The Portal Bell - Day 13

Yesterday was hard. Harder than you can probably imagine. I’m not going to go into detail about it at this point. I’d rather not relive that experience at this point, ever really. The biggest take away from it all is that I no longer have a place I can store my belongings so everything I need I am carrying with me. Its an incredibly burden on my weakened body, but It’s better than having my basic necessities still tied to the drug I’m so desperately trying to get away from.

I woke up this morning on my old futon in Chinatown. I have been storing my most valuable possessions there for safe keeping; pictures of friends and family, all my financial documents and, most importantly of all, the Portal Bell.

Any of you who have known me for some time know the aged wood and rusted metal bell I’ve mentioned. It was the christmas gift my father gave me when I was seventeen. Never has he been so proud of a gift before or since. Months before the holiday season he came home one day and exclaimed, “I found you the perfect Christmas gift! I’ve never looked at something and thought someone needs to own it as much as you have to have this. But you have to wait.”

I was at a total loss for what could be so vital to my life to warrant such an emphatic declaration. Was it some new high-tech gadget? A piece of furniture custom designed to contour to every individual curve of my body? Some long lost relic that holds the power to transcend our mortal limitations and offer a glimpse into the truth of our purpose in this life? Nearly twenty years later I’ve come to realize it’s all of those things.

That Christmas morning we were all assembled in the living room of the house I grew up in. I don’t remember the weather that day, but I imagine there were rain clouds covering the view of Vashon Island, as was the case most days in December. That beautiful grey color that defines winter in the northwest.

While my siblings were opening their packages I was told to wait. “Don’t worry, it’s worth it,” he told me. Once they had all uncovered their bounty hidden behind bed sheets, Dad never wrapped presents, he went into his closet and came back with a single cardboard box. You could tell from the effort required that whatever it was, it was heavy.

As he set the box in the middle of the room his face beamed out in every direction. Never before had I seen such an expression on someone's face. He looked at me and finally said, “Okay, open it.”

I slowly peeled back the tape and started to gently remove the packing dunnage. He laughed, “Don’t be bashful, it’s not fragile.” I immediately started tearing out the paper as quickly as I could.

The piece I found was a small wooden mallet, with a head wrapped in leather. Then I pulled out two pieces of wood held together by a metal ring with a hook beneath it, it was marked with an icon similar to the symbol pi. Next came a metal cylinder topped with a ring on a crossbar. Finally the heaviest piece of all, a metal base with two supports.

It didn’t take long to get all the pieces assembled correctly I took a step back and looked at the final product. It was similar to a asian gong that you might see accenting a japanese maple. I’m sure the first look on my face was one of completely bewilderment. I didn’t know what to think of it. But then it hit me, it was perfect. There are few times in my life I smiled like that moment.

I gave my dad a hug and said, “Thank you Dad. You were right, this is something I’m supposed to own.”

I still didn’t understand it in the slightest. It was weird and unexpected and that was enough for me. I immediately rearranged everything in my room to make it the vocal point. It would come to be the first thing you noticed in any place I lived from then on.

It was only within the last year I found there was a much greater significance to it’s existence. Before I left Seattle life gave me another very unexpected gift. This time it came on a morning in July outside of a bath house, in the form of a man I have come to value greatly.

I had met him the night before. I was going out to the suburbs for a night of drugs and sex. Before I left the city I was determined to find a couple of other guys to bring as a surprise for the host, who had offered me refuge to my dog and myself when we had nowhere else to go. I wanted to do all I could to repay him.

We had talked a number of times online. We had wanted to connect but it never worked out. One of us already had something going on, or neither of us could host. In reality, it wasn’t time for us to meet until that day. Fate can be very particular about the manner in which it introduces you to the people it binds you to. Such was the case with my meeting S-.

The evening was not much to speak of. I slammed for the third time in my life. I still couldn’t hit myself, just earlier that day I had tried and inflicted myself with the wound that would come to land me in the hospital. I had specifically looked for someone who would be capable of acting as nurse. S- abhorred needles and would have nothing to do with it, but another guy I picked up was more than willing to oblige.

I ended up paired with the would-be nurse while S- and our host enjoyed each other's companionship. The sun rose and I was still too high to drive. I had agreed to have them back in the city by 7 am, so they could get to work and back to their significant other respectively. I handed S- the keys to my car, knowing I would have to sleep it off before driving back.

I don’t know where we dropped off the other guy, it doesn’t matter. It was in a parking lot along Pike Street that the conversation took a very unexpected turn. S- turned his head from the driver's seat and said, “Are you okay?”

Now this is a question that people ask all of the time, not really wanting to know the truth. They just feel some societal obligation to feign interest in the well being of others while deep down all they want to hear is the standard, “Yeah, I'm good.” He asked this question in a manner that not just suggested he wanted the truth, he demanded it.

“You know, I get asked that a lot. No I’m not okay. Nothing about me is okay. Why do you ask?”

“Because I can tell. I don’t think our situations are all that different.”

We talked for nearly an hour about life and addiction. We talked about homelessness and isolation. We talked about the energy of the earth and how exhausting it is to be aware of it. I talked to him in a way I would only speak to my closest of friends because despite having only met for the first time less than twelve hours ago I felt like I’d known him for many lifetimes. Perhaps it was more than just science fiction when Vonnegut spoke about our Karass.

We parted ways as he still had to go to work, but it wouldn’t be long before we saw each other again. Over the course of the next few months we gradually started to see each other more frequently, to the point where you might even say we were dating. For some reason it happens frequently in my life that I end up dating people and don’t realize it.

He first saw my bell while helping me to back my belongings for Hawaii. The look on his face was the same I had shortly after I laid eye on it for the first time. “Where did you get this?”

I told him the story of that christmas morning as he observed it from every possible angle. He studied it like an archeologist who had just found the holy grail, “You realize that his is much more than you think it is, right?”

His excitement was enough to get me excited. The unbelievable energy that surrounded Sphere was more than a person could simply be born with. He had traveled the continent and beyond, learning from spiritual guides of the first nations. Despite his reluctance to accept the position, he was chosen to be a Shaman.

I wish I could remember more of what he said here. He began explaining the symbol found both on the metal wrapping and the base. It had nothing to do with pi at all, it was a doorway. A designation reserved for artifacts used to bridge the distance between our world and that where only spirits dwell. It was a means of connecting us to the things and people we’ve lost and those we never knew we had. It was a Portal Bell.

I have never gone as far as to verify any of this information. He described it exactly as I have always known it, truth or not was irrelevant. Sometimes the mystical objects of this world only exist as such because we give them that power and the more i believed it, the truer it  became.

It is now packed in a bag in Chinatown, waiting to be sent back to Seattle. I am struggling immensely with the idea of not having it here with me. Ever since I arrived on Oahu I could look at it and be reminded of all the people I left behind. In my most trying times it has always brought me comfort, the simple om of its ring a reminder to never give up.

I have only a few days to decide if I’m going to carry the burden of is weight and risk losing it forever to keep it with me or send it back to Seattle to wait, along with everyone else, till I complete what I set out to do here. Part of me is starting to think that if it has to leave Hawaii, so do I.

Maybe it is time to go home.