Journal

Before I get off the plane I have decided, I'm going to Findhorn. To my tree. I feel the need for ritual. For surrender. For the Findhorn river. Cleansing and Purification. And to see him once more. Of course.

In Gabrielle Roth's book 'Maps to Ecstasy' she tells the story of a monk who falls in love with a woman. He goes to another monk, tells him then asks 'What should I do?' The older monk says, 'Follow your ecstasy.' Obviously, I think he chose to be with the woman he's in love with, no matter what else he had to give up. I don't understand why he wouldn't. I don't.

One must know the truth which shall bring sobriety, and it shall release you from your inner slavery.

As i watched him die i found it hard to remember how he'd lived. I found it hard to think of the twenty years i'd known him as my favourite uncle and thought only of the year he'd been a cancer patient. I could barely recognise him, so swollen because of the steroids, so drugged up he was barely even him. I could have sat at the bedside all night and all day but apparently life went on. I was supposed to continue on as if nothing was happening, as if every second i didn't feel him ebbing slowly away. I thought about him every one of those seconds, even when i pretended i wasn't. I could hardly drag myself out of bed every day that week. I had to be so far away but couldn't concentrate on anything. Nothing was as important as this. I couldn't stay away even though the others didn't think it was good for me to be there. I said goodbye each time i left just incase he wasn't there when i came back the next day.