Lips Unsealed
Page 26
I first met her when I was bedridden during my pregnancy with Duke. Someone had suggested I get food delivered from the restaurant that was affiliated with the Golden Bridge. In addition to food, I also got Gurmukh. Well-known in L.A. for her pre- and postnatal yoga and meditation work, she came to my house and gave me private kundalini lessons—as much as I could do in bed—and continued after Duke was born. I didn’t care about the yoga, but Gurmukh gave the best foot massage I’d ever had in my life.
I reconnected with her one day in early 2007 when I was waiting for a class at Golden Bridge. She was walking by and stopped to talk.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You look so happy.”
“I’m going to India next month,” I said.
“That’s great,” she said.
I filled her in on some of the details. This was going to be my second trip there. My first time had been with Morgan and my friend Rosemarie in 2000. We had gone on a friend’s magnificent yacht. Morgan is like Valentino; he doesn’t like anything unpleasant entering his world if possible. So India wasn’t for him. I didn’t think it was for me either. My friend and I went ashore in Mumbai, where the poverty was more extreme than anyplace I had ever seen. I hadn’t led a sheltered life, but I saw people living in conditions that made me grimace and turn away. Yet I couldn’t stop looking at the throngs of people and animals. Beggars. Amputees. Small children on their own. Peddlers. Holy men. Everywhere I turned I saw the whole deck of humanity. I kept staring. I was as captivated and curious as I was repulsed.
As I told Gurmukh later, I felt the need to go back. As I got deeper into yoga and related reading, I had the sense that I had missed something in India, something key and important that was there, waiting for me to find it, like a spiritual Where’s Waldo.
She smiled.
She mentioned that she was leading a trip there, too.
“Why don’t you come with me?” she said.
“Okay.”
Saying yes as instantly as I did was one of those turning points in my life, like forming the Go-Go’s. I didn’t give it any thought. Nor did I consider any of the arrangements I had to make, the costs, inconveniences, dangers, or hassles. I knew it was something I had to do.
Doors open at different times in your life. Some are presented before you’re ready, and others appear at exactly the right time. India was one of those. For years, I had envied people with passions in their life. I had music, but it was my career. It was not until I found yoga, or until yoga found me, that I felt the emptiness in me begin to fill up and my soul burn with a new life force. Having passion in life made me eager to grow and do more. It made me feel alive after so many years of going through the motions of being alive. I know it’s what made me eager to plan my trip to India—actually, I planned two: one with friends and then a second one with Gurmukh. But I might not have gone on either one if not for a remarkable woman who passed away in May of that year one month before turning 103.
Lesley Blanch was Morgan’s godmother. To say she had a full and rich life is an understatement. She was a writer, artist, editor, adventurer, romantic, dreamer, and lover of life. Her first book, The Wilder Shores of Love, had as its theme women escaping the boredom of convention. It was an apt description of Lesley herself. She had studied art as a young woman, designed book jackets for T. S. Eliot, married and divorced French novelist-diplomat Romain Gary, hobnobbed with movie stars and screenwriters, and of course saw the world.
She lived in Paris, Berne, New York, and Los Angeles and traveled the world mostly on her own. As she once said, “I’ve rather hopped on some trains in my time.” In that respect, as well as a few others, we were kindred spirits. I visited with her frequently. I couldn’t believe she was 100, then 101, and then 102—with all her teeth, as she liked to joke, and her sense of humor.
She always said, “Belinda, you bring so much light with you. Tell me where you’ve been lately.”
I brought her trinkets from my travels and played her reggae music, which she loved. Her message to me was simple: Live. Don’t be afraid. Go for it. I wish I had been able to tell her about India. For my first trip, I went the five-star route. I was there with two girlfriends, and we booked rooms at all the best hotels. I loved seeing the sights, but I was seeing them out the window of a comfortable car. I instinctively knew I wasn’t experiencing India the way I wanted or needed. I had no stories for Lesley.
Cut to me sitting beside the pool one day at one of India’s most luxurious hotels—one of the most luxurious hotels I had ever seen, let alone stayed at. It was an old palace in the mountains. Everything was exquisite: the views, the service, everything. As my friends and I were having our breakfast amid the posh splendor, a dog ran up to our table. She sat down next to me and began licking herself. I looked down at her and saw that her toe was coming off.
“Oh my God,” I said. “This is gross.”
At the same time, I couldn’t stop staring at the dog. She looked back at me, too. After I sensed some kind of contact between us, she got up and left. From then on, I began to see India, really see it as I was meant to. One second it was gorgeous, the next it was gruesome. More often than not, I saw it the other way around: gruesome and then gorgeous.
A few months later, I returned to India as part of Gurmukh’s annual Golden Bridge pilgrimage. This time the trappings were extremely different, and so was my experience. I met up with the group in Delhi, took a long bus ride to Amritsar, where we hooked up with Gurmukh and her husband, Gurushabd, and then journeyed to Rishikesh, a holy town in the country’s northern highlands.
Rishikesh is best known for two things: it’s the place where the Ganges comes down from the Himalayas and it’s the yoga center of the world. In the late sixties, the Beatles visited the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh and for a moment India was très hip.
My arrival drew much less fanfare. It was hard to believe even the Beatles could have caused a stir in the crowded city’s hustle and bustle. From my vantage as a new arrival, Rishikesh teemed with the full circus of humanity. I had to take several deep breaths to keep my focus. Even as I was getting my bearings, I knew my pilgrimage to this holy city was going to be either a colossal mistake or an impossibly magical experience. There was no room for anything in between.
Likewise, I was immediately on overload from the city’s sights and pungent odors—an acrid foulness mixed with incense and the smell of kerosene. It hung in the air like a thick, exotic perfume. As for the crowds, I didn’t know where to look first. There were holy men on the street, people posing as holy men, vendors, peddlers, beggars, blind children, open markets and stands. People wore clothes that were in a whole different color scheme than in the West. And then there was the noise; it was a different soundtrack from that of the life I knew back home. Slowly, I stepped into the churning sea of humanity. I darted between scooters, cows, dogs, and vendors’ carts loaded with goods. In the distance was the river with its own craziness along the banks. I lost track of how many times I asked myself, “Where am I?”
It didn’t matter.
Within minutes, I knew it was wonderful. I felt strangely comfortable, elated, and at home.
Guided more by curiosity than specific directions, I made it to my destination feeling relief and excitement. I learned quickly that everything in India, no matter where you are, is an adventure. A few days later I set out on what should have been a five-minute walk to see the man who sold shawls. It took me two and a half hours.
Gurmukh and Gurushabd led us to our lodging, Parmarth Niketan, a famous ashram. Although beautiful, the place was surrounded by filth and squalor. Rishikesh was a place where you had to arrive early because the buses and taxis quit driving the mountain roads at dusk, when the elephants began wandering out of the wilds.
After a week, I felt an energy and lightness of being that put me in an altered state of consciousness—but not like a drug high. It was about being open and in touch with myself, unencumbered by the wall
s that usually kept those feelings at a safe distance, and really just walking around with an appreciation of the miracle of being alive.
Corny? Maybe.
But true.
Early one morning we were on a platform next to the Ganges, participating in a group sadhana, which Gurushabd, after I told him about it, described as “dumping your inner garbage can.” He was spot-on. After I finished, I felt anxious and irritated. I didn’t know why. Gurmukh then strode into the middle of the platform, looking radiant in white as the morning light wrapped around her. She got everyone’s attention and said we were going to be doing rebirthing. People cheered and clapped, as did I, even though I’d never done this exercise.
I had once been in a class she led where I was so relaxed that when she rang a gong to signify the end I literally felt the sound penetrate through the different layers of my consciousness. The sensation of lying on the floor and feeling the kundalini rising within me was something I’ll never forget. It was like someone pressing their finger at the base of my spine and moving it up slowly, with a touch that cleansed and awakened as it rose.
The sensation, like a pressure, had stopped between my heart and my throat. It was one of the weirdest and greatest feelings of my life. I’d heard talk of people’s kundalini force rising up and coming out of their head. It was the reason some thought the experience, if done incorrectly, could be dangerous.
I had heard about Gurmukh’s rebirth class. She did it infrequently, from what I understood, but when she did it was supposed to be one of the most extraordinary experiences. But I’d also heard it could jangle your emotions pretty heavily. Gurmukh told us as much.
“Everyone reacts in a different way,” she said as she began taking us through what seemed like a normal kundalini class. A little bit into it, I heard people making strange, almost guttural noises. Then those noises turned into screams and howls. It sounded like people were in pain. There were also sounds of laughter. Giggles. I wondered what was going on.
I wasn’t feeling anything different from the class. Then, toward the end, I felt myself get angry. It started in the pit of my stomach and gradually overtook me like a fever. I didn’t know where it was coming from or how to manage it. I was like, Screw everyone here. I hate everybody. I got so mad that I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, not even those with whom I had shared laughs and hugs a few hours earlier.
At the end of class, we held hands to form a circle and everyone took a turn passing through the symbolic birth canal. People welcomed one another through with an ebullient satnam, the traditional Sikh greeting that means “truth,” or “truth is my identity.” I was cursing those who tried to reach out to me. I still wasn’t able to understand this uproar of anger and vitriol. When the last person was through, Gurmukh gathered everyone together. I stood off to the side and said fuck that. Then I started to sob uncontrollably.
I ran to my room and threw myself on the bed. I couldn’t stop crying. It went on and on; I had not cried as hard in my entire life. Eventually I got up and paced across my room, trying to figure out why this had happened. As I breathed deeply and looked through my tear-filled eyes, I saw my childhood come into focus, then my parents, and particularly my mother, whom I had always blamed for a lot of the bad things that happened to me as a little girl.
I had forgiven my father—my stepfather, that is—this person who had beaten me and abused me verbally and emotionally. He had turned into an amazing man after he got sober. I understood that he had suffered from a disease. My mom, I had always assumed, should have known better.
But there in India, following this rebirthing class, I had an epiphany. My mom had been eighteen years old when she had me. She hadn’t wanted to be pregnant that young or be with my real father. She had been upset about the change in her life. As a fetus in her womb, I had absorbed all of her anger and emotions and now I realized that I had carried those feelings around long enough. I had to let them go. I had to release them like ashes in the Ganges.
All of them.
My mom had done the best she could.
It was time for me to understand, forgive, and let go.
That afternoon I had an appointment. The evening before I had gone into the nearest town to get a few things and the ATM I used to withdraw cash had eaten my card. A nice Indian man who owned a local jewelry store where I shopped saw my frustration at the machine. He said he knew the manager of the bank and would take me to him. He arranged a meeting place and time.
On my way to meet him, I ran into Gurmukh and her husband. She reached out and hugged me.
“What have you done to me?” I said. I started to cry again.
“You’re one of the bravest people I saw today,” she said, drawing me close again.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t get any of this. Not what happened. Not why I’m here.”
“Satnam,” she said, letting me go.
I was sure I looked like a wreck when I arrived at the spot where the jewelry store owner and I had agreed to meet. My eyes were swollen, my face was puffy, and I felt like shit. I had to remind myself this was India, the country where a wise man said, “I once complained about my shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” I looked at the bustling traffic on the street, hoping to see my ride. I had no idea what kind of car he drove.
All of a sudden I heard a loud put-put-put, like a souped-up washing machine motor. I turned and suddenly my guy pulled up in front of me on a motorcycle. I stood in place, frozen. A motorcycle? I couldn’t believe I had to do this.
“Come, get on,” he said.
I didn’t want to. But then as clear as I heard everything else around me, I heard the voice of my friend Lesley Blanch say, “Go for it. This is what life is about.” I looked up at the clear blue sky, saw a graceful white bird soaring high above, and then without a second thought swung my leg over the motorcycle.
An instant later, we were zipping through traffic, dodging cars and people, turning corners and zigzagging through carts and cows and beggars. It was so unbelievably dangerous and crazy; it was just so unbelievable, period. I was dressed all in white and my red hair was blowing in the wind. As we raced through the city, I felt open and, in a sense, reborn and alive.
They say whatever God is, you can feel it in India. It’s there. It’s everywhere. It was for me.
Lesley was right, I thought, as I hung on to the back of that motorcycle. This was what life was all about.
Back at the ashram, I felt the invigoration of the bike ride fade and my previous malaise return. I went to my room and found two monkeys going through my suitcase. They had climbed through the open window, as frequently happened there. If it wasn’t monkeys, it was rats. After shooing them out, I got back into bed, curled up in the fetal position, and stayed like that for the next three days. I pretended to be asleep as everyone else from my group departed. I couldn’t deal.
On the fourth day, I got myself together and moved to a five-star hotel up the hill where I cleaned up—especially my feet, which were black like a hobo’s. But no amount of scrubbing got rid of my weird mood. I moved back into bed. Scared, I had the hotel’s doctor come check me. Aside from dehydration, he couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I was unable to explain my symptoms other than to say I felt like I needed to shed a layer.
And that was exactly it. This emotional thing that I was going through simply had to work its way out of my body. It took a few days, but little by little I felt it pass, and a giddy feeling took its place. I went from one extreme to another. Although I was still totally out of balance, it was better to feel like everything was wonderful than to feel miserable. Before I left, I evened out.
At home, everyone remarked that I looked different. I had been gone only about two weeks, but it felt like two months. I must have looked it, too. Without question, the trip was transformative. Morgan listened attentively to my tales. Although he had no interest in participating in such adventures himself, he saw the benefits manifested in me.
Sure enough, he said, “Mom, as a favor to me, please don’t say any of this stuff in the press. It’s a little weird.”
“So?” I said.
He winced. “You’re going to become a political liability.”
“A political liability?” I said.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “You’re my Lillian Carter.”
I laughed to myself and thought, Hey, once a punk rocker, always a punk rocker.
epilogue
A VISION OF NOWNESS
IN MID-AUGUST 2008, I called home from Los Angeles with bad news. I was on my way to Mexico City for a couple of shows, but I got word that the promoter had run off with the money—or something like that. As a result, the shows were canceled. Now I was stuck on the West Coast just days before my fiftieth birthday.
“I’ll meet you,” Morgan said.
“Don’t spend all that money getting over here,” I said. “It will cost a fortune to get a ticket at the last minute.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“We’ll celebrate when I’m back,” I said. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
I was fine with turning fifty. It was easier than forty. I was in a much better place, a really good place in fact. I had worked hard to understand who I was and like myself better. I felt nothing but love and gratitude.