Horrifying early wakening to a adorissima esposa shouting at me down the telephone… Oh yeah, we were gonna meet at the café at 8 to arrange everything for the visa interview and I'm still sleeping…
We sit and drink coffee watching the people pass, me chain-smoking and feeling the tramadol hit (ahhh!), she non-smoking and glowing with health… We agree London is a good place for us right now. “Well I fucked every other government department here already,” I muse and she laugh her beautiful laugh. “Now we can do the Immigration service, too…” And we talk over breakfast about lust and transforming sexual energy into creativity and manic forward momentum… We kiss good-bye, too long and passionately to be ex-lovers, and I feel desire behind the opiates: “Now do something with that energy…” I tell her, she grins and nods, we walk off fast, in opposite directions.
All jealousies and past anger (because she still fucks me up, that woman) fall away, forgiven or forgotten, and it’s a beautiful morning and I walk smiling and happy to be alone in the world and another phrase of Aleister Crowley’s echoing in my head: “Love, and do what thou wilt.” We are all free: you, me, she. And we, I like to think, always with some time, love and energy for anyone...
In Camden Town I run into S___ who I used to train with and am reminded of another life I lived, so long ago I hardly remember… about four or five months or so… When I cooked meals every evening and trained martial arts and practised tai chi and yoga and wasn't addicted to anything and felt more muscular... S___ and I talk Taoism, turmoil, the pain of love and bootleg DVD eBay trading over lunch-time lager for him, gin & tonic for me… An empire-builders’ drink… Lemon for the scurvy, quinine for the malaria, alcohol for the violence…
Tai Chi is a most extra-ordinary art or science of one’s own nervous system, an equivalent to which was never invented in the west, the practice of which I resolve to take up again… And yes, I am pleased to find I remember the Yang short form, and I just played it through twice.
The Yang form was developed by a slight, inoffensive-looking little man called Chen Man Ching, who due to his understanding of soft strength energy mechanics, his mastery of chi, could throw a large man eight feet with the merest flick of his wrist… Chen Man Ching devoted his life to martial arts and Taoist meditation... He was considered to be an enlightened Master...
He died at the age of 75 of alcohol poisoning with a smile on his face, saying: “Hahahahaa! I fooled you all!”
