The entries in my travelogue for today refer to last night through to early this morning. I thought long and hard about how much detail I should reveal, but I believe this is an honest and accurate account of a strange time.
The evening began with 3 or 4 glasses of red wine in our usual cafe. I went to the caves with Marcus from Switzerland and Jim from Atlanta – the Jim in Textiles we met earlier in this adventure. We smoked red Lebanese hashish in a pipe and listened to the sound of the sea and Dark Side of the Moon. I think this was my first experience of cannabis – I wasn’t even a tobacco smoker, and so had to practise inhaling.
[I had puffed on cigarettes with my friend Alan at school – I think they were Embassy. Later, in my early 20s, I smoked a bit more regularly. I enjoyed smoking while drinking beer (neurochemically, that is a match made in heaven. Did I mention that my special option for my first psychology degree was psychopharmacology?). I enjoyed menthol cigarettes, obviously the healthy option with that fresh minty taste! ].
… the black waves breaking silver, heaving, slowly oh so slowly, hardly caring whether they break or not, so lazily did they heave…a black and silver band stretching along the sand, quivering…and the village supported in the water on four columns of light, penetrating the dark depths.
We returned to the cafe after about an hour, where we were joined by a strange Basque woman. After three glasses of ouzo I went back to her room by the sea. We lay together on what she called her “widow bed” as she spoke of her lover who was in prison for murder. Apparently, he could see the seagulls flying free from his cell. I lit a candle which set fire to a plastic bowl of water by her bedside. I doused it with a wet handkerchief. As the candlelight flickered in the room, she spoke of demons which came out of the ground and jumped into her mind. Time for a discreet exit.
This was around 01.30 hrs. I prepared my bed (sleeping bag) and then found myself dancing on the rocks by the caves to the sounds of Tarkus and Colosseum with a Swiss guy who wasn’t Marcus…
…a real “rock” happening; holes to fall down, sea to fall in…felt great.
I finally crashed down at 03.30 hrs.
Postscript:
A few years later, I wrote a poem “inspired” by the above events.
We are
in Matala
under a Joni Mitchell moon
The candle by
your widow bed
melts away the hours
as you talk about your demons
and I wonder why I am here
in this strange embrace
Psychologist on the Move 