It was a year ago that I got up the gumption, followed the instinct and booked that writing workshop at Esalen. Became a Friend and got the discount.  Bought the flight.  Arranged for child care for my 5 year old.

Winter on the central California coast.  I made the drive alone in the rental car.  Stopped in Cambria along the way and bought a “Big Sur bar” in the old fashioned gas station. On the radio INXS played “Never Tear Us Apart” as Hearst Castle loomed in the distance, the ever-winding road leading to the big tree forest.

“…I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided and they could never tear us apart…”

That was the slow dance song in my high school gym.  The romantic track on INXS’s “Kick” album back in 1987.  The love song so epic it grew tired.

In 2009 I’m 36 years old and newly appreciating this musical gem.  Inspiration spilled through the speakers of my rental, as I followed some compelling thread to the woods for five days of writing, bohemia and organic food.  I was going to steep in hot spring water until I was pruned and my single mother cup filled with blissful nothing-to-do-ness.  I was feeding my soul.  And in the process, maybe I’d meet its mate.

Indeed, my spirit feasted in that remote artist’s oasis.  I had made many friends, had plentiful alone time, but no inkling of romance had surfaced. Though completely grateful for my reprieve, it did appear as though I was going to return to daily life more relaxed but without my heart’s companion.  And on my second to last night I found myself alone with a full moon steeping in the solo claw foot tub. I soaked and surrendered.

The feeling just wouldn’t leave me though.  And for what it was worth, I sang to the moon that INXS song.  Chin deep in hot water and I was singing out loud – quietly, though no one was around (and even if they were, those fringe-dwellers wouldn’t have cared).

“I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided and they could never tear us apart…”

It was my full moon prayer to the universe.  The hope, the dream, the words, the feeling, all pouring out vibrationally from my throat.  In the beginning there was the word and the word was good.  And my song was 20 years old and dated but the feeling was there.  I wanted to be standing there and I wanted Him, that ever elusive Him that I have felt in my heart since I was five years old – that Him to be there.  For our worlds to collide and for nothing to ever tear us apart again.

I know, I know…hokey dokey, simple simon. That’s the dream and I’m sticking to it.  It’s there despite myself.  You can understand, can’t you? It’s that feeling of magical love and how it warms your heart.  Makes you want to live.  I know it’s cheesy.  Maybe a complete and ridiculous fantasy.  I’ve tried to suppress it, deny it.  I’ve dabbled in open relationships and years of celibacy. I was engaged at 16 and broken-hearted by the break up. I’ve been cheated on and left with sad goodbyes.  You’d think that I would have given up by now.  But this feeling, this sense, this something, – this Him – just won’t leave me.

So maybe it was the new age woo woo in the salt air there on the sea cliff in my tub.  That belief that we can create our world, that dreams can come true.  That we use what tools are before us to manifest our greatest vision.  So it was with me and INXS that night.  A 1980‘s love song setting into motion my greatest hope and dream.

It flowed with soft thoughts, gentle and fluid like the hot water in which I was soaking.  Smooth and light like the steam that rose from my skin when I stepped out of the tub into the cold December night.  Warm and liquid like the blood coursing through my veins.  Relaxed kind of loving thoughts.  Sourcing from a deep and quiet place that comes when a mother gets five days of retreat time with no cell phone reception, no sandwiches to be made.

These thoughts of Him drifted through me and lapped with the ocean waves that crashed below my claw foot tub.  And I sang that feeling out with every INXS lyric.

“I told you that we could fly.  Cause we all have wings but some of us don’t know why….”

And I let it go out to the Pacific.  Let it sink into the sea weed.  Let it drift into the moonlit ether.  Sift and swirl in steam.  Alone there in the moonlight. Singing my INXS song.

“….I was standing…you were there…two worlds collided…”

And if the band were providing the perfect soundtrack for the instant manifestation movie of my life, they would have broken out “What You Need” the following afternoon.

I was pretty much standing (well, sitting) and he was there (and asked to join me) and our two worlds did collide, the connection immediate.

Over the course of the following months our worlds swirled together like the most romantic script I’d dared to pen.  Full moons and tangerines, lavender and chocolate, creekside forest cabins and Big Sur jade.  A 5am road trip with Molina and Johnson in Tule fog.  The best kisses I’d ever had.  When oceans kept us apart – California, India, Hawaii – there was long distance poetry and music mixes.  Our love was threaded with reunions, jackfruit trees and remote jungle waterfalls.  Monk seals, sunrise shells, passing squalls and the sweetness of simply holding hands.  So amorous it was, we even delved into Phil Collins…and Christopher Cross?!  Who would have thought I could have gone there? (well, never without a sideways smile).  But always, inevitably, there was goodbye.

Long distance romance…oh the agony!  Even if we do all have wings, Michael Hutchence, we couldn’t fly the distance.  The love lived in our hearts but we always were apart.

Our two worlds collided in a way that makes me still believe in magic.  That man I loved, he was a him for sure.  And I really thought he may have been the capital H one.

“…don’t ask me, what you know is true.  Don’t have to tell you.  I love your precious heart…”

Our collision was true.  And he will always have a precious place in my heart. One thing he taught me was that real love comes in all forms, capital and lower case.

As for that one, ever-present He that I sense in my heart – I still feel Him and I can’t help but believe that one day we’ll meet and never be torn apart.

For now, I’m standing here.  Still humming my tunes and keeping the dream alive.

Ben Harper performing cover of INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” with Jon Farriss on drums at Splendour In The Grass in Woodfordia, Queensland AUSTRALIA 7/30/2010.

Just this month INXS featuring Ben Harper released this as a single through iTunes Australia (not yet available in the US).  Ben sums up the power of the song pretty well:

“Covering Never Tear Us Apart is like covering Dock of the Bay. I am not here to make grandiose statements – it’s just a fucking fact – that’s one of the greatest soul songs ever written.”  Ben Harper (INXS website)