rest room.  I dashed quickly, leaving behind me the comforting sound of greetings and the back slapping of hugs between Dave and my future.

Standing in front of myself, hands shaking as I attempted to ground nerves by holding the edges of the sink I exhaled and let my soul calm.  There was no way to change anything – it had arrived, this moment. 

There was no dress to encase myself in for the debut.  There was nothing more than me, a skinny, pale girl with chocolate hair and almond eyes and jutting hip bones through my jeans drowning in my father’s old sweater.  I had no gifts to offer from the lifetimes that I had known him before only that I had found him again here. Would he remember me as I did him?

 As I stared back at myself a creeping whisper began to blanket itself over my entire being…a mild chant, over and over again…and what are we to learn from one another in this lifetime….And with all that I was I knew it to be true – whatever we didn’t get right before, we were destined to try again now.  With that, I released my hands from the ceramic, looked deeply once more into my eyes and then opened the door and dove boldly into the fire. 

Vincent Square: Chapter 3: The Princess Royal

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It was an Indian summer day in late September.  Tegan and I were done with classes and we were putzing around SoHo people watching.  We often didn’t say much.  We just were.  It was an unspoken understanding between us.  Each of us had spent most of our pennies getting ourselves into school and paying rent – gathering enough money to escape but having no money to do anything once we got there.  We hadn’t many other luxuries.  I shared Ramen with him when my friends would send them from home.  Otherwise, we didn’t eat much except the one baguette we would buy ourselves a week and slowly pick at to fill the ache - and I lived off of the cartons of cigarettes sent.  Camel straight, no filters.  3 packs a day.  When you can’t eat, you fill yourself with something, so that it was. 

I was leaning against a brick wall beside a café, exhaling a cigarette when a scrawny redheaded kid came up and said, “Are you American?”  I looked around.  Was he really talking to me?  I hadn’t been speaking so it couldn’t have been my accent that gave anything away.  I was sort of a Goth loving hippy and from what I knew of I melded into most environments and I sure of shit wasn’t toting an American flag in my pocket so I was mildly taken aback and more so annoyed.  This was my home and I had believed I fit in like a camelion. 

“Yah.” I responded bluntly while staring aimlessly away from him.  “Cool…you live here?  I’m Dave.”  “Yah.” I turned to look him in the eye.  Sizing him up.  He looked decent enough.  Kind eyes, big smile.  A tad dirty.  He wasn’t lost like Tegan and I.  He was traveling.  There was a difference.  “I’m Willow.”  I extended moving my cigarette to my left hand and handing him my right. “Sorry to interrupt – I just got here and I’m trying to connect with people.  I’m camping outside of the city.  Traveling for a year or so.  London is my first stop.  Heard you asking your friend for a light so grabbed on to the assumption that you were American.”  Oh.  Ok.  I felt better now…there’s a chance I was blending. 

We talked for a bit about the fact that he had just arrived from California and was planning to camp his way around Europe and that we had a pretty large house with plenty of space so if he needed a place to crash, or to shower, he was more than welcome.  We had quickly learned the art of sharing space.  When you have a backpack, it’s like a community.  You share beds, floors, food, and stories.  You randomly knock on doors in the middle of the night of an address given to you in a drunken moment in a hostel and they actually take you in.  And so, I gave Dave our phone number, completely comfortable that at one point or another he might show up on our doorstep asking for a couch or a crumb.

Tegan and I parted ways with our new friend and headed home. 

The next day was tough.  The girls were going to Amsterdam and planning to smuggle some goodies back via tampons and the boys were heading up to Scotland.  Tegan and I didn’t have any money to go away for a long weekend of debauchery so we waved goodbye to our friends and settled into our usual night of bong hits, stories of his life working in the butter factory and my dreams of writing the great American novel, when the phone rang.

“Ughhh….” I grunted walking up the two floors to the dining room where our one house phone existed.  “Hello.”  “Hi, can I speak with Willow please?”  “Speaking.” “Hey – it’s Dave, we met yesterday in SoHo.  Dirty camper guy…” I could actually hear his ease and smile from the other end of the phone.  “Hey man, what’s up?”  “I was just calling to see what you and your roommates were doing tonight?  I met some cool dudes today that are playing in a pub tonight.  Was wondering if you wanted to come?”  Ugh, I thought to myself.  This guy totally wants to get in my pants and he’s so not my type.   But I was bored as shit and well, what could it hurt?  “Mmmmm….hmmm….ok.  Sounds cool.  Where should we meet you?”  “Victoria Station.  Upstairs, outside, I’ll find you.  8:00?”  Ughhhh….misery…god I pray he doesn’t try to touch me.  “Cool man, we’ll see you there.” Emphasizing the ‘we’ using Tegan as my imaginary boyfriend decoy just in case.

“Teeeeg.  Get off your ass and shower.  We’re going out.  I HAVE PLANS.  ME!  PLANS!  Up up, shower shower.”  Blank eyes stare back at me.  I know this look.  “T.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’m good here.  I can’t even afford a pint.”  “Dude, I’ll buy you a pint, a got some cash in the mail today.  You can’t leave me with the redhead to myself.  I can’t bear rejecting him.  But we need to get out.  C’mon!!”  “Nope.”  I’ll be here when you get home but I’m not going.”

“Shit.” I respond as I storm up the stairs to try to find some non-flannel, emo, hippy ensemble suitable for a night of doing something more.

“Do I look ok?” I grumble as Tegan lay on my bed watching me get ready.  “You look like that chic from Popeye.  What’s her name?” “Uhm…Olive Oil or something…”  “Yah.  Her.  You look like her.” “She’s ugly.  Thanks.”  “No man, I meant long and like thin and shit.  You look cool.”  “I hate you.  Have another hit – it makes you incredibly literate, asshole.”  I bend down to kiss him on the cheek.  “You sure you won’t come?”  He doesn’t respond.  “Fine, you better be awake for the recap when I get back.  Love you butter boy.  Later.”  And there I went out.  My first big night in the city all on my lonesome. 

Dave was there, at the top of the stairs, smiling his innocent, life is good smile.  We walked a few blocks chatting about life as a roaming 20-something year old.  We were all in some way trying to live out our own version of Dharma Bums and could all on some level relate.

Eventually we ended up in front of the Princess Royal Pub.  “Here we are.  I think…” Dave muttered.  “Sweet” was my retort.  We ordered pints – and sat down and suddenly I became overwhelmed with the need to set things straight.  And so I went on a rant.  “Hey man, it’s great to meat you and it’s cool to have new friends but I have to just put this out there that if you think this is a ‘date’ it’s not a ‘date’ and there isn’t a chance in Hell that we’d ever hook up.  OK?  I have no interest and I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.  Sorry.  Just needed to make sure we were clear.”

Silence.

Dave erupts in laughter.  I shift uncomfortably.  What the fuck is so funny?

“Dude, I appreciate your honesty but I have no interest in you either.  My girlfriend is meeting me here next week and we’re doing this trip together.  I was just trying to make some friends while I was hanging out here until we started the trip.” 

“Oh.”

His mocking smile was annoying as shit but I couldn’t help but laugh as well.  I mean seriously – I just assumed he wanted me.  But I had barely said two words to him – why would he?  Eventually when I got over the weird ego bruise of the guy I totally wasn’t interested in not being interested in me, we began to have a blast together.  Turned out we had loads in common and I felt as if I had met one of the good people.  Those that are who they represent themselves to be.  Say what they mean.  Mean what they say, all that jazz. 

Eventually we got more rowdy, got locals involved, started doing shots, laughing with folks, playing music on the jukebox and toasting to random encounters in SoHo. Out of nowhere and in the midst of laughing I turned my head.  The door to the pub opened.  It was as simple as that.  A door opening.

All feeling left my being.  Light and energy shifted and moved and jolted between me and the doorway of the pub.  In the silence of a second my hand fell loose and the pint in my hand crashed to bits on the floor.  My stare never waivered.  A part of myself was walking through the door and the other part of me was standing still while glass shattered all around me.  It was nothing about him.  Not his piercing blue eyes and raven black hair.  It had nothing to do with the fact that he looked as if he didn’t belong among us – in truth; I never saw any of that.  All that I saw was a blinding light of a link to a soul that had been a part of my story for lifetimes and here, in this life I had waited 20 years to find him and now I had.  In London.  He was standing across the room from me and for all that I didn’t know about whom he was or why I was finding him now, I had missed him so much. 

“Dude, you ok?  What the Hell man, you trashed?” Dave mumbled in a drunken stupor.  My head heavy and lost but snapping back to reality…“That’s my soul mate” the only words I could mumble as I stared straight ahead – at him.  “Who…?” Dave’s voice trailed off while following my stare.  “No shit.”  He let out a laugh.  “That’s Josiah.  That’s the dude that I met today busking in the street.  And the other guy – Noah.  The guy behind him.  That’s them.  That’s why we are here.  Ha.” 

Indeed.  That is why I was there.  Finally.  My reason found me. 

Vincent Square Chapter 2: Sutherland Place

By the time we had landed in London we had already formed our own click and established our roommates.  There were 6 of us that had bonded over cigarettes, weed, beers and fear of the unknown.  Tegan was the lanky, tall, shy guy with a hint of internal angst hippie from the middle of nowhere, Jason was the sweet and stalky outdoorsy intellect from Maine and Joel was the snarky, grumpy Jew from NYC.  The other new female addition besides Maris and I was Liz, the unique, crass spirit from Colorado that twirled her hair and sucked her thumb.  I equated her behavior to an intense phallic tendency and left it at that.  

And so there we had it.  Our own little ‘Real World’ – 6 strangers set to live in a house, on a street, in London. 

Despite the odds of what we were told we found a place fairly quickly.  Of course it was over budget, two blocks away from the University and smack dab in the middle of Kensington but we didn’t care.  We even had an old crotchety landlord named Mr. Darcy which we considered to be an obvious sign that the house had to be ours.  It was a 3 story brownstone; it fit us all perfectly so we settled in.  35 Sutherland Place off of Westbourne Grove.  A street lined with brownstones, a church and pubs nearby.  Perfect.  

The first night in our new home we sat in our enormous living room with windows taller than each of us.  We had scored some hash at the local pub and told stories of our lives as we smoked and poured back pints.  For what was so new and strange we all seemed to comfortably mold into our new reality.  We talked about ‘rules’, and having family dinners every Sunday and of all of the places that we would travel while on our breaks.  Every moment was an oyster to be opened to find some new and beautiful possible path.  

From the get go it was pretty clear what roles we would all play.  Maris was the social butterfly and had more friends and plans in the first 48 hours than many of us had for our entire tenure there however she made it easy for us to just tag along when we felt like it.  Liz was oddly reclusive and spent a lot of time having phone sex with her boyfriend back in Colorado.  Joel always seemed to be networking.  Jason spent a lot of time exploring the city and mapping out all that he wanted to see and experience.  Tegan and I spent a lot of time scraping the bowl of my bong trying to get high.  We were the poorest of the group so our options were always more limited.  We had an affinity towards each other given our financial predicament and often talked about books, poetry and shared our love of music.  I was fortunate enough to have my own bedroom on the third floor and the view from my window was roof and chimney tops.  It was a peaceful hideaway for us to unlock the mysteries of the world. We were good friends.  He was like a little brother.

When I wasn’t in school I was meandering around Kensington Park, or sitting in the Pub writing in my journal, writing letters, bantering with new found friends or calling home and filling Delilah in on every detail of my not so interesting life.  I was melding and molding in.  Trying to avoid seeming like a tourist.  

My first three weeks in London I never saw the sun.  Not once.  Not the sun or the moon.  It was cloudy in the day and cloudy in the night and for all appearances was exactly how I had anticipated London to be.  But I missed my moon and I felt far away from everyone that I loved.  Regardless of how at home I had felt instantly upon arriving.  I was in transition.

But perhaps that’s what I need to explain.  London.

 

The moment my feet hit the ground in London I knew I was home.  I knew that I had spent lifetimes there before and that whatever and wherever this city would bring me, I would be home.  I was home.  Everything made sense without any effort at all.  However I was waiting for the soul bit.  As an intuitive I was driven to London to find something, to understand something that perhaps I had been transitioning lifetimes through to grasp and here was my chance and I was missing it hiding in my chimney top bedroom taking hits from a bong seeking out the meaning of life as opposed to the meaning of my reason for being there.  None of which I really knew.  I just knew at the time there was nowhere else that I was supposed to be.

We do these things…we follow senses and sources.  We wind up in countries and places with people and faces because we know not where else to be.  Some are just steps; some are columns….all of which is determined along the way.  And so I was.  There.  With a lesson and no teacher.  Floating in comfortable ambivalence with a love of a city, an air, energy and not understanding why it was I chose to be thousands of miles across from my life to find my life.  The irony was exhausting.  Something was supposed to be but it wasn’t - yet.

And then I met Dave.

Introduction

Memory, like most things, is selective.  We pick and choose that which we want to matter the most.  A song, a prayer, a scent, a smile, a word.  We tie and bind it all into a package called our lives.  And there we have it.  A seemingly insignificant moment to another can become how you choose to now define yourself.  Just…like….that….

There are thousands of people that have stampeded across my journey.  For moments, for days and for lifetimes.  Some I could tell you about in descriptive intimate detail - every facet of their being, every molecule of my moments with them, others, I can’t even remember their name or what they looked like.  There are those that pass through us and those that become us. Those that although 20 years have passed you can still remember their taste and in a moment you are home again inside of them. 

It is difficult to think of yourself as the unnamed, the unremembered but that is how the story has to be.  We cannot all be everything to everyone.  There are those that will think of us in the darkest hours of the strangest nights and there are those that can hardly remember our face.  There are two sides to every coin.  Those that we remember, and those that have forgotten us.  The in betweens don’t matter as much.  They are bylined articles - not the novel and we are each to one another and we cannot be ourselves without them.

And so the story begins, the beginning of me understanding the balance of each. 

Vincent Square Chapter One: You Can't Go Home Again...

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My hand rubbed the cassette cover.  He had made me a mixed tape to bring on my journey.  I barely knew him.  I can’t even remember his name now but I believe to him, I was much more.  To me, he was a moment to occupy space and time before I left. 

Staring out the window as the highway silenced past me I was lost in thought.  Having no idea what I was doing, only knowing that I had to do it.  All that pulled me from my melancholy anticipation was her grabbing my hand.

“Hey.” I smiled looking over at her.  Her eyes welling with tears. My mother, in the front seat slightly turned her head to listen.  “Do you really have to go?” she whispered.  “I don’t know if I can handle things without you.  I’m sick to my stomach.”  She was so gentle, this dear friend of mine whom I had lived with at university and who I was leaving behind to ‘find myself’ somewhere in London.  We were two polar opposites.  She a preppy, virgin, wealthy Jew, me, a wild, non-virgin, Birkenstock wearing, dirt poor, Atheist.  Yet somehow, in each other we found acceptance, intrigue and comfort. “Delilah, you’ll be fine.  We’ll talk on the phone every day, I’ll write you letters constantly, and I’ll be back before you know it.  Promise.  I have to go.  I’m sort of dying here.  I need to see what else is out there.”  I try to sound confident but inside I had no idea what the fuck I was doing or why.  I’m just running.  20 years old and already running. “Promise.” I said again, squeezing her hand extra tight giving her the ‘I so mean this…not…smile’.  “Dad, how much longer til JFK?” “Less than an hour Weezy,” he said with a crack in his throat.  Above all else, I believe he was taking it the worst. I was his baby, and best friend and I was leaving him to muddle through without me. 

JFK was chaotic.  Hundreds of college students registering, waiting in line, lugging enormous suitcases, staring nervously around them, mimicking smiles to appear friendly as they embarked to study abroad and leave their families and friends for a year or more. 

I’ve never done well with goodbyes so my exit was quick.  I pointed around to the chaos and shooed my parents and Delilah away.  “I’ve got it from here – you have a long drive back…just go.”  As I placed my imaginary armor on, I was cracking…slowly.  Things became dizzy and I became overheated.  Hugs, my parents crying, Delilah holding on to me too tightly.  I was swallowing rocks to not break.  As they left the airport, and walked past the window I knew nothing else to do but stick up my middle finger and mouth the words “Fuck You” – mostly to make them laugh, but mainly because I was terrified and suddenly felt incredibly abandoned. 

Once out of site I crumbled uncontrollably.  Running to the bathroom I was hyperventilating with fear.  Caught between trying all that I could to pull myself together and to release the fear, I was a convulsing child.  Splashing my face in the sink and doing all that I could to find my center an arm touched mine.  “It’s ok.  I just did the same thing.  Here…” as I look up there is a pile of paper towels in front of me to which I dove into.  Mortified and grateful for a moment of kindness.  Deep breath.  Deep breath.  I stand up and stare at her in the mirror.  She stares back with an empathtic smile.  “Hey, I’m Maris – goodbye’s suck.  I know,” she says as she extends her hand to greet mine.  “Hi, I’m Willow.” I retort half looking her in the eyes, half staring at my Doc Martens.  “Yes, goodbyes, not my thing - sorry, I feel like an ass…” stopping my apology mid-air knowing it isn’t required.  She waves her hand in the air gesturing all is forgotten.  She’s vey pretty.  Milky skin with freckles, voluptuous figure and hazelnut hair.  Tall and statuesque, emitting a devilish and soulful, kind energy. “You smoke?” she asked.  “Jesus, yes…” I reply.  “Good, come with me.  I met a chic that has some weed.  We’ve got 4 hours to kill before the flight – we might as well make it worth our while.    

And so there Maris became a part of me, in the most vulnerable of my moments, she pulled me up and pushed me into all that I was afraid of but that would be the beginning of all that I was to become.