Chapter 13: Walking Through Walls
A Journey of Addiction, Healing, and Rediscovery
Day Thirteen: Thursday August 28th, 2003
I couldn’t get up for the sweeping today. I was very shoddy and had to stay in ‘sleep’. After picking up the coupons, I promise to make everyone a big breakfast which I just manage, 8 meals is a hard order in this kitchen where Malee does not understand the idea of everyone getting their meal at the same time. But I manage with a little help from Malee and, upon serving the food, the guys give a round of applause to say thanks.
More exercise, more swimming, more music. Stomach’s not doing anything. I begin to get a bit down after the realisation that K, G & C are all leaving tomorrow. It’s just like me to not like a change in any comfort I have created for myself. There’s still N, S, J and maybe A if he does not go back to France. I have a very good sauna at 1pm and afterwards go to make a Thai Club Sandwich. I can tell something is not right within me because I am starting to eat more again. I got the same black shit come up out of my lungs today. I hope it’s the drugs.
We attend meditation and I honestly feel transported again; at one point I feel as if I have slipped about an inch sideways away from my body, but the shock makes me jerk and it does not last as long as I’d love it to. After the meditation ends, we sit around and I’m so not with it that I think everyone is talking about the meditation from a different day. Because I feel so amazing and strange, I try to explain to them and Phra Hans what I have been through, but to my surprise, it is met with laughter as they all think I have just been asleep. I stop sharing my experience with them because I feel stupid. I know it’s a kind of sleep, or rather one of the parts that makes up what sleep is, but I was concentrating and I can remember all my thoughts during that time.
I feel that whatever is happening inside of me is outstripping the amount of conscious guidance I can get here. I wish I could talk to Luang Por, but it’s hard to imagine having the chance to spend much time with him. I notice that as I am writing, Phra Peter approaches me and starts chatting. As he sits down, it’s clear his eyes keep gazing at my open book where I have been writing. He starts talking about Buddhists and that for a very enlightened person, such as Luang Por, all questions are considered stupid and that many people always want the answer to their question to be complicated.
He says that if an enlightened person is even listening to you, he is already being patient.
I close my book and feel ill at ease with this idea. I always think those with more answers than questions should be patient with the less enlightened beings of this world. I do not agree with what Phra Peter has said and I don’t believe he has been told this information by someone who is enlightened.
I am becoming very uptight in my thought patterns.
I am still thinking too much and I can’t seem to stop it. Maybe I need to relax more and cut back on the busy and rigorous daily routine I have been following. When you are misunderstood by those around you, can it be that they are wrong and have failed to see what you mean, or is it the final test to see if you can admit that you are wrong?Â
I still have uncertainty about my self-judgement so I do not know. That leads me to believe I am not repairing myself quickly enough. And it’s early days I know, but how can I have learnt so much in this time and nothing gives me the strength in the places where I need it? All these marvellous experiences are truly precious, but I am still going round in circles like a neurotic maniac inside my mind.
I’ve just had a quiet chat with C and in his straightforward way (which I sometimes do not pay heed to), he said that the only answer to my problem is to move on. Whatever it is that I feel I’ve failed in, I should move on. I think he is right. I need to look at what I’ve got, forget what I’ve lost and move forward from that space.
I nearly didn’t go to the sauna, but I did, and I feel much better for it. I feel as if the time up until now has been breathing in, but now it is time to let my mind, body and spirit breathe out. I did not go to chanting because the others asked me to sing some requests before they leave tomorrow.
I did what I could remember of ‘Like A Virgin’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’ (and a couple of my songs). K was very kind and gave me 100 baht because he knows money’s tight for me in comparison to the others. I’m much more relaxed now and I feel less worried about the future, and am more prepared to stop criticising myself at every second. I must concentrate on not trying to be anything other than myself. There is nothing wrong inside my mind because there is nothing wrong outside of my mind.
And this much self-analysis is not the work of somebody who is mad, but the work of someone who, as a child, used to write everything they thought. It’s just a part of my childhood that I am reclaiming and it just happens that what I am writing about is a subject full of corridors of darkness that I’ve been through. To keep this child breathing there is one thing I must continue to do and that is to continue writing my thoughts. This will be as essential in maintaining who I am in England as it has been here.
I have changed from thinking of my first time here as an opening of a door to the grasping of the key. The door I need to open is waiting for me when I get home. The future is still unclear. But I am looking forward to not minding that it is unclear.
I support these organisations who are shaping a system change to integrate mental health awareness and well-being into the music industry. Please do read about their work.
The Creative Well
Music Mind Matters
Waterbear College of Music