by Zoe Whittall
No one has ever told me I was brave during a time when I actually felt that way, but I would take it.
An hour or so later, we sat in a circle, our blankets spread over the grass in the meadow by the spring. The moon was so bright it might as well have been a spotlight. Blue lifted her hands in the air and led us in a full-moon ritual.
“As you all know, the full moon is a nourishing time, her light upon us, let us soak it in right now,” she said.
After connecting us to the four elements, leading us in some chanting and dancing, during which my mind never stopped racing with what we should do about the guru and the future of the ashram, Blue brought us back to a discussion of resolution. What were we to do? How had our discussions with the police been? We went around in a circle, passing a talking stick made of an old wooden recorder that had rope braided at the top like a wig. The more recent partners felt the most betrayed and wanted him to go to jail. One woman said she was still in love with him, and that he would be punished in the next life and that was enough for her. Another said she felt that if she didn’t have our sisterhood, she would have burned the ashram to the ground by now. But most of us didn’t know what we should do. We had all these feelings, but what should our actions be?
The police had become involved initially because of the ashram’s assets, because Ocean, as his longest companion, considered by many to be his wife, knew he was going to try to take it all once the trouble started. She called a lawyer. The ball was in motion before we really knew what was happening.
We were letting the moon touch our skin. Bathing in its light was supposed to energize us.
“No one should be caged,” I said, “even if they hurt you.”
I thought of my father, how many people he helped put in cages, how I’d often wished he could have been restrained. But what would it do to the guru? His health would fail him sooner rather than later, and we were literally running him out of town. The thing we all wanted, the one thing we agreed on, was that we wished we’d seen even one speck of his shame, even a shadow across his face, any kind of sense of culpability. So far he’d only met all the accusations with defiance and mockery. And that was why some of us wanted the police involved, to execute the consequences we could not, but it wouldn’t do us any good.
Ocean explained that with the threat of a lawsuit, of exposure, we could fight in civil court to keep the money and the centre. We could become a business. We were rich in land, and in heart, she said. This made the most sense. What we wanted more than anything was for the centre to be ours. I had built a life here, one that mattered to me. I was teaching women, helping women. And when I thought about it, that was what had kept me going at Sunflower—not building a community per se, but, especially, raising our girls with Tegan, finding the strength in numbers when women work together. But did I have the right to it? To help other women, when the most important one in my life was the one I had left behind: my own daughter?
When I finally left Bryce for good I reminded him of the day we found out I was pregnant. He had no memory of it. “I knew it then,” I said. “I knew it was a bad deal for me, and that you didn’t care, and that you wouldn’t really be there for me, for us. I’ve tried to tell you so many times over the years, I’ve explained it a hundred times, and you never take it seriously. You always laugh it off and forget about it. Well, now I’m just done.”
I wanted to say to Bryce that leaving was better than the alternative, but it wouldn’t have made sense to him. I loved him, and I still love him. I still think he’s the love of my life, and I feel intense rage and jealousy when I picture him with his new wife, but if I’d stayed that love would have died. I didn’t want it to. Leaving was the only way to preserve it.
What I understood about myself was that the feeling of regret that happened after conception never fully left. Sometimes it felt strong enough that I assumed I would miscarry, that my mind and body were connected enough to sabotage it all. It receded for long stretches, and I acclimated to life as a mother, but I never felt an ecstasy or even just a comfort in the role. The feeling came back strongly sometimes. For me, everything about motherhood felt practised. I always paid attention, was nurturing and loving and consistent. I did all the things I wished my mother had done—listened to my daughter, valued her opinions and autonomy, didn’t force her to act just like me—and I read all the books about being a good parent. But there was something I always knew I wasn’t feeling. It was like committing to playing an instrument, and playing it well, but not quite making music.
No one at Sunflower noticed this ambivalence, except occasionally Missy would give me a look and I knew she knew it. She sensed my difference. It was the source of most of my shame, and I wished I could change, but I had no idea how.
I kept on for years—I’m surprised how long I lasted, quite frankly. But eventually, I had nothing left. I felt like a shell. So I got back into the Sunflower truck, thinking I was just going on a yoga retreat to recharge, to reinvest in myself. I’d be back before they knew it. But I wouldn’t.
Chapter 11
missy
we leave Vegas, all a little bit depleted, and head toward San Francisco. Even the van sounds a little tuckered out. By the time we are twenty miles out of the city, Alan and I have started coughing, and then by the first gas station, Billy is sniffling. Tom insists he won’t get it. He has it under control. He’s been strengthening his immune system with astragalus and goldenseal and this will prove it.
But by the time we are in Fresno’s traffic, even Tom has a killer headache. We are hitting the last leg of the tour: San Fran, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. Our final date is in LA: a festival and a TV show appearance.
The illness feels like a physical manifestation of the emotional tensions between us, though I hate to think of it like that. Reminds me of my mother and all the other hippies and New Agers I grew up with. Whenever I had a sore throat as a kid, my mom would ask if there was anything I wasn’t saying, if I was holding in feelings. I used to try to figure that out, in case it would help my sore throat. I guess I’m mad that Taylor stole my pink sandals? If the cold turned to strep, I’d probably really done something wrong. Later I was like, duh, it was a virus. I always thought my mother didn’t really believe all that, either. She wanted to, but she took us to regular doctors in town whenever we were really sick. My mother could never really commit, I guess, to being as countercultural as everyone else.
I think of my mom now, as each of us goes down physically, just as our emotional bonds have totally frayed. Or maybe I think about her because it was my birthday. On the drive, Billy forces us to listen to a book on tape by the Dalai Lama, and I fantasize about just punching him in his fucking face as the audio voice drones on in a monotone.
I’m sitting next to Alan, and we both suck on ginger candies and drink from a litre of cranberry juice. Every time I close my eyes I shudder, remembering Andie’s hands, the way she kissed my neck, her smirk. Then I try to push the images away.
“When did you know you were gay?” I ask him, as I rub Tiger Balm on my neck and stare out at the side of the highway.
“I always knew, as far back as about five. Everyone else knew, too.”
“You always knew?”
“Always. Why?”
“No reason.”
He smirks and grabs the Tiger Balm, rubbing it into his shoulder.
“I heard about you and Andie. She’s fiiiine. She looks like Bowie but more butch. Hot.”
I blush.
“I have never seen you blush, never! Oh my god, you are like, the most shameless in the best way, but this makes you shy?”
I bury myself under my sweatshirt and he gives me a side-squeeze. “You can be like Anne Heche, or one of those Calvin Klein models.”
“Right. Maybe I’m bi?” I say, but I don’t quite believe it.
“Have you ever heard of the Kinsey scale? Maybe you’re just a little more toward the middle than you thought. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
I wake up when we stop for gas. When I get out to stretch, I go into the convenience store and buy Granny a postcard. The people out west are so friendly, it’s hard to get used to, but ultimately a welcome change from the stand-off attitudes on the east coast. I hope choir is going well. I’ll call you from Vancouver to check in? Love, Melissa.
We all sleep most of the way to San Francisco, roll into our hotel and sleep more until sound check, all of us pale and weak. I feel my fever break while onstage, sweating it out. Being close to the end of tour makes us adventurous. My voice is low and raspy, so I do a cover of “Fogtown” by Michelle Shocked on the acoustic guitar, all by myself, while the rest of the band re-ups their B12s backstage. The crowd loves it. For some reason, the Bay Area loves us in general. We sell more merch there than in any other city. We feel as if we can do anything and be appreciated, and we get our groove back, literally. We all sleep again until the second San Fran gig, and everyone starts to feel better.
“Our groove hasn’t just returned by osmosis,” insists Tom, as we sit in a diner having an afternoon breakfast. “It’s because you ran out of coke.” He looks pointedly at Billy, with a glance at me. Billy declines a response, spearing his avocado and singing along with the Clash.
“The Bay Area is not magical,” Tom insists, but everyone digs into their giant Mexican breakfasts. Except me, I’m struggling to get down a yogourt and juice, my throat still raw.
Tom is right. There is no one in our Bible Verses notebook to call in San Francisco. But that’s okay. It feels good to take a break. As a result, we play a second awesome show in San Francisco. Tom even begins to smile at me again, offer me snacks and compliments, encourages me to work on some new songs.
During the drive to Portland the next morning, Billy becomes increasingly upset that no one is laughing at his jokes and stories, and I wonder if maybe he hasn’t run out of drugs. Sometimes you can tell right away when someone is high, but Billy is such a regular user—and such a chatty spark plug anyway—it’s hard to tell.
“What is the thing you’re most afraid to say out loud?” Billy asks, slapping the steering wheel as punctuation.
I shift the lavender oil–soaked tissues I’d stuffed in my bra and avoid his searching glances in the rear-view mirror. By the final leg of the tour, I’ve taken to experimenting with ways to mask the musk of masculine bodily neglect; the lavender oil does a decent job. Then there’s Alan, who sprays his whole body in a sexy cologne that stays on you if you hug him, which makes me wonder if cleanliness is less to do with gender than with sexual orientation.
But I’m hardly one to judge. My own hair is coated in a neglected, waxy sheen. I run my fingers across my dirty scalp, pressing the strands between the pads of my fingers, while Billy continues to monologue.
“I’m afraid I’ll never really be free,” he says to no one in particular.
Alan looks at me and rolls his eyes. Billy is the freest person I’ve ever known. He’d take his clothes off in front of anyone. He is never devastated if he sings a bar or two off-key. He is the son of a judge, has never had a job besides music. How much freer could a person get?
“I’m the only one in this van who knows what it’s like not to be free, for real,” says Alan. “So maybe shut up and put on some Fugazi.”
“I don’t mean like literally not free . . . not like when you were a kid or whatever,” Billy says, shaking his head, as if Alan just didn’t get him.
Alan and his mom had been refugees when they came to Canada in the 1980s. This comment angers Alan even more.
“You think I’m free now? You know what happens when cops pull us over, or when they raid a gay bar? You think I’m free then?”
“No, man. That’s not the kind of free I mean. I’m talking, like, spiritually.”
“Just shut up, Billy. Let’s all be quiet for a bit,” says Tom.
Alan puts on his headphones and rolls his hoodie up against the window. I expect that he and Billy will come to actual blows at some point on this tour. It happened last year at a roadside stop in Michigan, where Alan drove away in the van and left us nursing terrible coffees for an hour before he returned.
“I’m afraid of mice,” pipes up Jared. No one is listening.
I guess if I had to answer, I’m afraid of what happened with Andie. I try not to think of how she smirked and looked at me, like she could devour me. The way she pulled off her plaid shirt, and those drummer arms. How there was no point in our encounter where I wished she’d hurry up or say something different, do something different.
I haven’t even really thought about James since we left Baltimore, and we actually had a relationship of sorts. Andie lurks, and the more I try to stop thinking about her, there she is, sifting in and out of my thoughts. Unwelcome and welcome at the same time. And I’ve started seeing lesbians everywhere, like when you think you’re pregnant and see pregnant ladies everywhere.
“Come on, assholes, play the game! Tell me your fears!” Billy yells, after trying to find a radio station and coming up with only static.
“I’m afraid we’ll never have another great album,” says Tom.
This gets our attention.
“Oh that’s nice, Tom. Real nice,” says Alan.
“And that you’re all going to fuck it up while I put every ounce of myself into making something excellent, and you guys aren’t even aiming for excellence.” He stares straight into the rear-view mirror, so he can catch Billy’s eye.
“I’m afraid of Tom stabbing me in my sleep if I fuck up,” says Jared.
“I’m afraid this conversation is never going to be over,” said Alan, punching the ceiling of the van.
I reach between the seats and squeeze Tom’s shoulder. “Sorry, buddy,” I say. “We’ll do better, right, guys? We’ll focus. We won’t fuck it up!”
There were murmurs of yeah, of course, for sure.
I squeeze Tom’s shoulder again but he jerks away from me.
The problem with touring is how it becomes difficult to discern what is normal. Most of us in the band do things to try to feel like a regular person. I practise scales every morning, even if I’m hungover. I do stretches, arching my body up toward the sun. We all drink Throat Comfort tea and suck on slippery elm tablets, especially Billy, so we won’t lose our voices. Tom likes to get out and jog around the van ten times every time we stop for food or gas. Which is ridiculous and admirable. Alan carries his own pillowcase in his knapsack, to put over hotel pillows. And no matter where we are or what we’re doing, Billy takes a nap at one o’clock in the afternoon for exactly one hour, even if we’re just sitting in a Denny’s. (That’s how you get kicked out of a Denny’s.)
I also try to journal every day, with a pack of drawing pens and several black hardcover notebooks. When I fill one, I mail it home to myself. The ritual feels important. But I can’t write about Andie. I have one page with her name written on it and a thousand doodles of flowers and trees. Will I forget Andie if I don’t document the experience?
In Portland, we have a whole day off. My plan is to hit Powell’s and some record shops, maybe eat at a restaurant where I’ll have time to linger and relax. But I barely have the chance to look around my hotel room before Tom summons us all to the lobby.
When I get downstairs, all I find is Tom, wearing a track suit, sitting on an oversized green velvet chair.
“What’s up?” I say.
“Go back upstairs and put on comfortable shoes. I’m taking us on a group outing.”
“This whole tour is a group outing. I think we need to un-group. Plus, the nail fully went through my boot sole, so these are my comfortable
shoes,” I say, re-strapping my platform sandal. He frowns. Everyone else slowly gathers around us.
“We need to regroup!” he says in his best dad-voice. “I promise it will be good.”
We get back into the van and Tom drives across the bridge and north on the interstate, over the Washington border and through several small towns until Alan says, “Are you taking us driving on our day off from driving?”
Tom ignores our complaining as we wind around several dirt roads that feel as though we are slowly tunnelling to a centre point. Instead we arrive at a trailhead.
“There are hot springs two miles into the forest,” he says, jumping out and stretching.
We continue to grumble as we get out of the van, but there is no denying that we are into it. We need to feel like characters in a children’s storybook, wandering down dirt paths, breathing in the wet, lush air, touching moss so bright green it looks like paint and seems to breathe. The scale of beauty on the West Coast is immense.
My body is still exhausted from being sick, and I do that Canadian thing where I heard Tom say miles but understood kilometres, and keep expecting to arrive when we’ve barely gotten anywhere. I trail behind the group lazily, stopping to smell and touch and take it all in. I get caught up in the smallness of my body as I walk away from the city, from the pulse of audiences, their blazing attention, and the repetitive rhythm of each show ritual, the endless driving. This break is welcome.
I fall further behind, sit on a rock, and scribble down some notes for lyrics. My imagination unlocks, away from the chaos.
I sit for a long while, until I see that Jared has circled back. He hasn’t shaved for a few days. His dyed mop of hair is a disgusting shade of green that blends into the trees. He borrowed my terry-cloth sundress a few days back and is still wearing it, with his tallest blue Doc Martens.
“I was worried about you,” he says, holding out his hand to help me up and then kissing me. His kissing has improved. We’ve found a groove. Sex with Jared is fine. I can take it or leave it, but I always choose to take it when offered. Because why not?