Back in Yeadon

Well here I am once more in Yeadon. What a mad year it’s been! Up and down this country like a bloody yo-yo! I don’t know how many times I’ve made the journey north to south, south to north – and a bit of east to west and back again thrown in too. I guess I could find out by looking at my bank records – but let’s just say, it’s a lot.

And what happens next? Two and a bit weeks ago I moved to Exeter and loved it; but that didn’t last, for reasons beyond my control. Elise lost her marbles. And Yorkshire strangely called me – though really it had been calling me even before I left…

Beginning of April I’m finally free. Done my last bit of work for Ian. Elise ready to welcome me in. Train ticket booked down to London on the Monday. And then I’m at the station ready to go and…that song pops in my head – “if you leave me now…baby please don’t go” – and I’m thinking, no no, that can’t be right. But once down in London, on the morning of my Devon departure, there’s the weird awful dream of things going wrong with a good friend’s wife and…whaddya know, the whole thing came true. If it had been anything else, I would have heeded it, but I wanted Devon so bad. And it was so lovely there. But now…

But now I’m back in Leeds. Fulfilled my responsibilities with the Emmerdale charity tournament. Learned something there: next time someone asks me to do something four months in advance, tell them, maybe, but can you drop me a line a bit closer to the date? Like, one week before? I got myself into a hole. And then had to do all this to get out of it.

Weird, though, that there were those three things all arranged for the same four-day period, after a month-long blank in the calendar. I made it for two of them. Nothing much happened. And I’m pretty much right back where I was.

What happens next? Do I rejoin to Exeter? Move into Ed’s? Somewhere else? Just grab a tent and do my random hobo homeless thing, free from the shackles of possessions, comfort and commitment? Or pursue something with Carl, go live in his garage in Rothwell – is that where I should have gone the beginning of April? – and maybe look at this ‘work’ he wants me to do, even though I don’t much feel like doing it?

Claire lives just near there. But surely nothing more to do with her…

And then that dream yesterday morning, very vivid and real, Amma telling me in no uncertain terms, “go get a job. God likes people who work.” It’s so strong when I woke I felt in no doubt that that’s what I’m supposed to do. But what job? Where? If you want me to get one, then at least some clues. But, I mean, surely not Carl’s dubious internet business, with gambling and computers and too much work and nothing but money…

And once more I think about Exeter and a PGCE in RE…

Answers, please – ever answers. I suppose that’s always a possibility, much as I’ve gone off kids and teaching and education and stressy jobs. But a man’s got to do something. And, much like the ol’ MA, it is one of the few things I wanted to do but never did. And, I do like that university lifestyle…

But it’s not a job, it’s studying.

What job, Amma! What job?

I don’t much know what I’ve done this year. I left Leeds just after New Year with an idea that I’d visit friends in different places – Perlilly in Coventry, Matt and Easterly in Kent, Andrea in London, Bart and Elise in Exeter, David in Abingdon – and that turned into working for Matt (good for the finances and having at least a little something to do) and spending way too much time in London. I came mistakenly back to Yorkshire at the beginning of February when, probably, I should have stayed a bit longer down in Kent. And then mid-Feb I arranged the move in with Elise and have been pretty much kicking my heels since then. Planning too far in the future. Relying on others. Drifting in non-activity. A big chunk of February and March I ended up stuck in London, stuck at Andrea’s, going quietly mad. Chained to the work and to dentists. Chained to my own laziness and inertia and lack of direction. Chained to the whims of Bart and Elise. I knew I didn’t want to be floating through March, but I did it and it wasn’t good. Maybe I should have gone away – I got my passport – but all that passed me by too. Meanwhile, my dreams and signs seem intact, and seem to have guided me: away from Perlilly’s (I went, and it wasn’t good); away from Paul (didn’t go); away from Elise (went, not good); and back here to Yorkshire, to not knowing what to do next, to being told to get a job.

If dreams and signs are working…but nothing last night, and I don’t know what to do next, beyond go weirdly live in Carl’s garage for a day or two and see how that feels, meanwhile, probably, thinking all the time of Exeter, as I am now while I type this.

Man, I love it there! Feel good there. Smile and feel peace and run and meditate and talk to people, like to be out and about, look into getting into things.

So why back up here in Yorkshire? Why not allowed to be in the one place I feel good?

Or, having done that charity tournament, having sorted many things out, having dealt with most of my possessions, having picked up my letter, having (later today) sorted things with Carl, and maybe even Claire – does that mean I’m now free to go where I want, do what I want to do?

And what about the job in Mexico? That’s a job. That maybe makes perfect sense, in the grand scheme of things.

“Apply for everything, take what comes”?

Does that mean I should apply for PGCE in Exeter, apply for this and that, and see where the chips lay once done? But shouldn’t we be getting something on? It’s May, for God’s sake! How much more of this weird year of not really achieving anything am I to do?

And what of writing? What of publishing? What of the ideas that plague my head, follow me everywhere I go, but which I ignore, run away from, and know, ultimately, are just kind of fruitless? Just another nut in a sea of bonkers humans with weird ideas that come to naught.

Iboga clinic. Little place. Flotation tank. Growing mushrooms. And women like Abi and Abbie, Claire and Ali, Exeter unknowns, Bristol Bertie. Sara forever in my head, a full NINE YEARS on. And who knows what Mexico might bring?

It’s a mad world, a mad life. And me right in the middle of it, sort of completely mad and at the same time feeling more sane that almost anyone I know, no booze or ciggies or weird repressed anger or strange desires or slave to London – but, still, mostly just staring at screens and clicking and scrolling like the rest of them, embarrassed again to have been drawn into – ugh! – online chess (but hopefully now free) and pretty just thinking, not doing.

Point the way, oh Lord! If work is what it is, then fine. But give me some direction; it’s all I ask.

Point the way and let me walk the path. There must be an answer. You told me about when to go to Greece. You showed me that Canada, and even the US was the right thing. You…gave me the vision of concrete, consumerist England, and I’m here now eating that. Prepared to up sticks and return once more to America if need be. Freed of all things and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Or to wear a uniform in Mexico and teach sweet children how to say things in English. Or to dwell in my motherland and be whatever you want me to be. Or to type, or a mixture of all of the above. But I can’t figure this out on my own, I need help. I need direction. I need instructions. I need to know what my soul wants, what’s best for me and the world in a real, true way. Not just fripperies. Not just lining my pocket. Something a little grander than that. But what?

Have you a plan for me? I always thought you did, that Mother Meera was somehow guiding my life. But what plan? Other than to take me to the edge of madness with nothing left to try, and on my knees like Neale Donald Walsch to finally receive one’s beyond-middle age reward.

Is that what all this is about? Yet – either way, there must be a next step. So all I ask is that you help me to see it, and grant me the guts to take it, and hope that I can persevere.

C’mon, dear Lord – leader of my soul, orchestrator of this mad, merry dance – just show me the way to where we shall wander next. I know it’s not Yeadon. But where it is, I haven’t a clue. Or rather, I’ve lots of clues – too many, perhaps – so need your guiding hand to point me the way.

You get the message. I seek. I ask. I hope and pray that I will receive, and find.

Amen.

Your loving son,

Rory x