| OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN |
| VIEW OF THE ABBEY FROM JULIAN'S LAVENDER GARDEN |
| EXCERPTS |
| I took a nice hike with Angus on a sunny day. We stopped to take a rest and smoke some weed. There was a garden there, way up the hill. “How the fuck does someone have a garden here?” “That’s Father Julian’s garden.” “Really?” I surveyed it. “So this is what he’s up to when I’m cleaning the church!” Sometimes he’s even late for services. Must be because he loses track of time here. I do that when I have a garden. “What does he grow?” “Lavendar.” Interesting. |
| Paul returned my book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He loved it. He also said goodbye. He was leaving for Greece the next day. He’s been fantasizing about serenading the Greek ladies at the ancient temples for some time. Now he was ready to do it. It was sad to know our time together was ending. We went out to the woods and I got him high. We rarely speak anymore, conditioned by the monks. We got really high and I laughed, hard. “What ye laffin’ fer?” “Do you know where that weed came from?” “Ye already told me, Amsterdam, the best of the best.” “Yeah, but I smuggled it over in my pussy.” Paul cracked up. “Aye, tastes reallly good.” That brogue. I wanted to cry knowing how much I was going to miss him. |
| Then Mark found us. We had to change the conversation. He was telling Paul and I about his stay with some Buddhist monks. From what I hear, the Buddhist monks got nothing on the Benedictines. I told them, “Fuck the Buddhist monks.” Paul laughed and said that the Buddhists did seem kind of rude. These monks here are the best. I’ve never felt so whole and at peace in all my thirty-four years as I do here at the abbey. I love them all, and they love me, perfectly, as I am, not for what they want from me. |
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