It's been six months. I'm in Mexico City. I've been here over two weeks and can't really figure out what I'm doing anymore. I'm sat in a bookshop on the edge of one of the poshest, most over-gentrified neighbourhoods in the city. Next to me sit three women. One looks Ethiopian, wears a hijab and has a thick northwestern accent. Another sounds British, straight out of Fulham, says "literally" a lot and keeps banging on about London. The third is Californian and keeps saying "totally." Clichés of clichés. I feel closer to everything I want to run away from than I have in months, and yet there's a strange familiarity to it.
I can't help eavesdropping. I left my headphones at home and can't cut out the noise. Their nasal conversation is driving me insane, the speed of it, all caffeine and ego. Literally keeps name-dropping and telling her friends she'll connect them. She tells them how skinny she is, and how hard it is to get a good energetic massage in Mexico City. My frustration is building, but perhaps it has more to do with the reason I came here. I'm hiding behind my bitching screen, avoiding the reason I came to this coffee shop in the first place. To talk to you. To write to you, or about you.
It's been six months, only six months, and I feel I don't have the legitimacy to be sad about you anymore. But I am, every day.
The women move on to Sasquatch, comparing it to Squamish. Literally does that thing of playing stupid, underplaying her intelligence. An anti-intellectual British trait, one to be very wary of. I can't help jumping in to explain what a Sasquatch is, caveating that I'm not trying to mansplain.
We have a lovely conversation. Totally is actually Canadian, sweet, a nomad for two and a half years who has finally settled in CDMX. She has a shyness to her, something vulnerable and delicate. Literally was once a corporate lawyer in London, now an entrepreneur building a fitness brand. Sharp, incisive, self-deprecating, very British. The woman in the hijab is Iman, a Canadian from north of Calgary, with a questioning, intellectual depth to her. We talk about ayahuasca, nomadism, trauma and loss. It's crazy how five minutes of conversation can completely change the way you see someone. I feel foolish for having judged them, and grateful I turned into their conversation. It showed me more about my frustration with myself than with them. I feel guilty and ashamed.
But that's not why I'm writing today. Again, I'm avoiding it.
The same way I'm avoiding facing Tara. I left her in such disarray. Packed my small bag and legged it onto a plane to France. Two days later I was staring at your inert body in the morgue. You had an air of serenity I hadn't seen in years, maybe ever. None of the vacant, begging look you had when the disease took your mind and left you a vulnerable old man. Why did I leave, knowing I wouldn't see you again? Was it fear? Has all of this been one big escape? One big withdrawal from life, a fast, petrol-burning escape from a reality too painful to face.
Two years, Dad. I was gone two years. Every couple of weeks I'd muster the courage to call Nadine. She'd hand the phone over to you, and most times you'd recognise me. Your eyes glazed with a thin mist of confusion, but you knew who I was.
"Where are you, my son?"
"I'm in Kazakhstan! I'm in India, I'm in China, I'm in Laos... Dad, you'd love it here."
"Oh great. So how's your job? How's Laura?"
"Dad, I don't have a job anymore, and Laura..."
I'd remember not to try to reason with you.
"Laura's great, she says hi! And the job's going great!"
"Oh great, son. Oh, that's so great. When am I going to see you? I miss you, son."
I lied, as I had for the last seven years. "Soon, Dad, soon. I love you too." Knowing it didn't really matter. Your sense of time had melted along with your memories. My heart would choke.
"I have to go, Dad. Love you. I'll call you from another country."
Then Nadine would come back on the line. "You know, he's doing much better. I read him your stories. He really likes them, even if sometimes he isn't quite sure where you are!"
"That's OK. Nor do I, most of the time."
I'd hang up and choke on my tears.
The last time I spoke to you, you were in a hospital bed. You looked afraid, but I knew you could see me. I was in Jalisco. A week before, a notorious gang leader had been killed there and the town set ablaze. I asked Nadine if you were OK.
"Yes, the doctors say it's just a quick heart blip. He should be home tomorrow."
The next day you were gone.
And this time there was no one to read my stories.
Months went by. I walked in forests, cried by lakes. Tara and the journey became a distant thought. Home was not the Ithaca I'd thought it would be. Friends were busy, lives kept trundling on, and there I was, static. Then a contract came up and I ended up in West Africa, propping up a fragile regime against Islamist insurgents in the north. I was amongst warriors and spies, in a more vivid, malaria-infested Casablanca, and for a while I forgot myself and focused on the mission. I felt at home out there amongst the mosquitoes and the tropical heat. I made friends, fell in love briefly, and recovered. It was a short contract, enough to make some money and prepare to go back to Tara. When it ended I was on a flight to Mexico, convinced I had the courage to get back to her. Telling myself you would have wanted me to finish this journey. That's not exactly how it panned out.
Today I lay on the floor in Samantha's arms. She told me everything I'm looking for is already in me. To stop running. That I have it in me to cure myself. But I can't, Dad. This whole thing feels like unfinished business. What do I do if I don't finish this journey? Or is the journey just more fleeing, more escaping? I ran away from Laura. I fled the army's decision to let me go, or maybe I chose to run from that too. I ran from Francine, from Jenn, from everyone who loved me. I ran away so I could ride away from myself. The only place I ever found myself was in the depths of an ibogaine vision. I finally saw myself as I was. Enough. Yet that feeling has been fleeting, and here I am again, riddled with anxiety, on the threshold of another journey. Towards the end of the world. A story in two parts: the first running away, the second running towards something. Or maybe it's more of the same.
I ask the digital oracle, Claude, what he thinks. "...looking for answer... building schema... finding soft response..." I ask my therapy bot whether I should stay in Mexico City or go, and it asks me back: am I riding to finish something, or to keep running from something? And I might not know until I get there. Thanks, fucking Claude. That's annoyingly perceptive for a shitty language model contributing to the death of the human brain. I don't want to hear it.
As she got up to leave, Literally told me to follow the path of least resistance, to go where the signs are taking me. What if I can't hear them anymore? Iman swaps Instagrams with me. I'm grateful for her interest. She seems like someone I'd love to sit down and talk with.
So here I am, trying to write about you, Dad, and instead I'm freaking the fuck out about this journey. What would you have told me? What would Mum? I wish you could just pop in for a bit, as a bird or a small sign, and help me figure this shit out. Stay or go?
I think I should go and visit Tara. See her, feel her. Strangely, there's a Triumph Scrambler 1200 parked just outside the bookshop. An XC, a little smaller than Tara's XE. I don't think most Mexicans could ride Tara. Is that the sign? Park the bike here and stop? And the contract in Africa. A life in Rwanda doesn't sound too bad. It's exciting, gets me back in the game. Is it what I truly want? You see how my brain is spinning out of control? I came here to write about you, and all I'm doing is asking you to solve my problems. I don't want to ask Lev or the others. Women tell me to stay, men tell me to go. I've been here before, in Kuala Lumpur, the hardest part of the journey. Here I am again, and something isn't right.
Last week was a disaster. My friend Jason came down, and he isn't a friend anymore. From the moment he arrived, my anxiety grew. His erraticness, his constant self-doubt, his references to his bipolar wore my own confidence down to nothing. I was annoyed at him for bringing that into my orbit. He stormed around, passed judgement on everyone's taste, made himself impossible. A neurotic Woody Allen without the ability to externalise. I judged him, got angry at him, and lost a friend in the process. I'd left Africa feeling strong and determined, a former mercenary with money in the bag, and now I'm a mess again. What the fuck is going on, Dad? What's the internal battle I'm failing at?
Jesus, who rescued Tara and brought her from Jalisco to Hidalgo, is waiting for me with her at his place. It felt good to spend time with him. He was warm and understanding. It felt like we'd known each other a long time, though we'd only met once, on the boat from Baja to Mazatlán. My heart tells me to follow that.
My kidneys ache from all the antimalarials as I sit uncomfortably in this Mexico City coffee shop. On the top shelf above me I notice Bukowski and Camus. Indifference and wilderness, staring back at me. The loneliness and the freedom still gnawing at me. Samantha is coming to pick me up. I want my mind to quiet down. I want the thoughts to calm down. I'll go and lie by her and try to sleep.
