The book was one I had enjoyed reading. First time on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Under pine trees, and circling sun. Nuzzled into a comfortable pebble beach. Natures own memory foam. Unhurried, scent filled, wave lapped and with the best company. Days passed and the pages let loose their revenant, all the more spectacular as it meshed with what was real all around me. Finishing the final chapter in a tiny international airport as I walked to and fro was literally brilliant. This was the first reading. The second was more eventful.
A trip to Oxford to explore the ideas already dancing from line to line between the covers. A fellowship came together for a journey into process philosophy – everything is constantly changing energy. All within the grounds and rooms of Green Templeton College. A half-days travel from my home I arrived, with my purple, cabin suitcase and meditation cushion. Tucked inside my rucksack was some teal, felt cloth, gifted during a Shakti blessing in Summer. Wrapped inside the cloth was the book.
I had planned to re-read and absorb the ideas it shared after leaving the Adriatic. They were so very large that more contact felt helpful. The exploration with friends in Oxford provided some impetus. Unlike me, I scribbled notes in margins and underlined, highlighted and poured over the pages. Yet I couldn’t see all of the notes. Not all at once. Not the way I wanted to. So I decided to collect them together, but not in a separate place. I painted the outside cover of the book. In acrylic. Yellow on the front and black on the back. Lots of coats. Then sprayed with matt varnish. I wanted to write the notes on the cover. The book was becoming an artefact.
I managed to splatter orange paint on the carpet while I was at it. Sticky, acrylic, paint. This was bad. The carpet was relatively new. My stomach jumped. I dabbed rather than rubbed. It was so very orange. My wife was kind and helped. We dabbed. We rinsed. We hoped it would dry well. Somehow, we managed to let go of the idea of a perfect carpet and let the change happen. Without getting upset. The perfect carpet was never perfect. It had been changing all along. This was its latest change. It would continue to change. Forever. Already the book was busy teaching me in new ways.
I added some fold out sheets to the inside covers of the book, anticipating making more notes during the trip. Staying at a friends near Oxford I was welcomed in the most lovely of ways. A family meal within a vibrant, beautiful family and a good chat to boot. I met Isla the Border Collie and was warned not to pay too much attention to begin with. She snaps. So, despite losing our Border Collie only weeks before, I didn’t. Apparently I was the first visitor ever to follow the instructions.
The next morning my friend, the book and I went to Oxford. It was sunny and blue skied with all of the energy of early Autumn. We chatted on the train in the best ways without edges. The day at the college was great. A literally wonder-full bunch of humans. The sort that reignite belief in human kind. Much process philosophy type happenings happened. We walked in pairs to see what we could see. I climbed through a window back into the room after lunch. We hefted physical objects. We sharpened pencils. I scribbled a lot of words and doodles on the fold out pages. Then it was time to leave. To catch our train back to the sleepy, pretty village where my friend gets on with his living.
Waking the next morning we set to with very strong hot chocolate and some breakfast before heading to the trains. Isla and I played tug of war with her favourite toy. A bit of patience and she came to me when she was ready. I had eaten lots of good food during the trip and was cared for with genuine love. At the same time I had let myself down. I had gratefully eaten some food that doesn’t suit my body even though it delights my taste buds. I had started to feel unwell while in Oxford. The day after, heading for home I felt full to bursting with inspiration and love and drowsy, achey and sluggish.
In this state I managed to leave my purple suitcase on the second of four trains I was to take. It had clothes, my meditation cushions and the book in it. The book, the unique artefact, graffitied with what felt like some helpful noticings and wrapped in a Shakti blessing cloth, was in the case. In the case on the train. The train now heading away from me towards some other place.
I realised as I arrived at the platform for my next connection. Too late to return and cary out a rescue. It was on its way elsewhere. This was evident. Ah. The sting. The momentary whirring of rational machinery attempting to navigate a solution. The loss of the case and my belongings, even my meditation cushion didn’t cause too much distress. But the book. The book. It was the only instance of itself ever. That has ever been and will ever be. There was nothing to be done. It was gone.
I asked a large man in railway uniform with a whistle about his person what I might do. He said fill in a form on a website. I did that. What now? Well, I noticed that suddenly my hands were a lot freer than they were before, while I had the case. So, I got a hot drink. Which I wasn’t able to do earlier. An immediate positive! I got on the next train and was away.
I sat and was without case. That was my predominant state. Without-caseness was most of my being for a short while. Until it wasn’t. There was nothing in it that I couldn’t live without. Even, yes, the book. The book was just the book. Some bits of paper, ink, paint. I couldn’t take the book inside me. I couldn’t consume it and have it become part of me. Not the artefact itself. But the ideas and the experience of reading it twice, painting it, spraying it, wrapping it, transporting it, scribbling all over it and loving it, were all me. There was nothing to be lost. The book had been in my presence. Then change had happened. Then it wasn’t. A little like a favourite pair of jeans, or chair, a car, house, pet, parent, youth, memory or our short precious, lives
I saw that if I had learned anything from the book then I had to be totally content with it passing out of my world. It didn’t make any sense to behave otherwise. Oooh and the sunken, warming glow of letting go filled me and there was nothing to do. The book was gone. It had other things to get on with.
I went to the doors ready to get off at my next stop. A lady came out of the loo at the same time so I nipped in. Long train journeys are like that. As I came out myself and waited to alight she came back, flustered and active. ‘Did you see a phone in there’? She asked me. ‘No’, I said in my cloudy frame of mind. She went in and found the phone. She came out all relief and fluff.
She was getting off at the same stop as me. As we waited I said ‘I’m glad you found your phone’. She agreed. I told her that I’d just lost my case and must have done so in a particular way. She said ‘Zen and the art of eh’? Which seemed curious and appropriate.
Two weeks later, having made peace with the loss of the case, contents and the book I was happily getting on with my life when I got an e-mail. The lovely people at Bristol Temple Meads had found my case and put it together with my website form. Purple is not a common colour for a cabin case. It arrived home by courier a few days later to my great pleasure. Everything was there and the photo of the book in the image with these words was taken then. I hadn’t taken one in Oxford!
Whatever the book had been up to had brought it back into my life. Change happens. Then it happens again. Continuing forever. As far as we know. Everything is in process. Is a process. This much is clear. But I won’t be painting near our carpet any time soon. Relaying the story to a friend he laughed and said ‘The universe gave you back what you had accepted you had lost’. Yes, I thought, the universe gave me back the book whose loss was its lesson.
