Kamalashila died a month ago. I can barely believe it when I write that. It seems too long and too short at the same time. Time is doing strange things. I am sitting at the kitchen table. Elbows leaning on its heavy wooden top. Kamalashila had found a wooden table top on the streets shortly after we moved here last year. A friend and I carried it upstairs as it was so heavy. It was rectangular at the time and was missing four corners where it legs had been removed, which were an integral part of the top. After some deliberation and discussion Kamalashila decided to make it into an oval, using his jig saw. After all, he argued, we are now living close to Oval. It is not perfect but it is pretty good.
Footsteps from the flat above now, reminding me of a Halloween party that was held there yesterday evening. Though the music stopped at a decent time and we had been notified of the party beforehand, I was already sitting in bed reading when the sound of the bass became a bit too much for me. I remembered Kamalashila’s noise-cancelling headphones, which he bought after he had been hospitalised for the first time in the Spring. I found them and tried to connect them to my own laptop. Music starting to play. And through the wall it had picked up his old phone signal in the living room and had spontaneously started an Oasis song called ‘Live Forever’. It was quite pleasant really. I only found out the title on looking it up just now. Strange signs or presence and absence at the same time happening a fair amount at this point. I look at the FindMy feature on my phone and it shows KS is right here, at home. Of course these are his devices that are still with me.
Also with me now are his ashes. I picked them up with a friend from the crematorium yesterday. I had brought the same backpack I used for carrying my father’s ashes now almost two years ago. His container was rectangular like a big cereal box. Kamalashila’s is round. Another instance of a rectangular turning into something round. Square pegs and round holes come to mind. We all walked back to the underground station, Tooting Broadway. I was carrying him on my back. I felt joy. Maybe that is weird. But it reminded me of us playfully trying to lift each other up and jump on each other’s backs. After a coffee in a cafe, with the ashes in the bag sitting next to my friend and I on the table, we went on the tube. The bag was now on my lap. That made me smile too. We walked to my flat and then the ashes came home. The tube went into the hearth. The Manjushri rupa in front of it. Home again, for a while, until the journey continues.
