THE LOLA BOYS ABROAD !

One early morning on a scruffy golden beach in the west of Sri Lanka I stood with a small boy who flew a kite made from bin bags. I had felt rubbish for a long while, but whilst standing with him and his piece of sky trash I felt uplifted. 

Higher than a kite. 

Tearful. 

My eyes pooled with salty emotion. The sheer soaring innocence lifted me skyward. For the first time in what seemed like an aeon I felt light. I was moved with the pure delight that the child possessed. Intense happiness caused merely by a length of string wrapped around an old bit of driftwood attached to a piece of bin-bag. And it’s meeting with the sky.

Not an experience one would have thought would shift them from deep anhedonia. Certainly not an encounter that would have been thought to elicit such a strong response. 

Yet I felt elated. 

Honoured to be in the presence of a soul that was present. And only that. 

For an all too brief ten minutes the boy and I shared something holy. Spiritual. 

A short period of time unsullied by thought or judgment. Beyond past or future. Only a now which seemed to last forever. 

I felt the wonder of childhood again. 

The amazement as the invisible wind became seeable as the kite swooped and dived  along its heavenly flight path. 

I turned and smiled at the boy. He grinned back at me. No words. We both knew what we were witnessing. 

It was god on a string. 

Andrew, who had been fiddling with his mobile phone further along the sands came to join me and I burst into tears. He then began to well up.

‘You felt something babe. Some emotion. Ahh how lovely. That’s so good.’

And Paul hoped his partner was right. He had felt flat and disconnected for over two years now. Apart from a short energetic period triggered by an anti depressant which almost saw him committed to the loony bin. Well, not quite, but it had felt that way. 

The tablets had nullified him. Stifled his soul. He had fought against them for months. Resisted the advice of the quacks who had recommended he swallow this and that to quiet or lift his turbulent mind. 

He too had been dancing like the kite. Only uncontrollably, his life swept up in an emotional hurricane that had certainly not been on his radar. He too had battled the wind. Untethered – facing its ferocity as it blasted him headlong in the face. He’d  wondered desperately when the time would return when he could sail plainly along life’s current.

Easier said than done. 

He had almost managed this for years until he was blown off course. A gust from nowhere. It had left him quite ungrounded. 

And yet now, on this litter strewn beach in South Asia he felt a stirring. It was as if the piece of string attached to him had just been recovered and someone had once again taken control. 

And all of this in a moment. 

A small moment between him and a contented dirt poor boy who lived in a fishing shack.

Later when Paul came to journal he was surprised at how much the encounter had moved him. He became lachrymose again on recounting the meeting. A touch maudlin for sure. But his sense of adventure. His gratitude for being able to travel to unfamiliar worlds had almost been returned to him. It was only a faint spark. A small pile of kindling. And the boy with the toothsome grin hand handed him the match. 

They say children shouldn’t play with fire, but Paul was so glad this one had. For he had relit his soul. 

The very depth of him was not as lost as he had feared. It was still there, buried beneath layers of depressive sediment and despairing muck, but it still existed. And now he knew this. Finally he knew there was hope. And all because of a bit of string and a bin bag. And the angel who had flown it heavenward.

So I have written a short story. It is performative of course. I flit between first person and third, a schizoid habit indicative of my mental state. I may even blog it if I feel egotistical enough. It is a glimpse into my inner workings. It is a piece of me maybe I shouldn’t share. But it is at least a tale. 

A tale of me. 

It shows I have the capacity to engage. To illustrate. I have stories to tell. 

I am not empty. 

I am not lost. 

For I can be found amongst the letters and sentences. I am there living between the full stops and commas. 

Found. 

Courageous enough to take pen to paper to share an important part of my life and perhaps help others who have undergone this same torment.

Who cares if anyone likes it? Does it matter? 

What matters is that it is written. My writer’s mind which has been choked with self doubt, clogged up with self pity, has been freed.

Depression is a horrible thing. 

Truly terrifying. 

But also so ordinary that at first it goes unnoticed. So stealthy that it creeps up upon you from behind. And before it is too late has you gagged and blindfold, tied and helpless to resist its pull. One is drowning in its suffocating tar before one can do anything to save oneself. 

It has insidious claws and once one is in their razor like clutches it is a painful escape. Struggling desperately to release yourself from its sharp talons. Scratching yourself to pieces as you try. Tearing your flesh to free yourself. The pain is physical as well as emotional. 

Nobody ever tells you that.

It is August. We have been in Sri Lanka for three weeks now. We live in a house with six bedrooms but only three beds. We have a staircase, winding and floodlit, straight out of Dynasty. I feel much like Alexis Carrington when I climb it, and even more like her when I descend in a dramatic swoop. 

I want to leave daily. I am homesick. Yet I know wherever I go I shall only be moving into the same headspace. Geography will not heal me. I can only do that myself by doing ‘the work’ as the yanks say. 

Oh, and taking the tablets of course. 

I had stopped them for seven weeks and become suicidal once again. I am still not myself. I have no real joy. No motivation. Little hope. 

But the boy on the beach gave me some of that back this morning. I now feel attached again. Like I have hold of the string once more. Like I can sail on the wind. Like I can stay another day. 

It is why I have written about him. I really should honour him by telling of our little encounter. I should thank him by giving him a touch of recognition.

He’ll never know of course. Nor would he care I imagine. He would doubtless prefer to look skyward and watch his kite waltz in the wind. 

Communing with his plastic bag. Conversing with the breeze.

What simple joy.

Oh how I wish he knew how much he has given back to me.

This small boy

and his kite.