Like We Are Alone
30 Oct
There are people in that bar over there. They look like they are having fun. The young man wants to go into the bar. To connect with the people. But a force that comes from within – that opens the wound in his heart – holds him back from connecting with these people. Instead, he keeps walking.
He walks to the end of Calle Elvira and sees steps that lead up a hill. The hill, he knows, overlooks a castle. But it is not the castle that he wants to look at tonight. Friday night. Instead, he wants to find a place where he can sit down and read the book that he grasps tightly.
But it isn’t reading that he really wants. Not at a deeper level. What he really wants is for someone – perhaps a group of people – to tap him on his shoulder and invite him into their world. To ask him questions about who he is. To be interested. To laugh with him. And ask him to be a part of their life.
But it isn’t even connection with new people that he most wants. At least, not at the deepest level. At the deepest level, even fleeting connections seems to get in the way of what he most desires. Which is to know that he’s loved. That he’s not alone. And that whatever he was put on this world to say, in time, will be said.
*****
This young man dropped everything in his life to live in Granada tonight. A few months ago, he was engaged to a beautiful woman, running a fast-growing technology company, working hundred hour weeks, and enjoying a deepening community of friendships in San Francisco.
In a period of just a few weeks, he left his fiancé, let investors know that he no longer wanted to run his company, began the process of shutting down the company, and learned that the deep friendships that he had made in San Francisco were, mostly, related to his business affairs or his socialite ex-fiancé.
While this young man didn’t consciously expect such a conflagration of events, it also wasn’t unexpected. He had created for himself a life that was unsustainable. A life in which all of his relationships brought with them major expectations. A life that had no room for spirit. For life. For love.
And this young man was drawn to spirit. He had been drawn to spirit all of his life – since he was a little boy. And the only thing that had driven him to create this life was the belief that if he did certain things and acted in certain ways he would be worthy in the eyes of others. He would be loved. He wouldn’t be lonely.
*****
The young man walks up a steep cobblestone road. He climbs higher and higher. The road is, at first, filled with shops and lovers and friends, but as it gets higher, they give way to residences and families and stray cats. He keeps climbing. And climbing. Until he reaches a clearing. Where there is a park.
In this park, a group of people huddle around musicians who are playing music. Is it Flamenco? He isn’t sure because he hasn’t had time in his life to listen to much music. He wants to sit in the group. He wants to tell the musicians that their music is good. But he cannot bring himself to walk in their direction.
Instead, he sits on a stone. And looks at the castle in front of him. It is the night, but the castle is in the light. He can see it perfectly. And feel it perfectly. And although he knows that the castle has been here for many centuries, his heart tells him something that brings a smile to his lips. “That is your castle,” it says.
Not in the sense that he owns it. Nor in the sense that it isn’t also a castle for millions of other people. But rather in the sense that it is each of our birthright to know that we have a castle. In which we dwell with spirits and angels who love us. Even when it feels like we are alone. Especially when it feels like we are alone.