the long game Archives - Thousand Petals Project

10am

I’m relishing the marvelous variety of emotions that my heart is feeling. What a gift it is to be human! My mind is trying hard to sort out the story, but I’ve relieved it of the burden of attachment.

It’s the Sabbath, and a lunar eclipse is nigh. This morning, I opened and consulted my plastic baggie full of the weed that the Mormon and I had bought in Motueka. We’d split an ounce, and half of my half consisted of one massive, sticky bud that celebrated my future joy with an explosion of plush brown hairs. The rest of my half was respectable, of course: average-sized buds and a little shake, but that one superstar bouquet was thicker than the Mormon’s cock, if not quite as long.

This morning, that large, fine specimen of marijuana was gone.

That thieving Mormon!

It must have been him. He’s the only one who could’ve gotten to the baggie. My bedroom door locks automatically when I leave, and Turban, the manager with the only master key, is way too hard-working to be an avaricious stoner. It was equally ludicrous to think that I accidently dropped the monster bud somewhere – you don’t lose something that large that easily, especially when it’s such a lovely, treasured specimen.¹

I insisted upon sleeping alone last night because I’m finally getting some good rest at this lodge. Does the Mormon feel as though he deserves to stay in my warm, comfortable space because he’s fucking me? Did he steal the bud as compensation? He must know that I don’t enjoy his company, and that I’m trying to break up with him. Is this his preemptive revenge; his odd sense of justice righting the wrong of my frustration with him?

But it’s such an obvious theft. Surely the Mormon could have been more sly.

Did he lose respect for me after our vacation to Castle Hill? Or does the Mormon have some sort of compulsion? I’ve seen how naturally he takes whatever he can from the hotel rooms that I book for us: soaps and shampoos, sugar and tea packets, and even a stray towel or two. That joke about how easy it would be to ‘lift’ the TV from our room in Fox Glacier must have required a little pre-meditative investigation. There were many such jokes, and I couldn’t forget his slippery ease at breaking into our locked AirBNB in Canterbury.

The heart swells sweetly with attachment so that the keen sense of betrayal can nestle deeper, like slicing fresh bread.

My mind is spinning with this creative new twist on the story that New Zealand is telling of my life.

I think I finally have a valid excuse to visit Farmer Colin at his new campsite! He has a digital scale. I’ll tell him that I want to weigh my baggie to prove to myself that the monster bud hadn’t just magically broken up into smaller bits overnight. Farmer Colin might even share a hug of commiseration with me or some valuable advice about the Mormon’s character. Maybe these past two weeks without his girlfriend, Colette, had been a bit lonely for him.

I’d planted the seed of desire in him last week. It’s been long enough. Time to see if the seed has germinated.

2:18pm

Farmer Colin’s campsite is number 108.

I waited until noon to visit him, but I still woke him with my tap-tapping on his mustard-yellow caravan’s door. His caravan looked well in the park-like campground on the southwestern edge of Lake Hawea; its mellow yellow blended lovingly with the dry winter grass and brittle green pines. Apologizing for my intrusion, I told him I’d return when he was more awake, but Farmer Colin insisted that I stay. The shadow of Lockdown’s isolation still hung over us all.

The story of The Heinous Weed Theft spilled out after he’d dressed for the cold outside of his fluffy covers and made himself a cup of coffee.

“How well do you know the Mormon?” I asked Farmer Colin, cradling the cup of tea he’d brewed for me in my still-gloved hands. “Am I over-reacting? Is he trustworthy?”

Colin shrugged, three heavy sweaters obscuring the motion of his lithe shoulders. The heat from the fire that he’d started in his little iron stove remained stubbornly sequestered at the far end of his narrow home. His large eyes were bright with interest as he rummaged through the dusty boxes and piles squatting in the corners of his graffitied caravan.

“The Mormon’s always been straight with me,” he said, slightly furrowing his kingly brow. “I know he was in some trouble back in England, but I don’t know what that was about.”

Colin straightened to standing, his beautiful eyes touching mine.

“Sorry, I can’t even find my scales in this mess.”

“No worries.” I paused to take a swallow of the hot tea, warming my nose in its steam. “It doesn’t really matter: it is what it is. The weed is gone. Even if the Mormon did take it, he’d never admit it or give it back. I guess it’s karma² somehow. I wish I knew what I did to deserve this.”

“Did anything happen between you two?”

“No more than usual. I’ve been less loving to him lately, for sure, because I’m fed up with his laziness. I don’t think he’s noticed. The Mormon keeps promising that he’ll get a job, but he seems quite happy to mooch off me whenever he can. He’s addicted to this sweet lifestyle that I’m giving him. As long as we’re having sex, it’s all good between us. So, we have a lot of sex.”

Groaning and laughing, Farmer Colin rolled his eyes and stretched his plaid-clad arms heavenward.

“Ah. I miss sex.”

Of course he did. A regal, virile young man like him… but it was too soon. The seedling had taken root, but the leaves had yet to unfurl.

“Yes,” I laughed with him. “Sex is kinda great. It gives me energy and makes me vibrant. That kind of connection is so vital to me. I feel like I need it to thrive. Maybe I have a problem with addiction myself.”

“Yeah, nah… You’re fine. It’s natural. I grew up on a farm, and I saw it all the time. It’s not like you’re hooked on ice.” Farmer Colin looked ruefully down at his hot, thick coffee. “We all have needs.”

“How’s it feel to be so far away from Colette after the intensity of Lockdown together?” I asked.

“It’s rough, mate.” Colin averted his gaze. “I miss her, but she has a good job up in Blenheim, and some French friends to talk to. I might go up and meet her in a month or two. It’s a long time to go without her.”

We spoke for two hours about love and life, as he downed three cups of coffee and an equal number of hand-rolled cigarettes. That sweet boy did have needs. Could I fulfill them? Not today. I’d let him simmer overnight; let the seedling reach out for sustenance of its own volition.

I’d been so hungry for this type of conversation; this kind of quick, fun repartee that lit up my neurons and opened my heart. I felt brighter, and when I left Farmer Colin’s caravan, the low sun sparkled his welcome. There would be a lunar eclipse³ tomorrow afternoon, and the naughty Earth would come between the King and Queen of our solar system. As above, so below.

¹ https://wanderlust.com/journal/aparigraha-learning-to-let-go/

² https://path.homestead.com/karma1.html

³ https://www.space.com/buck-moon-penumbral-lunar-eclipse-july-4-2020.html

The Mormon’s landlord put him to work planting garlic almost immediately after breakfast. Breakfast had rolled lazily out around 9am, surrounded on all sides by weed and sex: the wake-and-bake kind of day that we enjoyed. The cold, damp box of his caravan seemed like home after our exhausting journey east, and we cuddled into each other’s warmth like nesting rabbits.

Rex the dog was delighted to have us home. He wriggled his fat black body from his pillowy bench to the Mormon’s bed and was rewarded by being pulled into the soft, sleepy embrace. It was family. It was home. It was love.

Despite his general aversion to work, the Mormon was motivated to try his hand at planting garlic because he’d found a way to be a carpenter, not just a field hand. He was quick to figure out spatial problems. His brilliant solutions were often left on paper, but this time, the Mormon actually created a tool. It had a long wooden handle affixed to a wide, short plank that held 6 fat pegs, spaced an inch or two apart. When these pegs were thus thrust simultaneously into the ground by a clever garlic-planter, 6 holes appeared, ready to receive 6 fat cloves.

The sun was still high when I returned from my errands that afternoon. I watched the Mormon working diligently from the comforting doorframe of Farmer Colin’s mustard yellow caravan.

Farmer Colin greeted me with as much enthusiasm as a laconic cowboy-artist who’d recently bid adieu to his lady-love could muster. His large, thickly-lashed eyes had deepened in their sockets as well as darkened soulfully to an emerald brown. He’d been alone for over a week, and his young need was sexy.

It was a sunny, windless day, and Colin’s checked scarf was slung low into his jacket so that tendrils of tattoos could slither up for air. His smile cracked in the dry cold, but his eyes danced with the novelty of conversation.

“So, how was your trip?” he asked me, as we watched the Mormon slowly impregnate the long, roughly-plowed field with husky cloves of garlic.

“I’m glad it’s over. Turns out that the bed was a memory foam mattress, which my back hates. I could actually feel my skin crawling out of the bed as though it’s trying to get out of a heavy metal mosh pit, and the pain in my back is kind of unbearable. But we slept in the caravan last night, and the Mormon’s sad little mattress was a million times better. So, I’m doing well now. I’m much less angry.”

I diverted my pain with a flood of words. No harm, ahimsa¹: that was the number one rule. I must always strive to operate out of love towards everyone, whether or not I am in their company. I didn’t want to tell Colin that I thought his friend was unbearable and infuriating (that would be harmful), but I wanted him to see it in my eyes so that we could share the intimacy of frustration. He must know that the Mormon had no hold on my heart or my loins.

“I’m leaving for a week,” I continued. “I need time alone to find peace again. The Mormon’s a nice guy, but there’s something about him that I just can’t comprehend. I need a better connection.”

Now was the time to look up at him, hand on his arm and the plug pulled out from bottom of the chocolate bathtub of my eyes. His gaze dropped into the whirlpool, and we reflected each other’s need for intimacy.

I enjoyed Farmer Colin. His company was satisfying and familiar. There’s no harm in laying the foundations of desire on top of rock-solid kindness marbled with martyrdom.

“Yeah, he’s different,” Farmer Colin said, stumbling over his dry lips. “He’s got a special way of looking at the world. How do you feel about him?”

“I’ve got a problem, Colin. I look at the world in a special way, too, so maybe the Mormon and I do fit together in some way. Just after lockdown started, I began to feel love, but a new love; a different love than usual. I’ve been in love several times, and it feels feels like my heart is a spotlight directed at one person. But this love is three-dimensional, and it shines in all directions indiscriminately, like a disco ball. I imagine this is what they call agape² love. I love everybody and even every living thing I encounter whole-heartedly: like an idiot, like a teenager. It is impossible for me not to see the shining spirit in everything. I see the inner child, the virile seed, the eternal Godhead. I don’t want this joy to end.”

“Ok. So you love him?”

“Yes, without a doubt. But I also love your cat, and Rex, and that tree on the ridge, and the guy I had for one afternoon during lockdown at the lodge, and the weed seedlings on your window ledge…” …and you, I didn’t say. “I love everything. Literally with all of my heart. What is this insanity?”

“It’s wonderful,” he shrugged. “We need more love.”

“Yes,” I replied, my smile flowing in and out. “I’ll feel more love when I’m away from the task of being with the Mormon. I don’t want to lose my open heart. Everything has the potential for love.”

“Don’t talk to me about potential,” Farmer Colin grimaced, his handsome face pulling tight into the wrinkles of a much older man. He pulled out his pouch of home-grown tobacco and began rolling a spliff with some of his home-grown weed. “I hate potential. Everyone’s preached to me about my potential, ever since I was old enough to draw a straight line. It’s bullshit.”

“I know!” I commiserated. “I’ve heard that from my family and teachers for decades. Potential. It’s a dirty word. It means nothing!”

“Fuck yeah! Potential means you’re not successful, but you could be successful. Potential means that if only you worked a little harder, you could be somebody. Potential is someone else’s dream that you’re supposed to live out and complete for them.”

Earth shifted in the bones of Colin’s face: his bright eyes became more hollow as his cheekbones grew denser and his brow assumed a regal weight. His wrinkles filled themselves. My body rose in response to this oak-like strength.

I nodded vigorously. “Man, I know. Potential… it’s a life sentence of disappointment. I think people just like to make stories out of other people’s lives, and they try to manipulate you into taking the hero’s journey for their own entertainment.”

I touched his hard, dirty fingers as I accepted the lit spliff.

Admiring my smoke and opting for a second puff, I slid my gaze to the swiftly approaching Mormon. He has an extraordinary sense of smell. The furry earflaps of his hat stirred with his long stride, and I returned the spliff to its owner and my hands to their pockets.

“Hey doll!” the Mormon greeted me cheerfully, hoisting his garlic-planter with pride. “Did you see how much I did? My tool works!”

Farmer Colin passed the spliff to the Mormon as he joined us, grinning loosely. I embraced the Mormon, opened to Colin’s gaze and shrugged.

“That, sir, is a fine field of garlic.”

As I was packing up this evening, separating my belongings from his, I fingered the fine film of the Mormon’s only gift to me that wasn’t food or weed or tea. It was a recloseable plastic baggie that one would get for free at a fancy grocery store to contain their bulk candy or nuts. It contained my half of our weed purchase in Motueka. Once is never enough, it said, in bold text on an acid yellow popsicle.

“Just like you,” he’d said, when he presented it to me in the privacy of a chilly hostel room in Nelson. “I thought of you when I saw it. Once is never enough for you.”

The Mormon had winked and grinned and moved close enough to finger my crotch. I’d encompassed his hand as well as I could in 3 pairs of pants, reflecting his need so that he felt loved. This was extraordinarily thoughtful of him. This was his way to love. Why wasn’t it enough?

¹ https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/non-violence-and-the-art-of-ahimsa

² https://www.nonviolenceinstitute.org/post/unconditional-love-part-2