‘There has to come a point when it stops being about anything, when it just is,’ George tells me, as we climb up the steep, picturesque Yeni Çarşı Caddesi towards the main drag that leads from Galatasaray to Taksim Square.
‘When it’s not about the numbers and not about the acknowledgments and not about the recognition and not about the rewards and not about the money. It’s never been nor can it ever be about the money.’
I’m a little impressed with this insight—not that it’s not about the money, that’s just stating the obvious—but that there has to come a point when it stops being about anything, ‘when it just is.’ I don’t remember having that insight then, but clearly I did. How and when and why did I lose it, ever? What a loss. What rediscovery.
I marvel at the people around us, and, as I always do, I feel a profound love for them all. I wish I could tell them, or, if not tell them, make them sense it, let them know that they are loved, all of them, but I don’t know how, and I realise it doesn’t matter.
I’ve left my Eden. I have done so alone. I am in the world. George walks next to me up the hill in silence, and I wonder how far I can take him with me now. Does he still belong here, by my side, or do I have to let him go. His place may be taken by somebody else some day, but I don’t know who, and I certainly don’t know when, if at all.
Having left my Eden, I realise for the first time that I had an Eden. A garden of peace. Of innocence. Of everything being possible and nothing yet being done or undone. The Serene Confidence of the Now. I left it and searched for the Thrill of the When, only to be reunited with the Certainty of Always. Is there a Certainty? Is there an Always? The expanse of time is funnelling not to the future but to the present. That’s what so reassures me. And so excites me too: has leaving Eden landed me on a planet that is but a springboard to a place where all possible consciousnesses collide?
I want to hold George by the hand to signal: I can guide you. But I can’t guide him. I know what he’s about to embark on, and I want to tell him that he’s going to be fine. But he’s not going to be fine. He’s going to be in pain and in love and in anguish and in joy and in despair and in awe and in uncertainty and in these moments of bliss that seem to make it worthwhile and in the turmoil and in the quiet and in the other and in the self. Does it need to be worthwhile? What worth, what while?
As we reach the top of the hill and turn right to immerse ourselves in the current of the city, I put my arm around George’s shoulder, and we walk on the now even street, still in silence. He knows who I am, I am sure. He won’t remember when he is me to have met me, but he’ll sense my presence, and that’s enough. He knows that he’s not alone.
I want to hug him to my chest, and I feel my arm pull him into me just a little harder to reassure him, but he is too sure of himself now to notice. I like that about George, though it also scares me a little. You are not alone in this world, I want to say to him, but you’re choosing a lonely path. They won’t get you, most of the time; they won’t join you, or walk with you; they will see you wander and think: there goes George.
And that is all right. Because after all, that’s the only path you can go that takes you where the universe needs you. If the universe needs you. And if it doesn’t, it still is the only path you can go that you recognise as your own. It will lead you here, to me, caring deeply about you, much more than you do; but who knows whence from now: maybe to the person who is us in his eighties, sitting on a bench or in a cafe or in a bar, waiting for us to join him, in thirty years’ time…
I stand still in the middle of the bustling throng, and my heart jumps: have I lost him already? That quick? So accidental? Ah no. A sigh of relief: he’s just paused to give someone a light. The young man, a little older than he, cups his hand around George’s, as George holds his lighter up towards his face, and he looks George in the eyes and gives him a smile. George is oblivious to anything this might mean; he wanly smiles back and, to the young man’s flirtatious ‘thank you’—not unfriendly but factually—replies: ‘you are welcome.’ Oh George…
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EDEN by FREI 