Half a life time ago I used to walk up Charing Cross road perusing book shops, eating cheap Chinese food and generally escaping from life in London. I've never lived in London but from March until July 1994 I spent time in a psychiatric clinic near London Bridge. It was the elite treatment for the un-treatables that everyone else had given up on.
I met amazing people, behaved in a very juvenile way and generally struggled for that time. The treatment had a non existent impact on my illness and they abandoned me when I didn't do what I was told.
You will know what happened down the line if you have read my books or read here regularly. I did find my way, I found a career, and unlike most of those I knew I got out.
On Thursday I walked gently up Charing Cross Road and remembered those times. The shops, the restaurants, the bars. Most have gone now. Even Foyle's is no longer where it once was. My emotion was mixed but it felt good.
The purpose of me being there was to meet my lovely friend Krishna. She was once one of my students. She regards me as a wise man, her Buddha who guides here life. More than two years have passed since we last met. But as she battles serious and debilitating physical illness that at time has her in a wheelchair she has finally brought up the courage to fight back. That is the way with illness like mine, you choose to live or you choose to die. Many many that I knew all those years ago chose death, either real or metaphorical, rather than life.
A long time ago a psychiatrist told me that being mad was not a career choice. I felt terribly threatened by that back then. Now I see she was right. I don't always get it right. I fuck up. I rant. I cry. But I nearly always find a way to fight back and to live.
My holiday is at its end. On Monday I return two weeks before the tidal wave breaks. Am I ready? Who knows? Time will tell.
I Heard a Voice.
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