Lips Unsealed (33 page)

I needed more than a month to work up the nerve to break the news to Morgan, and as I feared, he struggled with it. From what I read, his was a pretty typical reaction among fathers, who sometimes think their son’s homosexuality is a reflection of their own masculinity. We laugh about it now. But Morgan would come up to me and ask, “Are you sure he’s gay?” Later, Duke would find me and say, “I can’t believe Dad can’t accept it.”

In the end, Morgan and I both settled down. Not only did we accept Duke’s sexuality, we became his biggest supporters—to a point. See, Duke likes to talk and debate. He’s a natural politician, a passionate leader with strong views on issues, particularly gay politics. On occasion, we have reached the point where we have said, “All right, we have heard enough! We’re all for gay rights. Go tell someone else.”

Sometimes he laughs at us. Other times he gets frustrated. And still other times we get into heated debates. He may see us roll our eyes at him, which happens when he goes on one of his diatribes, but he knows we support him 100 percent. He has said and even written that he couldn’t ask for any cooler or more accepting parents. We couldn’t have hoped for a cooler or better kid.

I’ve had some pretty big hits in my life—but none bigger than my son. And I know the best is yet to come.

THEN CAME INDIA.

Years earlier, one of my best friends, Rosemarie, had discovered yoga. She had been part of the punk scene in L.A., and I made fun of her for getting into the whole mind-body thing. I jokingly referred to her as Gwyneth. She called me ignorant and close-minded.

She was right. I thought yoga was too trendy and practiced by sweat-soaked fashionistas preening their taut bodies in the latest yoga-wear. No thanks.

Plus I had tried yoga a few times in the past and always ended up injured. In retrospect, I had pushed myself too hard in those classes. Yoga isn’t about that at all. But in those early days of my sobriety Rosemarie kept after me to try it.

“Trust me, it will change everything,” she said.

As she knew, I needed all the help I could get. I attended daily AA meetings, chanted for hours, and worked out. I focused all my energy on staying sober and being healthy. As long as I was trying to change everything about my lifestyle, I thought, why not try yoga?

I researched classes in the South of France and began attending a branch of the Iyengar Institute in Nice. Iyengar is a form of Hatha yoga that concentrates on body alignment. It focuses on extremely precise poses that put the body into perfect alignment. It’s complicated on many levels and frustrating for those same reasons. I started in the beginner’s class and gritted my teeth through weeks of criticism and correction from the teacher, a gorgeous woman who came across like a Marine drill sergeant.

She didn’t compliment me even when I did the poses correctly. As she later explained, it was to keep the ego from getting in the way. Although I came to understand that approach, it was scary getting yelled at all the time.

I stuck with it, though, and gradually found myself enjoying the discipline—something I obviously needed—and opening up emotionally. I surprised myself when I started to look forward to it, not just the physical and emotional part, but also the mental aspect. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt stronger. Something was happening to me. Each week was a different format. One week it was standing, the next forward bends, the fourth third restorative. For me, it was like taking baby steps into a new awareness of myself. I felt like I was breathing differently, sometimes for the first time, and indeed I was.

As I learned, breathing properly opens you up. Each breath carries life and energy, or what the yogis call
prana
, to the rest of your body. Things happened to me in class almost involuntarily. For one, I started to cry in class. I had no idea why—or what triggered it. If I did too many chest or hip openers, I started to break down, felt seized by anger, fear, remorse, and all of a sudden the tears flowed out of me. It happened all the time. Something was shifting around in me.

When I found out the school closed in the summer, I had one of the teachers come to my house for private lessons. I practiced five days a week. My teacher warned me to be careful.

“One day you’re going to notice that all your perceptions and your approach to life will have changed,” he said. “You can’t analyze it. Don’t even try. Don’t even question it. Just go with it.”

And that’s what happened. In Los Angeles, instead of hitting my old haunts, I took yoga classes at Golden Bridge, which was designed as more of a community than a school. It was cofounded by Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, a charismatic, deeply spiritual woman. She was a fun, cool Sikh who could often be spotted dressed in her pristine white robes and turban roller-skating down Santa Monica Boulevard. Her classes in kundalini yoga attracted students from around the world.

I first met her when I was bedridden during my pregnancy with Duke. Someone had suggested I get food delivered from the restaurant
that was affiliated with the Golden Bridge. In addition to food, I also got Gurmukh. Well-known in L.A. for her pre- and postnatal yoga and meditation work, she came to my house and gave me private kundalini lessons—as much as I could do in bed—and continued after Duke was born. I didn’t care about the yoga, but Gurmukh gave the best foot massage I’d ever had in my life.

I reconnected with her one day in early 2007 when I was waiting for a class at Golden Bridge. She was walking by and stopped to talk.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “You look so happy.”

“I’m going to India next month,” I said.

“That’s great,” she said.

I filled her in on some of the details. This was going to be my second trip there. My first time had been with Morgan and my friend Rosemarie in 2000. We had gone on a friend’s magnificent yacht. Morgan is like Valentino; he doesn’t like anything unpleasant entering his world if possible. So India wasn’t for him. I didn’t think it was for me either. My friend and I went ashore in Mumbai, where the poverty was more extreme than anyplace I had ever seen. I hadn’t led a sheltered life, but I saw people living in conditions that made me grimace and turn away. Yet I couldn’t stop looking at the throngs of people and animals. Beggars. Amputees. Small children on their own. Peddlers. Holy men. Everywhere I turned I saw the whole deck of humanity. I kept staring. I was as captivated and curious as I was repulsed.

As I told Gurmukh later, I felt the need to go back. As I got deeper into yoga and related reading, I had the sense that I had missed something in India, something key and important that was there, waiting for me to find it, like a spiritual Where’s Waldo.

She smiled.

She mentioned that she was leading a trip there, too.

“Why don’t you come with me?” she said.

“Okay.”

Saying yes as instantly as I did was one of those turning points in my life, like forming the Go-Go’s. I didn’t give it any thought. Nor did
I consider any of the arrangements I had to make, the costs, inconveniences, dangers, or hassles. I knew it was something I had to do.

Doors open at different times in your life. Some are presented before you’re ready, and others appear at exactly the right time. India was one of those. For years, I had envied people with passions in their life. I had music, but it was my career. It was not until I found yoga, or until yoga found me, that I felt the emptiness in me begin to fill up and my soul burn with a new life force. Having passion in life made me eager to grow and do more. It made me feel alive after so many years of going through the motions of being alive. I know it’s what made me eager to plan my trip to India—actually, I planned two: one with friends and then a second one with Gurmukh. But I might not have gone on either one if not for a remarkable woman who passed away in May of that year one month before turning 103.

Lesley Blanch was Morgan’s godmother. To say she had a full and rich life is an understatement. She was a writer, artist, editor, adventurer, romantic, dreamer, and lover of life. Her first book,
The Wilder Shores of Love
, had as its theme women escaping the boredom of convention. It was an apt description of Lesley herself. She had studied art as a young woman, designed book jackets for T. S. Eliot, married and divorced French novelist-diplomat Romain Gary, hobnobbed with movie stars and screenwriters, and of course saw the world.

She lived in Paris, Berne, New York, and Los Angeles and traveled the world mostly on her own. As she once said, “I’ve rather hopped on some trains in my time.” In that respect, as well as a few others, we were kindred spirits. I visited with her frequently. I couldn’t believe she was 100, then 101, and then 102—with all her teeth, as she liked to joke, and her sense of humor.

She always said, “Belinda, you bring so much light with you. Tell me where you’ve been lately.”

I brought her trinkets from my travels and played her reggae music, which she loved. Her message to me was simple: Live. Don’t be afraid. Go for it. I wish I had been able to tell her about India. For my first trip, I went the five-star route. I was there with two girlfriends, and we booked rooms at all the best hotels. I loved seeing the sights, but I was seeing them
out the window of a comfortable car. I instinctively knew I wasn’t experiencing India the way I wanted or
needed
. I had no stories for Lesley.

Cut to me sitting beside the pool one day at one of India’s most luxurious hotels—one of the most luxurious hotels I had ever seen, let alone stayed at. It was an old palace in the mountains. Everything was exquisite: the views, the service, everything. As my friends and I were having our breakfast amid the posh splendor, a dog ran up to our table. She sat down next to me and began licking herself. I looked down at her and saw that her toe was coming off.

“Oh my God,” I said. “This is gross.”

At the same time, I couldn’t stop staring at the dog. She looked back at me, too. After I sensed some kind of contact between us, she got up and left. From then on, I began to see India, really see it as I was meant to. One second it was gorgeous, the next it was gruesome. More often than not, I saw it the other way around: gruesome and then gorgeous.

A few months later, I returned to India as part of Gurmukh’s annual Golden Bridge pilgrimage. This time the trappings were extremely different, and so was my experience. I met up with the group in Delhi, took a long bus ride to Amritsar, where we hooked up with Gurmukh and her husband, Gurushabd, and then journeyed to Rishikesh, a holy town in the country’s northern highlands.

Rishikesh is best known for two things: it’s the place where the Ganges comes down from the Himalayas and it’s the yoga center of the world. In the late sixties, the Beatles visited the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh and for a moment India was
très
hip.

My arrival drew much less fanfare. It was hard to believe even the Beatles could have caused a stir in the crowded city’s hustle and bustle. From my vantage as a new arrival, Rishikesh teemed with the full circus of humanity. I had to take several deep breaths to keep my focus. Even as I was getting my bearings, I knew my pilgrimage to this holy city was going to be either a colossal mistake or an impossibly magical experience. There was no room for anything in between.

Likewise, I was immediately on overload from the city’s sights and pungent odors—an acrid foulness mixed with incense and the smell of kerosene. It hung in the air like a thick, exotic perfume. As for the
crowds, I didn’t know where to look first. There were holy men on the street, people posing as holy men, vendors, peddlers, beggars, blind children, open markets and stands. People wore clothes that were in a whole different color scheme than in the West. And then there was the noise; it was a different soundtrack from that of the life I knew back home. Slowly, I stepped into the churning sea of humanity. I darted between scooters, cows, dogs, and vendors’ carts loaded with goods. In the distance was the river with its own craziness along the banks. I lost track of how many times I asked myself, “Where am I?”

It didn’t matter.

Within minutes, I knew it was wonderful. I felt strangely comfortable, elated, and at home.

Guided more by curiosity than specific directions, I made it to my destination feeling relief and excitement. I learned quickly that everything in India, no matter where you are, is an adventure. A few days later I set out on what should have been a five-minute walk to see the man who sold shawls. It took me two and a half hours.

Gurmukh and Gurushabd led us to our lodging, Parmarth Niketan, a famous ashram. Although beautiful, the place was surrounded by filth and squalor. Rishikesh was a place where you had to arrive early because the buses and taxis quit driving the mountain roads at dusk, when the elephants began wandering out of the wilds.

After a week, I felt an energy and lightness of being that put me in an altered state of consciousness—but not like a drug high. It was about being open and in touch with myself, unencumbered by the walls that usually kept those feelings at a safe distance, and really just walking around with an appreciation of the miracle of being alive.

Corny? Maybe.

But true.

Early one morning we were on a platform next to the Ganges, participating in a group
sadhana
, which Gurushabd, after I told him about it, described as “dumping your inner garbage can.” He was spot-on. After I finished, I felt anxious and irritated. I didn’t know why.
Gurmukh then strode into the middle of the platform, looking radiant in white as the morning light wrapped around her. She got everyone’s attention and said we were going to be doing rebirthing. People cheered and clapped, as did I, even though I’d never done this exercise.

I had once been in a class she led where I was so relaxed that when she rang a gong to signify the end I literally felt the sound penetrate through the different layers of my consciousness. The sensation of lying on the floor and feeling the kundalini rising within me was something I’ll never forget. It was like someone pressing their finger at the base of my spine and moving it up slowly, with a touch that cleansed and awakened as it rose.