The Struggle with Reality
Larry and I were living in Charlotte, NC, where my daughter was born. That was cool, but I missed the devotees. What can I say? I missed devotional service even though that service was situated smack-dab in the middle of a cult, and regardless of the fact that the cult was patriarchal from the top down. When you are wrapped up in a society where truth and beauty and wisdom are the center of every conversation, you just get bored with the mundane talk of everyday issues about material pursuits. Think about it. What do we actually talk about every day? I’m a foodie, so surely I’ll be talking about my newly created sandwich with goat cheese and sun-dried tomato tapenade. You are a stock broker, so you will be talking about where the market is going or the price of gold. We talk about our jobs, weather, vacations, children, money, cars, government, shopping, the price of groceries or gas and so on and so on. No doubt all these conversations are interesting, and can even be useful, but I’ve just got to say, I needed more! I needed to talk about who I was, where I came from and where I was going. I needed to talk with other people who were thinking about evolution of the soul instead of the latest leather jacket craze.
I really needed someone I could talk to about Krishna. No one in the work-a-day world wanted to hear anything about Him. As soon as I would try to start a conversation, people would shut down or change the subject. So, off I went with my daughter and my daddy man, first to the Tennessee farm, then to the Mississippi farm, then back to Tennessee, then we went home to my poor parents in Alabama. What I did to my sweet child by dragging her around, only God knows. She doesn’t remember.
When we arrived in Alabama my father said we could stay in their cabin on the lake near the Tennessee farm. I grew up going to that cabin every weekend since I was five years old. I learned to swim and water ski in that lake, and I also learned to play badminton in our back yard. It was definitely my second home and I wondered why I had not thought about going there before. So, my daughter, my daddy man, Larry and I moved there and tried to make it work.
While we were there, Larry went to school to study a trade. We both decided we needed to go to therapy. I was messed up from being in a cult and he was messed up from Viet Nam. The therapist got me started in the right direction. She gave me books to read and we talked about cult practices as my eyes opened, letting me know I needed to make some resolution, or find a balance between my practice and my material life.
I thought the therapy was good for Larry, but the doctor prescribed some serious anti-depressants to help him cope. Larry was an extremely intelligent young man with an off the scale IQ of around 130, however he could not figure out what he wanted to do with his life. In the service he was a linguistics expert but out in the real world, he was clueless as to what sort of occupation or career he would pursue. He was a sweet guy with a smile that spread across his face. Although he was an Aquarius, he looked like a Leo with a strawberry-blonde mane that curved around his cheeks and beautiful green eyes. But he was very disturbed for some reason. He seemed to have extremely low self-esteem maybe caused by childhood factors. But he liked his therapist and I liked mine. Things were going pretty good. We were a young family and we were happy.
Larry taught me the basics of photography and we spent lots of time roaming through the woods, taking pictures of wild flowers, bugs and special herbs I wanted to learn about. On Sundays, we would go to the farm to hang out with devotees. Rusty was gone by that time. He took off to southern Alabama to live with relatives and work in property management not long after I left Tennessee. I felt like I was finally reaching some balance. I planted a large garden, studied and collected herbs, dried and canned vegetables and played with my daughter who was the heart and soul of my life. Sex was almost non-existent with Larry. I just couldn’t seem to get the whole enchilada. Happy home life, temple nearby, but no sex.
Then one night, as was my usual habit, I laid in bed with my daughter reading her a story and nursing her to sleep. There’s nothing like seeing a contented sweet child fall away from the breast and just give it up. I gently got out of bed, so as not to disturb her and walked to the kitchen passing Larry as he lay sleeping in the next room. When I got to the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator and got out a little milk so I could heat it to help me fall asleep. I poured the milk into the pan, turned the fire on low and went to the table where a short and concise letter lay in front of me.
He was sorry, he said, but he could not continue to cope with the uncertainty of his life and the guilt he felt for not being psychologically sound for his child and me. Beside the letter was an empty bottle of pills prescribed by his therapist. My heart stopped! It froze, if only for a few seconds, I swear I did not breathe. I ran to his side and shook him and tried to talk to him. He muttered some gibberish I could not understand and then passed out again. I shook him again. Nothing.
What was I going to do? We were in the mountains, in the country with only a few people around. Would they help me? I had no clue, but I had to find out. I ran to the neighbor up the hill and told him the story, as my daughter lay sleeping in her bed. He went back to the house with me and between the two of us, we got him down the stairs of the house and into the back seat of the man’s crew cab pick up truck, wrapped in some blankets with pillows raising his head. Then, I ran back to get my daughter and put her in a baby carrier and we took off to the closest hospital, around 15 miles away. The doctors there got him stabilized by pumping out his stomach and inserting saline or something to flow through his veins. But he was unconscious. The emergency room personnel put us in an ambulance and we drove with the siren going full blast to a larger city over an hour away. Lights were flashing, sound was loud and both my daughter and I were traumatized as Larry lay unconscious. Poor guy. I felt hopeless and guilty myself. Had I done anything to cause this? I am a strong woman and maybe he felt inadequate around me. Suicide is so horrible because it affects everyone around the person under the spell. Did I make him feel guilty about not being a natural devotee himself? Did I make him feel he was supposed to be a vegetarian when he could have cared less? Was it my fault? I found out later this was not the first time he tried something foolish like that, but it still did not relieve my guilt.
He came out of the coma after around 24 hours. He was embarrassed and ashamed, and I was scared to death. The doctors didn’t do much but give him more drugs in that stupid hospital. He said the only thing they did was send him to a group therapy session for one hour a day. The rest of the time he was free to do whatever he wanted. He was in the hospital for a while, drugged on thorazine while some doctors met with him occasionally. I hated those doctors and I hated myself. I was feeling that I got what I deserved for leaving Rusty. I was sad for Larry, but no doubt, I was selfishly sorry for myself and my daughter. He managed to get better, to go back to his school program while he worked, and to keep up his therapy. But I was starting to question myself. What in the hell am I doing with this man? He tried to commit suicide, for god’s sake! Would he try it again? What will this do to my daughter? Will she become like him? I was completely freaked out and afraid inside, feeling I could make only bad choices for men in my life and I needed to stop trying to get others to be spiritual with me, so once again,
I Escaped!
Larry drove to work one Monday morning as I gathered our things and my daughter and I left for California. It was planned, of course. We first went to the Tennessee farm where we met another couple and their son to travel together. We worked our way across the US selling incense in parking lots to buy gas and food. We were eating cottage cheese and chips and driving long hours at a time. We got stuck in a snow storm in Flagstaff, Arizona, a charming situation to be in, so we got hotel rooms and hunkered in for the night. The next morning I put chains on my car and told my friends I wanted to keep going. They wanted to stay. I picked up a hitchhiker and smoked a joint with him and felt for the first time since Larry made the effort to off himself, that I finally relaxed.
I drove through Phoenix and arrived in Los Angeles where the temple gave me a place to stay for a while. I put my daughter in kindergarten and went to the airport to sell books. I was allowed to keep a portion of my sales for myself. Soon enough, I had earned enough money to get our own apartment and some used furniture. I took in a roommate to cut my expenses and things got gradually calm. I had moved around so many times since my daughter was born, being completely imbalanced and unstable, that I made a vow to stay where I was for at least two years before I made another move. And I did. My daughter was getting happy with school and young neighbors to play with. I got a job with a floral design company and bought a sweet little MGB convertible allowing my daughter and myself to take rides up the coast and through the mountains on weekends. I loved California! I loved the ocean and felt for the first time ever, I was home. I was making new friends, my daughter met other kids to play with and life was good. Sometimes on weekends, I would put her on the back of my bicycle and we would ride to the beach to stay the entire day. We were both happy and calm.
For me, at the time, men never stopped in my life. My sexual desire was always on fire! I think I exuded lust! When I first arrived in California I hooked up with a man named Damodar. He was good looking and brilliant. He was a writer, artist and a cinematographer. I swooned! He was a real intellectual, but a bit of a nerd! We spent a year together having lots of sex and philosophical conversations until Madhukar came along. Madhukar was an Italian man who worked as an Architect. He was a very good looking man, well-groomed with a nice short beard and dark brown eyes. He was stalking me from the house next door and was determined to make me his own. He did. I should have known right then that stalking is a bad sign, but I couldn’t believe how badly he wanted me. And do you think that relationship worked out? Fuck No! He was controlling and dominating and that didn’t work for me at all. But I married him and after three years in California I found myself in Colorado and splitting up with legal husband, number two.
Notice a trend here? I Escape and find myself in the arms of another man, then back to a temple and on and on. I was sure I had lost my mind. People were right! Cults would mess up your life. But what should I do? I remembered what it was like to die and take birth again and I made that promise to Krishna and, I was actually attracted to Krishna and Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of service and devotion. It was much like the Christianity I was raised with, except that this yoga cult knew who God was and described how He was blueish in color, wearing yellow garments with a peacock feather in his hair and fish earrings swinging from his ears. He plays a flute that charms and mesmerizes everyone who hears it. He has 64 wonderful qualities, four more than any other incarnation. Evidence proved that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead! And He, Himself declared He was the source of everything to his dear friend and devotee, Arjuna. I was done for. I could never leave Him. But I wanted have some kind of normal life at the same time.
Colorado seemed like a good place to raise kids, so I stayed. As a single parent, I was pretty lucky. I got a good job as a secretary to the president of a bank, sent my daughter to a Montessori school and led a simple life. I visited the temple in Denver and even hosted a few devotees in my home from time to time as they traveled through. Simultaneously, I worked as a Resident Manager for the apartment community I lived in. I started my own wholesale food service business and was doing very well. Then the desire for a relationship struck again. I don’t think it every really goes away for a woman. This time I was looking for a husband and father for my child. I met a man who was friends with the devotees, but not in the movement himself, so I thought that would be a perfect balance. He was kind, we had mutual friends in Florida and it appeared he was at least favorable towards the Krishna movement. I married him, he adopted my daughter and together and we had a son.
He was a great father, but he was an ex-pharmacist with a drug problem. It didn’t seem to matter, however, as he was a responsible man and a good provider. He was working as a baker when we met, saying that baking was mixology, just as was pharmacy. Later he went back to pharmacy and worked as a hospital pharmacist, but after some time together, he didn’t want to hear about Krishna anymore. How could I not talk about truth and self realization? That was who I was! But apparently he only went to the temple because his good friends were there and because he liked the food. He didn’t really want to learn about KC (Krishna Chandra). I sorrowfully kept my mouth shut, but tried my best to convey truth to my children.
At this point it would seem I had completely forgotten about my promise in the womb, but I had not. It was always there in my mind. I camped a lot in those days, being so close to the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I set my tent up by a stream where I was not afraid to drink the cool, rushing, clear water in the creek just outside my tent. I collected wild strawberries and made a vow to identify at least one new herbal plant, either edible or medicinal, each time I camped. I discovered wild celery, lettuce substitutions, and herbs. I read that aspirin was made from a willow tree and if you chewed on a small branch it would relieve pain. I gave it a try and it worked. I would commune with nature in my own way and often think of the experience that started my journey. But things were different now and I was giving up my own desires for the responsibility of raising children and I loved my kids!