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transformed to a Mahatma
Sunday, October 24 1999
The sun was overpoweringly bright as it shown into our hotel room through our huge windows. Kim pulled the blinds for a time, but that changed nothing about the reality of the situation. I was weak and lethargic, but I was also calm and engaged. An Ecstasy hangover isn't nearly as bad as the kind one gets from drinking booze.
The main item on the agenda for today, aside from getting back to San Diego, was to meet up with my old chum Rory Miller, that happy-go-lucky Brit with a checkered past full of people both befriended and alienated. Now, of course, Rory claims to be a thoroughly changed man, having given up all the things most of us live for: sex, drugs, alcohol, meat, money, and even shoes. In his travels he'd eventually made it from New Mexico to Hollywood. Now he was staying with some friendly hippie kids he'd randomly befriended on the beach in Santa Monica.
I gave Rory a ring and got directions to his place. There was an eerie condescension to Rory's voice, but I was so eager to see him again that it didn't much matter. If you recall last December when I last saw Rory, he was living the life of a casual Bohemian, drinking and traveling and shagging as his whims dictated. That all changed that last day he woke up on our couch. With the flip of a coin his future was pointed at Mexico, where he was to experience the personal rebirth whose consequences I was to witness today.
We found ourselves beneath a set of fancy apartment buildings in southern Hollywood. Rory had given us the number of the wrong apartment building, and as we resorted to shouting his name he materialized on a balcony up on an apartment building across the street.
Soon enough we'd joined Rory upstairs in the apartment where he was staying. Also present was another houseguest. a tom boyish girl with a huge filthy bong. Kim was delighted; we'd completely used up our own supply. We ended up leaving the poor girl a $5 bill after smoking a bunch of her pot. Rory was disgusted, telling us there was no joy in talking to us when we weren't there. But, at the same time, he was aware that there wasn't much he could do with it, and, being pretty familiar with fucked-up people as well as happy to see us, he made do as best he could.
Rory produced a special kind of fringed baton that is juggled between two sticks. I've seen plenty of hippies with these sticks, some of them hoping for donations on places like Newport Street in Ocean Beach. CA, and the Downtown Mall of Charlottesville, VA. But I've never seen anyone who could make those sticks sing like Rory today. It was one of many talent he'd picked up in his year of self-rediscovery.
One thing that is the same as ever is the way Rory runs his life, that is, sort of like how the crew of the Starship Enterprise run their ship. It's always off to some totally new place for no particularly good reason. Today he wanted us to assist him in getting back on the road and on to San Francisco and points north. Perhaps in this case his beatific purity was wearing on his gracious hosts, but more likely it was just his traveling itch acting up. So he joined us as we left, bidding his tom boyish pot-smoking friend adieu, possibly forever.
We were kind of fucked up both from Ecstasy hangover and muchos bong hitos, so Rory announced that he'd be doing the driving. I freaked out at first; I can't think of a single car Rory has ever driven that he hasn't crashed. Bur Rory seemed so thoroughly changed, in the best sense of the word, that I decided he should get the chance to redeem himself.
It turned out that Rory's driving wasn't really all that bad after all this time. He was about as non-agro as drivers get, perfectly content to drive at the speed limit and let others sail past him. His philosophy about traffic lights was a little odd though; he seemed to think that the light colour only counted at the moment you enter the intersection, and that if it turned red while you passed through, it didn't matter. Later on I got just a taste of the old Rory I used to know as he nearly attempted to squeeze through an impossibly narrow gap. But unlike the old days, he caught himself and didn't go for it.
We ended up in Santa Monica, perhaps because of Rory's previous luck finding helpful people there. Rory's plan was just to catch a ride up the Pacific coast highway. He had everything he needed in his backpack. But first, Kim and I took him out to lunch, thereby making that last three dollars in his pocket last that much longer. As we walked down the sidewalk, Kim noted that even Rory's posture had changed. Indeed it had. Now he walks with the serene dignity of a Mahatma. And what with his 30-pound weight loss, he looks like he grew an extra six inches taller as well.
We ate at a place called Gate of India. Lucky for us, the Tandoris were having a buffet at the time. There's nothing better for the penniless traveler about to resume his travels than an all-you-can-eat buffet, especially of Indian food, especially when you're a milk-product avoiding vegetarian. (But, interestingly, Rory still eats fish, demonstrably proving you can take the lad out of England but not England out of the lad.)
We talked about "wilderness solos," private meditative adventures in which someone goes out into the wilderness alone with just the food provisions necessary to stay alive. The person eats, sleeps, and meditates for the entire period,usually nude, getting to know himself intimately without any distraction. It sounds like an appealing existential thing to me, though I'm sure it's not supposed to be. Rory has done both six and 28 day wilderness solos and recommends them highly. I'd really like to do a wilderness solo some time, but I'd want to be able to write too, something Rory's wilderness solos forbid. For now, my wilderness solos come on those occasional half hour lunch breaks I take by myself down along the San Diego River. For his part, Rory doesn't want to stop with just the month-long wilderness solo. He aspires one day to do an entire year alone in the wilderness. (It's not really so different from my year in a start up internet corporation!)
After lunch we drove Rory to the northwest fringe of downtown Santa Monica, high above the ocean, and set him loose on his next hitch hiking adventure. He wasn't even wearing any shoes. I gave him a brown paper bag on which he could make his sign and off he went to await his first ride, full of confident recklessness as always. By contrast, Kim and I were almost parental as we waved goodbye. "Bye son!" we shouted. "Bye Dad!" was his last reply.
On the way home I realized that the thing that makes me feel alienated from someone like Rory is the fact that I can't frame my life within the denial of pleasure, and he can't frame his in a paradigm where substance and ritual walk had in hand. So when I'm around him I can't help but feel that his attitude is one of judgment and condescension. At the same time, his was a most inspiring example. He truly seemed content in the aftermath of self-liberation from the slavery of desire. He could have so easily turned me off with pat references to spirituality and Eastern mumbo jumbo, but he didn't go there. I was left with a very upbeat attitude towards abstinence, as was Kim.
When we got home, I was so tired that I crawled off and slept for over 12 hours. After that it was Monday morning and time to go to work.
From left: Rory, Kim and me today. All the clothes Rory was wearing today said "PROPERTY OF [someone else]"
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