Dharamsala

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I have not written for this since I have been here. I have written a lot but not about my surroundings, only using them to draw inspiration for other works. Which are coming along nicely. Why haven’t I wrote about here since being here? I don’t know, I guess if I knew I would write about it, maybe ill try. Something happened to me in Rishikesh, I don’t know what but something fell from me. The world validated that. I let go of the idea I'm a recluse, an antisocial old man sitting in the corner sipping away at his beer and smoking his hash. I didn’t let go of it as much as accept it. Accepted the fact I didn’t have to go out of my way to talk to people, and once I did that, they all seemed to come to me. A lesson I've learnt from my father. I learn so much from him and he has never sat me down to try and teach. He is more of a yogi, a Buddhist, than all these people chasing their own tails proving that they are one. To themselves, missing the point that there is no point. Their souls within must get so frustrated. They come from ten day silent retreats and tell me about it. The next day I see the same face in the street and say hello. Their faces give it away that they can remember me but not from where. They’re so busy pursuing the spiritual world they forget this one. This may be a false reality, an illusion, but the soul is here for a reason?

The child at the playground shouldn’t worry about his PlayStation at home but enjoy the company of the other kids. I don’t know anything, that’s something I remind myself, sometimes makes it hard to write. A blank page is often worth more than one I've put words on, but my heart is worth more with the words elsewhere. I feel the friction of my divinity and ego, the grease on the torch, but the projection is unique. You cant be present by telling yourself you need to be present as its an admission that you're not, that there is a destination to get to, that a part of you knows the destination but that’s the same person who knows you're wrong. If you're wrong, then why do you know you're right?

Its all a headfuck, subtle as the b in subtle, but its obvious when you don’t try and put any logical reasoning to it. Its obvious when you don’t try and lead others your way but fall through the streams of your own. I go mad when I have a writer stuck in my head, when I'm in a moment and separating myself to observe it, to start putting down a paragraph about my situation. Maybe that’s why I haven’t documented any experiences since being here, because it has just been too good to live. I know no words of mine, no matter how poetically penned could express the beauty of Dharamsala and the people I've met in it. Like putting Tinkerbelle in a jar. But I will try.

I met Daisy in Rishikesh a few days before I left. A forty six year old from the Netherlands with a child not much younger than me. She owns a homestay twenty minutes from Amsterdam that runs itself and puts money in her pocket to pursue her next dream; Robbers Daughter – a clothing brand that allows her to express herself. She told me she finds it revolting when two white people bow to each other and say “namaste” and this made me like her. She was funny and thought I was funny and I missed being funny. I thought she was married, so didn’t see her in the light of sexuality. I did, but was willing to put that aside. Then she told me she was divorced and became the same shape as the hole in my heart that yearned for affection. She left for Delhi, I left for Dharamsala. On an overnight bus. I spent twelve hours trying to get comfortable to no avail. It took me a few days to recover. I tried to go see the Dalai Lama but the whole process seemed one step too many (two steps). The streams I spoke about earlier lands me at ‘the sky high café’ owned by Yash. Yash is a skinny man with a big beard and his face breathes happiness. Since then we have become brothers, for now anyway. Until I leave and new siblings walk in through the door. Brothers without attachment and the notion it may be twenty years if we ever see each other again.

I sat in the café and a man lay asleep like a hound. On the pillows and mattress that live as chairs to the tables low to the floor. The tables are white and Yash gives you water paints and brushes to paint. My restless body (that would be diagnosed as an attention deficit disorder by the commission earning practitioners at home).
I enjoy being able to let my mind go into colours onto the table.
The hound (Amit) told me he is playing a gig at this café that night. With an Argentinian girl who plays percussion.

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Later that night I came back, the Argentinian girl was Ayelen. There she played on a Clap box, this little acoustic amp looking thing that played different beats wherever you hit it. Amit was pretty good but didn’t know his limits. Bukowski says the problem with artists is they use too many colours, give a child a set of crayons and they will use every one. I related and remembered this because of my own writing. My insecurity needs all the colours, I don’t have trust in just the few shades of blue. But you have to know your limits, you have to know reality and right now I look from the mountains beside an aggressive waterfall that spits the heavy rainfall through the valleys, I look at nature and realise it doesn’t use many colours at all, and because of this the reds stick out. The flowers stick out. Gods favourites stick out.

Amit and Ayelen were donation based. I sat in my corner, the Russell Crowe corner (everyone keeps saying I look like Russell Crowe). High as the midday sun. Ayelen came over to me after I spent an hour or two admiring her. My self worth saw it as pity, because I donated 500R. She asked me to sit with her and Amit and I said no because I was too comfy. My laziness has been such a wicked tool. Later she sat beside me whilst everyone took turns on the guitar. Everyone in this place has so much talent. Musical talent oozed from them effortlessly. I spoke with Ayelen, she was interested in my painting on the table and my writing. I got her number and went home feeling happy.

The next day, Daisy arrived. I told her I would meet her at Sky High café. I spoke with Ayelen and she told me she will be in Sky High café all day if I wanted to join her.
I went from being a fat loser sulking about having no friends to meeting two girls at the same place. Still, my ignorance fogged my vision. I sat with Ayelen for a bit until Daisy showed up, then she fell into the background.
‍A man who tries to catch two rabbits, catches none. They walked home together. Then Daisy invited me to her room.

The next day, Ayelen invited me to another gig, at a new place, I once again saw this as just wanting a fan to watch and donate to her and the howling hound. I think I am hard on Amit out of the jealousy, jealous of his duets with Ayelen. There she played her clap box and Daisy arrived. That night, whilst everyone was leaving I kissed Daisy and went home. I messaged Ayelen like a weasel.
“Thanks for another great performance, sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye”,
“You were too busy kissing your friend”,
“But I love you”,
“Your mouth was just wrong?”…

The next day she sent me some writing and that’s when my ignorance was obvious to the ignorant.
I saw her as a superhero. A drum playing goddess with brown eyes, wavy hair, tanned smooth skin and too beautiful to have feelings of self doubt and insecurity.

Daisy told me that Ayelen looked at me with loving eyes. I don’t think about it, any sense I could make would only dismiss it. She wants me because I didn’t want her but I do want her I was just too insecure to see her attainable, so my lack of interest was interpreted as charm whilst the rest of the town pursued her.

Daisy looked at me in awe when I spoke with her. Her big brown eyes still young in thirst for tomorrow. She found me too good and it made me uncomfortable. If there's one thing that leads me astray it’s the eyes of an idoliser. She is smart and beautiful and I respect her, am I writing this to you or to her? Either way, its true.

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Kings are depicted as evil by the weasels who overthrow them.
That random sentence is because my laptop died whilst writing the first bit. Now I sit on the hill beneath the chill of the night air, drinking my third kingfisher that a lovely little Indian drove on his scooter to get.
Am I a king?
Of my own life, and he is pretty good to us.

The night I cant remember the origins of I offered to walk Ayelen home. Carrying her clap box.
“This is to say sorry” I say.
Was I sorry?
If you’ve saw this woman you will realise I was, but it was more than her looks, something I needed to see beyond, I was wrong. I walked up the mountain. She was staying in a hostel a Land Rover test track away. I walked up and kissed her goodnight. Her kiss told me everything, she wanted me. Maybe not emotionally, but as she kissed me and I held her, she wanted me physically.

The love triangle turned to a square when Sam showed up. Sam was a friend from Australia I had never met. I fell in love with her twin sister, the first girl that made me laugh after the heartbreak of 2019.
I can imagine what you're thinking, for a man who cant fall in love, who is vigorous and hard on the opposing sex, he sure does fall in love with them a lot.

My dog has taught me through life and now death. I pat the strays on the Indian roads as if they are him. If I can love one dog, and see him in the eyes of all, then I can love every dog.
Women were the next step.
Men were either already loved or soon to be, I don’t know yet.
Sam’s twin sister wasn’t available. She loved me and I her and it was one of those loves you have to express by not seeing the fruits of it. The universe rewarded me with a slightly altered version of her. Sam was comfortable. Wise enough to have fucked up a lot and stupid enough to learn from all her mistakes. She made me better, with her sense of humour and shared view on the world.
Could she compete with a perfect arsed Latina?
Could anyone?
My ego was getting mixed up in it. I wanted to tell my friends about it all.

‘What are you doing?’ my minds asks itself, ‘sharing your diary about your little love life. And to who? For what?’,
‘Mate, I don’t know…’ , answered my mind.
Then we all laughed together...

There's freedom in loving someone, knowing you're about to leave. But what is love but feeling free wherever you are?

You can bare your soul, give a little more of yourself without the inevitable pains of attachments and labelling. Love has been corrupted by insecurity. Me, more than anyone. A part of me died through the pain of my big break up and although it hurt to die I'm glad he is gone. Jealousy sits in the shadows of pride. A status. A handbag for the ego.
Look friends, look how beautiful this girl is that I got.
Please like me now…
But you pull joy from a relationship like that, then the polar of all the emotions rear their anxiety riddled heads.
What if she left you? Then who are you?

Well, you never had her in the first place brother, so don’t get stuck to your own illusions. Everyone here is a soul, manifested to evolve. A beautiful and precious thing to walk alongside another, but when your paths tell different terrains you need to let go of everything. There is a storm coming, a big storm and its going to wash us all away, only if we both let go can we end up at the same place. I know this, cause here we are again.

Dharamsala is a good place. I've fallen in love with everyone including myself and want nothing from anyone, including myself.

Now I sit alone, Daisy gone, Sam gone, Ayelen bed riddled with an illness. For the first time in a while I have empty patches of time for the day. Which I fill with music, writing, and art.

I feel presence from gnomes jumping across the rocks as I meditate by the waterfall. I jump into the 2 degree water full of tadpoles. I let it all go, it all washes from me. I'm no one again.

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