The Space Between Us...
I am in my office, the terrace...
Stefanos is painting something on the stone around the edge of the steps... It feels a bit like a Sunday afternoon in my childhood home!
My Dad was always painting, or pruning, or mending, or making something... In his 'gardening clothes', and when I wasn't doing my 'three hours during the weekend gardening stint' which I 'had to do' to earn my riding lessons...! I would be reading, or writing, or lying about in the sun, or most often practicing hurdling or high jumping too - over homemade poles of bamboo - and handstands of course!
But there is a big difference - Stefanos has just brought me the perfect cup of coffee...! I didn't know about the joys of coffee until I was twenty two years old...
I didn't drink tea or coffee, until I met Nigel... He had a lovely morning practice of the 'cup of coffee before running' meditation! And so it all started...
In the beginning I would sit while he drank it... And then off we would go, out of the door to run... But one day I joined in, and I have never looked back.
I have just been writing the 'Thank you', page to all those who have helped me to create my new book... As I was writing about Simon, without whom there would be no book, an email appeared from him!
He has finished all the corrections from the wonderful proof reading job that Jeremy did, and this means he is nearly there... The book is nearly done....
I wrote 'A Girlfriend for a year', nearly two years ago now.
It all started on May 12th 2013... What I wrote then is no longer so representative of Anadi and I now... It charts our struggles and challenges in the early days, as well as the joys and delight, and our love for one another.
I have written it as an offering to others about conscious relating... But it can of course, also simply be read as the story of Anadi's and my meeting, and how we came to fall in love, and then decide to shed everything to live as we do now,,,
But within the pages I also write about relationship... The space between us, the place where we can heal, or get hurt again and again...
I wrote about how to go deeper into the relating, so that we can clear the stuff within us, that blocks us from the depth of relationship we could have with each another... To be safe with one another, to feel loved for who we are, to be able to speak out, to express and to know that we will be celebrated for being us.
This is true in every relationship... But I wrote about Anadi and I because it is often that the more intimate the relationship - and this can be between friends, colleagues, siblings, parents and children as well as lovers - that the most complications can arise, as well as the deepest connections...
If relationship is a mirror, then intimate relationship is a magnifying glass for all of our 'stuff'... All of our hurts, and our unresolved areas to show up; as well as our gold, our qualities and all our beauty....
When I read over 'Girlfriend for a year' to check and double check before it flies, the 'issues' we encountered are not there now... Our relationship is easier, deeper more connected... Because, even though being so honest with one another was very hard, it has made it easier in the long run...
I was still 'casually involved' with another man, and not ready to commit to an exclusive relationship... Anadi understood this, 'hey, I understand, I have fought for freedom all of my life... I would never curtail the freedom of another...'
But even within this, it certainly did not mean that this place we found ourselves... In love with one another, but in different places as to the form we desired the relationship to be... was an easy place...
But the journey we travelled, certainly took us deeper into ourselves, and opened us to the depth of relating we both had always believed was possible, even though we had lived a lot of our life already...!
My blister is better today... But I am not going running yet, or even swimming, although I thought about it...
Instead I am simply sitting in the sun... And now as David Radavich isuggests in his beautiful poem about Corfu,'Taverna', it is nearing lunch time and we will make our way to our lovely taverna by the sea...
'Where is there joy
without food?
Platters come balancing
over us, course after course,
framed in hanging vines
above the hillside giddy
with carafes of wine
that cool the noonday sun.
Everyone overeats and naps,
this part of living where
time moves slowly
knowing itself.
From their easy balconies
townspeople wonder
who the gargoyles are, what
toasts we raise
calling our pleasure with
a foreign tongue'.
