Red Red Roses and Cream

Yesterday, at the last minute I asked a friend to give me a lift to work. I was telling him about how ‘at home’ I felt in California. How everything makes sense to me there, how I seem to just ‘get’ it and how they seem to ‘get’ me… How that feeling is amplified when I'm in NYC – the feeling of complete familiarity that I had as I was on the train in Manhattan in this February, as I walked in the cold crisp icy air – I felt at ease there. At home. I feel like it’s where I am meant to be.

Later, by chance, I ended up going out for lunch with a colleague who told me about how he had lived in NYC for 6 years, teaching at Columbia. Living in Manhattan. An apartment on the corner of 116th.





'Wow' I said, 'that must’ve been amazing, I’ve always wanted to live and work there.'

'Have you?' he asked. 'Have you lived there?'

And I said ‘No, not yet. Still want to…’

**********************************

Somehow that evening, I was upset.

Before I slept I was suddenly, suprisingly, crying and crying.

What for?

Looking at my life thinking about how so many parts of it were missing, I think.

Thinking about how long I would go on not living the life I always wanted to live: still talking about wanting to live and work in NYC. Still dreaming about learning and studying about healing in California which will lead me ultimately to practicing in New York one day; a relationship in which I am adored and cherished; a family. Will I be 35 and still waiting? When does it all start?

I’m tired. Of being in transition.
I want it to start.






I held my amethyst stone, and put my rose quartz mala of 108 beads that I bought at Samye Ling Buddhist Peace Temple last weekend around my neck, and silently asked to be shown in my dreams what I need to know.






I dreamt a series of dreams.

In the first, I was in Planet K – and it was shown to me how it was the influence of my relationship with P that stopped me making it work. His chaotic lifestyle cloacking his fear of love. My uptake of his values in place of my own because I lacked faith and confidence and trust in myself. I came undone.

In the second I was studying Law. And I couldn’t carry on because P was unsupportive, drinking, abusive, emotionally neglectful, and continuously chaotic. I perceived him to be in the way and so I stopped, hurt, confused, distressed.

Then I was in Manna. And I couldn’t carry on because he was hurting me so much with his unapproachable, destructive behaviour. He was untrue, aggressive and shouting. I was frightened. I felt broken. I thought he was in my way again. And so I stopped.

Then I was in a garden, and it was as if this was a place that we had decided to be after we separated. But now he was doing things that I didn't know about. There was something that once belonged to both of us. And he told me he didn’t have it. But when I asked they said, ‘oh yes, he’s already got that – we agreed a deal' and I couldn’t believe he’d planned to keep it for himself.

But this time, I was determined not to feel defeated. I saw my car. But it wasn't the silver Rover that I bought for us. It was a shiny new VW Campavan, the colour of red, red roses, and cream. It was all shiny and seemed new, and I knew it was OK for me to drive it. So I got in it and drove away.

*******************

I love my ex husband very deeply. I don't really accept that he was someone in my way. I believe that he did the best he could, and that I did the best I could. I know he acted many times lovelessly. I know I felt rejected and neglected and found him cold and aggressive and frightening. But I believe that his actions were borne out of his reluctance and concern about surrendering to love. I believe he loved me. But I believe he feared the intimate expression of love, presence of love in his life. I believe he created chaos to avoid intimacy. Again and again. And I accept that, forgive that, and love him unconditionally. I've never considered that he was 'in the way' of anything. Things were what they were.

So what to make of it? Was there a message?

Planet K was a business I started in 1999, which was voted #7 in Muzik magasine's 1999 review of the 'Top 10 clubs in the world'. I met my husband in 1999 just after it opened and immediately I gave up my own instincts entirely qand became absorbed in his values, identity and lifestyle until eventually both he and I were caught up in a series of painful compromises. The club had been a dream for me. But it was a dream I sold and one day in 2001 it was all over.

I had enrolled at Law School in Sep 2002, but gave it up, when I couldn't cope with coming home to a flat full of people using cocaine and drinking. My husband was in the music business, and he was turning more and more to the Dark Side, I could see all of them hurtling towards a black hole of emptiness. I couldn't cope and in 2003, I gave it up. Another dream over.

Manna was the business that I conceived and started in 2004, in which he insisted that he worked, and to which he made a breathtaking and beautiful and unique contribution. At home however, his drive to avoid emotional intimacy led him to be increasingly aggressive and frightening and destructive - until eventually I moved out of the house in 2006 and finally, feeling emotionally exhausted and fraught, accepted the closure of the business, and the end of this, my most vivid and precious and beautiful dream, in 2007.

All my life I've wanted to live and work in New York. When I first met P, I was 25 and it was one of the first things I told him. And he said, 'Well you can't now, because of us...' he had a son whom he needed to be in Manchester for. I immediately put that dream to one side, thinking instead that our love would be my dream now.


So what was I being told?


THAT HIS INFLUENCE HAS BEEN A MORE POWERFUL FORCE IN MY LIFE THAN I HAVE EVEN KNOWN.

THAT THE ROUTE TO MY HAPPINESS IS OUT OF IT…IN SEPARATING MYSELF...IN LEARNING NOT TO BE ABSORBED IN TO SOMEONE ELSE SO ABSOLUTELY…LEARNING HOW TO ASSERT MYSELF, IN LEARNING JUST TO BE MYSELF...

THAT IN SEPARATING MYSELF, PEACEFULLY, LOVINGLY BUT ASSERTIVE NONE THE LESS, IN DECIDING TO DRIVE MY OWN CAR ON MY OWN, I'LL FIND MY STRENGTH AND INDEPENDENCE.

THAT EVERYTHING THAT CAN MAKE ME HAPPY IS VERY CLOSE TO ME, THAT MY LIFE WILL BE AS VIVID AND AS BEAUTIFUL AND AS JOYFUL AND AS FULL OF LOVE AS I IMAGINED IT.

SOON.



Amethyst is said to be a healing stone that is known for its help in remembering dreams, for opening your 7th chakra to the realm of spiritual energy and source. It is called the stone of sobriety and spirituality.

Rose quartz is said to open up the heart for both giving and receiving love. It soothes negative influences, is a healing stone for the heart, and opens your 4th chakra. It is called the stone of love and romance and spiritual healing in love.