Kundalini and the Art of Being ... 29The next day was like a dream. I could hardly believe that what
had happened the previous evening was real. And yet, the fact that it
was real was exciting, as well as a little frightening. I kept running it all
through my mind, trying to fit it into the rest of the puzzle of my life.
That day I was off from work delivering bread for the bakery. I
ran a few errands around town, then went to work for a man for
whom I occasionally did odd jobs. I was the grunt-worker—pushing
wheelbarrows of dirt down a steep, slippery hill, carrying rocks and
bags of cement, pouring concrete, pounding nails. But I just couldn’t
keep my mind focused that day. I was scattered and clumsy. I kept
dumping the wheelbarrow in the bushes halfway down the hill and
spacing out while shoveling.
By the end of the long day I was exhausted and frustrated, feeling
much as if I’d been tossed off a cliff—physically, emotionally, and
spiritually. I drove to the bank to cash a check and almost got in an
accident on the way. I drove back to the Pearl Hill House and parked
my car, with a wave of relief that the trying day was finally over.
I went upstairs to my room and lay down on my bed for a few mo-
ments, reflecting on everything that had happened in the last twen-
ty-four hours, wondering if things would get any crazier—which
somehow seemed impossible and inevitable at the same time. I took
a long, hot shower; then went downstairs to the kitchen to cook up
something for dinner.
Jeffrey happened to be there, making something to eat for himself.
I started some rice on the stove. Neither of us spoke for a while as we
went about our business. Finally, he asked me how I liked living there,
or something of the sort, and we carried on a conversation as if our bi-
zarre exchange the previous night had never happened. It made me feel
as if everything he’d said had actually been in my dreams, or else some-
thing out of a book I’d read—Except at one point, when he stopped
talking and looked me straight in the eye for a moment, to sing a line
from the Jimi Hendrix song that was playing on the record player:
“I know, I know, you’ll probably scream and cry, that your little
world won’t let you go. But who in your measly little world are you