Not at all, it’s my favourite question to answer.
There is the short version, where he purchased an artwork from me and we struck up a friendship. As time went by, it grew into something more.
But here is the long version:
It was the summer of 2009…
I would wake up at 5am every morning. It was like clockwork. No matter how late I went to bed the night before, sure enough, I would be wide awake at 5am the next day.
My friend said it was a sign of depression but I didn’t feel like I was depressed. I had this restless energy and nowhere to direct it. I was putting bits of it into lots of different things. But nothing stopped me in my tracks. And that’s what I was craving. Some life-altering event that would pick me up like one of those claw machines, and put me somewhere new and exciting.
It just so happens that across the ocean from me, there was someone who felt the exact same thing. He was at a point in his life where he was looking for something. And in hindsight, it was the exact same thing I was searching for.
Of course when we began talking, we didn’t realise we would find it in each other. He’s bought paintings before. I’ve sold artworks. It should have been a straightforward transaction between us. But something happened in that exchange. Even now, I can’t really explain it.
The more we spoke, the more it became apparent that we were creative soul mates. We shared the same ideas. We had so much in common, it was spooky. We hadn’t even met in real life but it felt like he was someone I had always known.
At first the change was gradual. I still felt like the same person. I was still in the same situation. But if you could compress all the years since I have met him, through to the present day, the transformation in my life has been nothing short of spectacular.
Somehow, as unlikely as it was, we were drawn together and I believe there is real magic in our unity. Since I met Michael, my life reads like a Murakami novel. I have seen a spaceship, and not just fuzzy lights in the distance, an actual ship, hovering metres above my head. I have stood at the end of a rainbow. On the day that my first book Love & Misadventure was launched, dolphins came to dance outside the front of our house, by the sea. I’ve had strangers approach me out of the blue, to tell me things about my future, that have since come to fruition. I’ve seen so many coincidences, that I no longer believe in coincidences.
Yet through everything that has happened, from the mundane to the extraordinary, I have had my best friend beside me. Someone to bear witness to all the craziness. To keep my head in the clouds but my feet on the ground.
I wanted to be whisked away on some great adventure, and boy, did I sure get it.
Here is to great adventures… The highs and the lows.
I believe in magic. I’ve seen it in his/her eyes. I’ve seen such beautiful things – It brings me to tears – overwhelming me.
Today I am filled with hope and, as always, love.