6. D-Day approaches.

D-Day Approaches: The Journey is Begun.

David returned to help with the shut down of the gallery.  I had no desire to see him because of how often he'd stomped his jackboots in my heart, but he came because I was desperate for help to dismantle both gallery and home and I was so low and demoralised that I would stoop to anything.  He'd been gone since Winter and I was consumed with exhaustion, rage and fury through three whole seasons which is not good for creative souls.  His no-nonsense Let's Get this Show Off the Road attitude timely arrival soothed much of that, as in the lead up to Christmas I had worked like Santa's slaves to make oh-so-many people happy when, surrounded by tinsel and champagne, they  opened their gifts on Christmas Day while I lapped at my wounds alone in my apartment.

I wanted to stab him to death, but I was pleased to see him.  Such are the vagaries of the heart.

He was a bit jet lagged coming all the way from Perth and the cultural shock to his system of being back in the world, so One Whole Night had passed, boxes were packed,  and I hadn't told him about The Journey.  The Adventure.  The Great Big Get Me Out of Here thing.  There was always something that prevented it when we talked, mainly that I was scared to tell him. Seriously, he'd left to me all this Stuff, left me with drowning debt, had sex with our neighbour, had a few Brokeback Mountain adventures that I can't prove but that prickled all my intuitive senses, and drank himself to oblivion whenever we went out. How pathetic was my heart that I could allow it to be consumed with this man? I should have left so long ago, but I didn't. Now here's the mess, and it needs sorting.  And that back door is swinging in the wind, creaking and howling that I'm taking too long, just get on with it. 

So, first, I get him naked and happy.  Then I clear my throat.   "I have something to tell you."  (Never a good start.) I blabbed it all out, the whole Morocco and Luda and Sarah and Synchronicity, (I left out the Goddess bits because that would make him gag) and my need to travel and shoot and get well.  My tea wasn't even lukewarm before he said “Good.  Great Idea.  For A Long Time You have Behaved Like A Caged Bird.”  Whoo Whee!!  The lines were open, the fences were down, the Great Wall of China was Breached, Venus and Mars were hand in hand and on the same evolutional plane for five important seconds, and before I could say I was stepping out the back, Jack, he had the whole vague itinerary.

I asked if he had a suggestion about which bead to take.  

 

Mars:  One bead? You're thinking of taking One Bead?  

Venus: (Covering both her assets with one hand) Uh huh, so, yes, I am. 

Mars: Why?  

Venus: Um.  

Mars: (Covering  his one asset with both his hands) You're a trader.  You should trade one bead up in every spot.   

Venus thinks: This is one cool idea but shut up because Mars is onto something.  

Mars: Start with a shell from our beach, trade it in Kathmandu for a Tibetan something, take that to Muscat ...   

Venus, under her breath:  OMG. He has been listening.  He is being inventive.  Venus circles this idea gingerly, realising that Mars holds the key to the Bead Universe.  Venus thinks of the One Red Paperclip dude who ended up with a Lear jet or something equally expensive and flashy, just from trading a paperclip, and remembers that the final leg of this journey is six months in a villa in Bali.

The gallery fittings come down and the cupboards empty.  My random acts of kindness devolve sometimes into random acts of madness.  I've got wormy nervous non catching-things sliding around my stomach because this small space has been my identity, my income, my destination, as well as my sort of birdcage (metaphors included)  for six years.  I have a lot of latent rage because David and I began this together a long time ago and I had dreams and notions and plans about domestic bliss and all that and he's changed all that. And I hate him and love him and never want to see him again and don’t know what I will do if I don’t.

 

But ... This Wouldn't be Happening, if That Hadn't Happened. So, in the next few days, a shell will arrive at my fingertips to take to Kathmandu.  Ahead, the vision of a long tomorrow.  In between, 12 months. 

The Journey is Begun.