went with Carlos on the band's summer tour of Japan, and made a visit to the Zojo-ji Temple in Tokyo. On an earlier trip to Japan, I had walked to this holy place and felt peace and tranquillity rising from the silence of the Buddhist meditation. The main hall stands behind the Sanmon Gate, the oldest wooden structure in Tokyo. Worshippers in quilted jackets and cotton kimonos threw coins into a grate, clapped twice, and bowed before entering the shrine. Japanese wooden clogs worn by monks lined the stone entrance. I walked across small pebbles to the side of the temple and began to climb up the hill.
Hundreds of small stone statues dotted the hillside, and each one had a red cloth hood. I breathed in aromatic aloe wood incense and opened my heart to the spirits. Wooden tablets, pushed into the ground, waved light pink and turquoise prayer flags, and some of the statues were draped in baby slippers or knit caps. Folded paper birds blew in the wind beside them. My body trembled in this memorial garden for dead children and aborted babies.
I climbed higher, trying not to stumble into the storm of emotions clamoring in my body, and I sat on a bench overlooking the main temple. A man and a woman held hands and stood motionless by a statue. I opened my mouth—silent cries lifting onto the wind as I allowed the pain of my abortions to pour from my eyes and mouth.
Many of the wooden stakes had names written on them. In Japan, it is not a crime to choose to not have a baby. You can name the child; make a shrine to the soul; and ask God to recycle it to another family in another woman's warm womb. I believed this had been done for me and all women who choose to abort or lose babies without understanding why. Certainly, the Creator of life holds each seed in the eternity of a loving hand.
When I returned to our hotel room, Carlos caressed my face and kissed me softly on the lips. “You look like you climbed to the stars.”
“I need to tell you something serious,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. This was harder than I had imagined. “Before we separated, I was pregnant.”
“What?” Carlos sat up and grabbed my shoulders. His brows forged together. His mouth opened wide. “What do you mean? What happened?”
Carlos looked so surprised, that my head felt like it would explode in desperation and fear. “Guru said that I should have an abortion. The baby's soul wasn't in my body yet. He said a baby would distract us from our spiritual lives.” Grief still lingered in my heart.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Carlos slumped down onto the couch, his face contorted in sadness.
“I didn't know what Guru would want us to do. He'd told us to wait to have a family. I was afraid you might want to leave the Centre and have the baby even if Guru told us not to. But I was hoping he would give us his blessings. And I thought he knew everything then. I believed he would tell me the right thing to do. My mind was blinded by my foolish devotion.”
Carlos's dark eyes winced as he reached his arms out to hold me. We rocked from side to side, each lost in our own thoughts. “It's going to be all right,” Carlos crooned. “We'll try again to have a baby.” He paused. “You still can, can't you? They didn't hurt you, did they?”
“No.”
Carlos lifted my chin, forcing my eyes to look into his. “I want to have babies with you, but it is your body and your decision, as much as it hurts me.” He pulled me into his chest, his broad hand pressing against my back, rubbing up and down my spine. His body was rigid, not soft against mine. “I still don't understand why Guru says you can't have a family and be spiritual.”
I lay in his arms, thinking of the garden I had just walked in. “When I stood alone in the cemetery, I was not afraid,” I said. “I knew with certainty that a loving spirit was with me. Sri Chin-moy says that having a family will lessen our dedication to the spiritual life. I think he fears that having children will expose us to a higher love. He forced us to remain obedient to him by making us fear that we cannot be spiritual without him, telling us that it is our efforts to live a perfect life, doing only what he sanctions, that will allow us to be one with the infinite Spirit of creation. But as the breeze blew by me on that hill, I knew that his philosophy is merely one view of God. My goal is to trust God's eternal connection with our spirits so that I can step out on the edge of a thousand-foot-high cliff and know that God has miracles beyond what I can see. Even if we stumble into the abyss, God will be there. My faith is in the daily rising of my soul's sun.”
Carlos nodded and whispered in my ear, “We are one with God and each other. No matter what happens, we are one. I love you.”
I wrapped my arms around his back and closed my eyes, feeling his body breathing in rhythm with mine. “I sat at the temple with the souls of my babies. I'm at peace with leaving the Centre and going on with our lives. Everything exists within us. Our teacher, God, our love, our healing.” Carlos squeezed me into his body, swaying back and forth, like a strong covering for our journey.
Sri Chinmoy exploded when he received our message that we were leaving the Centre. It reminded me of the fury of Mount Saint Helens, which had erupted a few months earlier in Washington State. A whole portion of rock face fell, creating landslides and a total ash-out for twenty miles. Sixty people died. Sri Chinmoy called us in Mill Valley, his voice dripping with pain and disappointment. “You have twenty-four hours to change your minds or the door will be closed forever.” I did not answer, but set the receiver on its cradle while taking in his words. Before, if Guru had said the door to his spiritual path would be closed, terror would have flamed through my body. Now I felt calm. We had seen other people leave, like our friends Mahavishnu and Mahalakshmi, and we knew it would not be easy. Yet it was piercing to hear him say the same words to us that I had heard him say to others. Sri Chinmoy's philosophy was that anyone who left his Centre could only fall to the depths of darkness. We sent a message to him that our minds were made up. Disciples called us day and night, putting pressure on us to stay. Although it became emotionally trying, the most difficult shift was to accept that Sri Chinmoy was not the illumined spiritual teacher that his disciples proclaimed. Carlos and I had outgrown his make-believe realm and had unbraided our mental dependency on him as our link to God. We sought the God-ness that existed inside us. The knowledge that God could not be contained in one man was so liberating, I felt as though light were dancing in my body: My mind could hardly hold the possibilities before me. No more “Yes, Guru”; “Whatever you say, Guru.” No more bowing to a frail form of divinity. I could rekindle the friendships I had abandoned in my busy life as a devotee. How I would live and whom I would believe were entirely in my control.
Kitsaun was very upset and cried when we told her of our decision to leave, because we had not shared our thoughts with her before we decided to go. But she had always maintained an independent spirit, and soon she parted ways with Sri Chinmoy also. It was even sadder for her to watch us sell Dipti Nivas, but we'd tried to give it to Sri Chinmoy as a San Francisco enterprise and he had refused to accept it. The restaurant had been one of the best experiences of my life. I had learned patience by managing people who had different levels of skill and commitment; I had grasped the systems of purchases and orders; I had grown to understand my own determined desire for perfection. We put the restaurant on the market, and it sold quickly. I went to Europe with the band, purchasing new clothes in Cannes that cut close to my body and allowed the sun to warm my skin. I didn't miss wearing saris— they had been an oppressive covering of my individuality and style, besides a physical barrier to moving freely through life.
During sound check in Fréjus, France, I sat on a sloping hill above the ancient Roman-built amphitheater, peace rippling through my soul. On the gentle breeze, I heard the women in my family together with the mothers of the universe singing through my spirit. It was as though they were unwrapping patriarchal dominance from my life, like binding from my feet, and releasing a tourniquet of cloth that had crushed my toes under the soles of my feet, pinching and suffocating growth that was imperative to my movement and power.
Carlos held my hand close to his chest, squeezing and kissing my fingers, so happy that I was his partner and friend rather than Guru's tireless devotee. We were two new people, born out of the dedication to attain higher consciousness through our nine years of meditation. I wrapped my arm around his waist and stayed close to his side to feel who he was. I worked to forgive my own naiveté and remembered there had also been some favorable outcomes from being cloistered in Sri Chin-moy's organization: My body was purified by consuming no alcohol, drugs, or meat. I was physically fit through running. In addition, when obstacles had arisen, I overcame them by deep inner reflection and reliance on my inner stillness. Learning can come from good and bad experiences—it is a matter of how we process and contextualize the information. Carlos and I had pursued light and truth. The path was flawed, but the essence of God's love in our lives was perfect.
For the year it took me to become pregnant, Carlos told the band members, “We're working on making a baby,” and he doted on me as never before. His hair curled on the nape of his neck, growing long again. When I became pregnant, he took me to Hot N Hunky in the Castro to eat hamburgers and drink thick vanilla milkshakes. After nine years as a vegetarian, I enjoyed the sizzling meat and grease.
We felt deep gratitude and hope in starting our family, after ten years of being together. To say I felt no regret over my abortions would be a lie. But it spurred me to continue examining what I believed and how my view of truth was rooted in our patriarchal, Christian society. Now that Carlos and I were fulfilling the opportunity to give life, we meditated to welcome the little one into our family.
Without the restaurant, I was restless and looking for meaningful work. For a few months I volunteered at a preschool in the Western Addition and read stories to children because I wanted to offer something to their lives.
Carlos and I also spent time at meetings with Bill Graham and Ray, the tour manager, exploring options for Carlos's career. He was always brimming with creative ideas—people with whom he wanted to play, countries where he wanted to perform that had been off limits for rock music, such as China and Russia. Carlos treasured the original Santana Band's trip to Ghana with Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, and the Voices of East Harlem. He still told the story of the tribes that met them at the airport, drumming and dancing; the voodoo doctor who put a curse on one of the musicians; and the musical symbiosis when his guitar danced in rhythm with each pair of dark eyes.
At Winterland Productions, Bill's merchandise company, we met with artists who designed T-shirts, and we were led to a poorly lit room in the basement where the Santana Fan Club's business was handled. Five women stood over a long table, stuffing envelopes and packaging T-shirts, and one woman sat at a battered desk with papers piled high in front of her. She showed me a binder with names and addresses that had been cut from envelopes and pasted onto paper. “This is a list of the fans who write.”
I looked through the book, noticing duplicate entries and no sense of order. There must be a better way to keep a record of our fans. “What do you send to the fans?” I asked.
“We mail them an order form for T-shirts.”
“Do you send photos?”
“Yes,” she said, “if they ask for one.”
I handed her back the binder. “Thanks.”
It seemed an inefficient system. I had been to many of the places Santana had toured, and I felt personally connected to the fans. I had watched their faces light up with the opening chords of “Welcome,” and had seen people leap in the air when Carlos hit a note on his guitar, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open in an inaudible scream. I had witnessed faces wet with tears during “Europa,” and had watched women rip off their blouses and wave them over their heads when the recognizable chords of “Oye Como Va” rolled from the stage. The fans deserved a heartfelt response when they wrote to us, certainly a more personal touch than they were receiving. With time on my hands and a baby in my belly, I decided to take over the fan club. I bought a computer to set up a proper database and asked the manager to have the binder sent to me. With Mom's help, I entered each name, organized by city, state, and country. It took us weeks to type in every one. When we finished, we had three thousand fans registered in the database. Kitsaun volunteered to help, and with her background in merchandising and eye for color and design, we created the first newsletter. She also picked up the mail from the post office box so we could keep the mailing list current. We personally answered any letter by someone who was sick or in need. Within a few months, Kitsaun came to work at the Santana office and did all of the fan club business.
It was rewarding to read fans' letters; sometimes Kitsaun cried at the soulful comments they wrote about the experiences they had at shows. I clipped foreign stamps from envelopes and mounted them in a scrapbook. From just the first year, the postage represented fifty-one countries where people had been touched by Santana's music.
My body was changing inside and out. Having always been skinny, I watched with curiosity as padding grew on my hips and stomach and I expanded to make a home for the baby. I reconnected with my parents on a different level, asking questions about family history and genealogy: Dad's Louisiana Creole heritage, and Mom's Irish-English roots. Carlos and I talked about our pasts and our future, debated names for the baby, and played Miles's “Concerto de Aranjuez” to educate the baby's musical cells as they developed.
Four months pregnant, I spent New Year's Eve of 1983 with Carlos, meditating in front of a fire, a picture of Jesus leaning on the mantel. The sky was filled with pinpoints of stars floating in navy vellum. I read from Paramahansa Yogananda: “Learn to discriminate in the new year. Examine every impulse that comes, to see if it is the right thing for you to act on. And when your reason tells you to do a certain thing, let neither the fates nor the gods stand in your way.” I carried this message with me, folded in my purse, and referred to it when I needed to know I could count on my own mind and heart to chart my course.
My stomach grew larger, and the baby kicked in rhythm, which made me suspect a musician was dwelling there. I shopped for tiny outfits, crib sheets, and baby towels soft as velvet. Carlos and I attended Lamaze classes so I could deliver naturally. When my labor started, I recalled each footstep in the New York City Marathon and kept telling myself that if I could run 26.2 miles, I could certainly get through childbirth. Carlos was a nervous wreck, and his pacing drove me crazy. My labor was long, and I sent him home on an imaginary errand so I could relax and concentrate on my breathing. He returned minutes before Salvador was born, a precious colicky wonder, and we thanked Spirit for the miracle of his life.
I worked to adjust my life from runner, former restaurant manager, and fan club administrator to full-time mom; and I assembled my schedule around Salvador's gurgles and smiles. Many days I struggled to adapt to the little person in my care. I would call Mom to ask how often to bathe Salvador, when he could eat solid food, and “Can I bring him over so I can go for a long run?” Mom and Dad were ecstatic to have a grandchild. I never could figure out why he slept all night at their house and then awakened at eight in the morning—when he would wake up two or three times during the night at home.
When he was seven weeks old, Salvador went on the road with us to Tokyo, Japan, looking like a miniature sumo wrestler wearing his baseball cap and a kimono. In August we went to New York City for the Jones Beach Show, and Salvador visited museums and shops on Madison Avenue with me, charming everyone he met.
In the elevator at the Parker Meridien Hotel in Manhattan, a man said to me, Estás cuidando el niño?
“No,” I replied. “Es mí niño.”
My face heated up, and I was mad as hell that he had asked whether I was taking care of Salvador, as though the child could not be mine because our skin colors were different. I fought to accept the man's innocence. Because of Salvador's pale skin— like Mom's and Carlos's—the man did not know Salvador was my child. His eyes were blue, his fat little arms and toes not even brown
in the creases. I instantly understood what my mom must have felt when she'd carried brown baby girls in her arms and people had asked whether she was taking care of them, or worse, had scorned her for marrying a black man. I felt strange realizing that I was repeating the life my mother had lived more than thirty years before. Times had changed—interracial marriage was no longer illegal in sixteen states, as it had been in Mom and Dad's time—but people still could not see beyond color. Living with racism was painful, and struck a tender nerve in my core. Carlos and I had not experienced what Mom and Dad had as a couple, but with Salvador I saw a challenging road ahead.
Carlos also assessed his life in context of being a son and a father. He told me that when he was a boy he used to sit outside his Tijuana home, turning the wheel of a bicycle, hitting a stick against the spokes, hoping the spinning rhythm would drown the sadness he felt when his father walked from the house with his violin in hand to play mariachi music in distant towns.
Their family moved to the United States and lived in a small apartment in the Mission District of San Francisco. Carlos chased his own guitar aspirations, listening to blues players on records at his friends' houses when he cut school at Mission High. He wanted to play like B. B., T Bone, and Albert King.
Space Between the Stars Page 22
