Jan 23rd Orgiva, Spain

 

The pencil begins to write but what am I going to say in this brand new notebook, dated at the top and located by the word “Orgiva”. What have I come here for?  In the taxi on the way from Granada I told Daniel, the driver, that I had come back to find my heart in the mountains. I had somehow  misplaced it here last October. Mi corazon, donde esta mi corazon?

 

As the plane lifted off from Gatwick I whispered, “Good bye my beloveds,” and we swam upwards through the dense grey cloud and drizzle.  It began to get brighter, so bright that my eyes started to water, and like a drowning man the plane burst out of the cloud and into the sunshine. Up here in the blue I had detached from England and I was crying. I ate some bendy sandwiches and slept all the way to Spain barely hearing the announcements that precede the trolleys stuffed with food like substances or must have goodies that promise eternal youth and beauty.  Somewhere over the Sierra Nevada I opened my eyes. Here I was at the start of this strange turn of events in my life. 

 

Snow has blanketed the mountains above Granada and the range floats above an indigo landscape like a dream. I want to devour those sharp peaks until they are all inside me, crisp and dry like a meringue. The poor woman next to me must be convinced that I am terrified of flying because I am, to my own surprise, crying again. At that moment I have a strange realisation that if we were to crash and my body were to smear and burn into the Spanish landscape, I would be content, and a few minutes later, stepping off the plane and into the warm, golden afternoon sunshine I unexpectedly feel a huge surge of relief.

 

It was here that some terrible mountain god shoe-horned a great empty space inside me and filled it with a painful longing for mountains, nature, and a deep hunger for the Divine. I have been running around ever since, looking for comfort but really nothing has touched the sides. Music, no matter how loud, just sounds clamorous there, the space is too vast to fill with dance, only friendship and love light a candle in the cavern from time to time, and even then, only once has someone had the nerve to stay and watch with me. 

 

I wonder, “Why me?” why have I become unplugged from the Matrix? Why do I find myself standing on the edge of burning reality watching the dead bury the dead, shouting, “Wake up! Look at the terror and beauty that grip you in their wild dance! It’s what you’re made for. You are Divine! There is only one dancer and only one dance!” I don’t remember swallowing the red pill yet here I am with my walking boots for two weeks, leaving behind a few bewildered people, and hoping to return to them with more than just blisters on my feet.