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CHAPTER 1
The Bench
I wasn't exactly sure how I got here. I hadn't been to the park since my high school days. All of a sudden, I had this enormous desire — an urge — to get to New Eden Park as soon as possible. So here I was, getting out of my car, walking toward the end of the park where there was a bench in front of the river, where the currents divide around the park and then merge again on the other side. New Eden Park is a small island in the middle of the river.
The air was humid and heavy with expectancy. So much had changed since I was here the last time. The trees were so much taller and many more had been planted. There were flowers everywhere. Perhaps they had been there all along and had just become more noticeable to me. The green grass made for the perfect background to the wonderful gathering of tiger lilies, daisies, and dandelions.
I walked the route to the bench that I had always taken while in high school, which was the route along the west side, mainly because it was so close to the river — you could touch the water if you wanted to — and also because of the sound the water made as it calmly murmured its way through the rocks. It sounded like familiar music to me, so melodic. It had a calming effect on my mind. As I followed the path through the trees, I remembered so many of the things that I had experienced here. I realized that I really didn't know why I had rushed here, but for the moment all I could sense was a feeling of comfort and familiarity. Memories of a time long gone flooded back to me, and yet they still felt so real, so close to me. It seemed as if time had stood still in my mind for that moment, and I could see the faces, hear the laughter, and observe the events that had taken place so many times in this park in the past — friends, concerts, picnics, the river, the trees, the green grass, and of course, the bench.
There, finally, the bench. Although to others it may have seemed like just another used park bench, for me it was anything but ordinary. I had experienced some of my most treasured memories and moments in my life from there. It was there that I had written my first poem. It was there that I had had my first kiss, and also my first broken heart. It was the bench that held many secrets. I was comforted in knowing that it could not speak.
I had worked myself back to the bench, and I hesitated now before sitting down as I gazed into the river. As I lowered myself onto the bench, I felt myself enveloped in warm and pleasant memories. I had thought I would never be here again. Nevertheless, here I was. As I looked to the reflection of the cloud formations as they moved on top of the river's face, I watched them disappear again as some of them would take the flow of the river's right side and others would move toward the river's left side.
I often wondered what might have happened if I would have taken the left side instead of the right side in my own life's river. So many times I had thought about all the decisions that I made that brought me to the place I am today in this river we call life.
It seemed as if I had been running so fast for so long, and yet I didn't even know exactly where it was that I was going. It seemed as if it was just yesterday that I was flowing effortlessly through the trees of this park, running, laughing, living carefree, and loving every minute of it. It seemed as if it was a few hours ago I was graduating from high school and running off to college. It seemed as if it was last week that I graduated from college, and I was now interviewing for my first job. It seemed as if a few minutes ago I began my first company and that only seconds ago I learned it had gone bankrupt. It seemed as if the last twenty years had just disappeared, gone with those clouds, down the river. I did not really know where those years had gone.
That was probably the reason I worked myself back to this place. Somehow, I wanted to feel as if life could be fresh again. After trying so hard to succeed at so many things for so long and not having attained a lot of what I had wanted, perhaps coming back to where it all started with so much promise, in some innocent way, would help me capture that awesome feeling that life is on my side again and that everything could go my way once again. Maybe, just maybe, that was what I needed — to go back to the beginning, to get a new understanding, to get a fresh new perspective. After all, what did I have to lose? The house was on the block. My retirement money was spent. The company is finally finished. The cars will be gone next week, and the worse thing of all, my darling wife, Ellen, has had it. As she told me just yesterday, "I didn't marry you, Jack Kingsley, to struggle." I don't have anything else to lose. Almost everything I cared for is gone. Maybe, just maybe, the river could remind me of a secret or two ... and make it all right again.
It is so ironic. Everything for which I have strived and struggled in my life, I did for the people and things I care for the most. And yet I am now losing these people and the things precisely because of all my work and my efforts. Not only have I lost all my money, but I am also losing those relationships that are the most important to me because of the pressures of not having money. Life can be a funny thing, you know. It seems that the more you want something, the more elusive it becomes. So much for work hard and your dreams can come true. In so many respects, I was more successful as a teenager than what I have been so far as an adult, and I was much happier as well. If I could do it all over again, I would begin by following that which made me feel joyous, not by following whatever I thought could make me money. Money is a fact of life, but it can make things either very right or oh so very wrong.
Everybody has a different opinion about money. Most people find it a very sensitive matter. Most people have a relationship with it that is at best civil. At worst it becomes a story of confusion and misery. Some people find it taboo to talk about "the root of all evil." Others consider money to be a totally private matter and even embarrassing to discuss. They would rather never talk about money at all — ever! Many will tell you to your face that they couldn't care less about money, and yet they spend the whole day complaining that they don't have any. Then there is the group that would rather die than spend any money, choosing to live a life of joyless frugality in their search for security. There are those who live in fear of money, never looking at their financial statements, bank accounts, or any of their money matters. Finally, there are those who sell their bodies for money and the very desperate ones who would kill for money — and do. And then, well, there is me.
I have been trying for twenty years to understand money, and I have come out empty-handed. I feel as if I have been courting a lady for two decades, and she has left me standing at the altar. And to make matters worse, she went away to France to marry some famous Mediterranean magnate who didn't need her as much as I did. That is how I feel. It may sound funny, but how else can I explain it? I have worked intensely at reaching my money Shangri-La for years, and although I've had some victories, they have not lasted. Money always seems to find its way in increasing amounts to those who already have plenty of it.
So here I sit and watch the river divide and choose where to go. What are my options? I could go back and join the rat race again and give it another try. I could sit here, go back over everything and try to figure out where it all went wrong. Or perhaps I should just sit here and wait. Think for a while. Let a few hours go by. Let the day unfold. Feel the wind behind me encircling the trees, running wild through the flowers. Let the sun warm my face. Kick off my shoes and feel the grass beneath my feet. Take a few deep breaths and fill my lungs with this wonderful summer breeze. Let my eyes see all the colors of the world and stare endlessly into the infinite blue sky. Or perhaps I should just get up and get my butt in gear and get a job! No ... I can't. Not just yet. Rather ... perhaps I should close my eyes and lay on top of the river and let myself go with its current on top of the earth and just go away far, very far. Until I reach the sea. It does not matter what sea. Any sea. Just let myself go. Maybe, just maybe, I could find in the deep blue the treasure chest for which I have been looking.
CHAPTER 2
Mrs. Barbara Bailey
"I can sit here for hours and lose myself in this beautiful place," said the voice.
As soon as I heard the voice, I knew that I had fallen asleep. I didn't know for how long. It felt like a long time. My neck hurt from resting it on top of the back of the bench. But then I realized that I could not have fallen asleep for a long time because it was still daytime and the sun was still shining bright. I must have looked to this person who was now sitting next to me like just another bum sleeping on just another park bench. Maybe that was my destiny — to become one more tragic story of someone who used to be president of a company and now makes his home in a park. I can see how that could make an interesting story for a local paper, "Ex-CEO Lost Everything — Now Sleeps at New Eden Park." I would buy the paper that day. I would read that story. I would like to know how that could have happened. Yes, I would like to know the juicy details of the life of this loser.
I came back to my senses, realizing that the person sitting next to me on my bench was a lady. How rude of me not to have said hello and acknowledged her. Then again, how rude of her to be sitting on my bench without asking me first if she could! I was here first. Sometimes I really wonder about people's manners.
"I would have asked you, if you minded terribly, if I might sit here with you, but you were asleep. I hope that my daring attitude did not startle you. If it did, please forgive me."
Ordinarily, I would have answered her back with some asinine comment like, "Well, there are other benches in the park!" but for some reason, I didn't. When I heard her voice and looked into her eyes as she spoke, I immediately knew this was not an ordinary lady. There was a very specific gentleness about the tone of her voice, not to mention the civility of her British accent. But there was something much more than that. There was an echo behind her voice that spoke of intrigue, of someone who has seen many things, traveled to many places, experienced a lot. Her eyes. The word kind would not do her justice. It was more like genuine caring, like the earnest sincerity of a mother's eyes gazing upon her newborn baby.
I wanted to tell her to go away. I wanted to tell her that I had come here to be alone and that I was in no mood to strike up a conversation. Small talk to a perfect stranger was definitely out of the question. I wanted to tell her to buzz off. Leave me alone. Get out of here! Somehow I couldn't. I was frozen, smitten by curiosity. I had this magnificent impulse to know who she was, where she'd been, what she was doing here, and what her name was. Who was she?
"My name is Barbara. Barbara Bailey." Again, she spoke, and as I looked at her more closely, for the first time I realized she was a mature woman, well into her sixties. Her hair was light gray, almost white, but if the maxim that the sixties are the new fifties, then she was the perfect example. Her face exuded softness and youth. Her hair was fun, playful, and yet the way she was sitting was dignified as if she belonged to some aristocratic family. But really, her clothes gave her away. She was dressed impeccably. The lavender blouse accented by a gorgeous white sweater wrapped around her shoulders, which matched to perfection her white skirt and her beautiful handmade Italian open-toe white shoes, sent a message of quiet elegance. Her necklace, bracelets, watch, and jewels indicated wealth. Yet they were all complements to the awesome, charismatic presence of this perfect stranger.
"Hello. I am pleased to meet you. My name is Jack Kinsley. For how long were you sitting here before you decided to let me know you were here?"
"Not very long. I was just waiting for the best moment to introduce myself. I am not in town very often, and every time I come back to visit, I make it a point to come and sit here for a while. The view from this bench is magnificent," said Mrs. Bailey.
"Why? I mean, why do you come into town, and why this park?" I asked, realizing the eagerness of my impertinent questioning. But taking into consideration that she had invaded my bench in the first place, I figured that I had the right to ask.
"My family used to do business here a long time ago, and I come to visit old friends at least once a year, sometimes twice a year," replied Mrs. Bailey, staring upstream all the way to where the river disappeared into the horizon. "I've spent many hours sitting here. Sometimes reading. Sometimes thinking. Most of the time just taking in this absolutely gorgeous place." As she finished answering my questions, she slowly turned toward me, and looking straight into my eyes, she asked, "And what about you, Mr. Kingsley? What brings you to New Eden Park? Do you come here often?"
That was when I remembered that I didn't exactly know why I had come to the park in the first place. I just had to come. I didn't know if I really wanted to get into this with Mrs. Bailey, but before I knew it, I was answering her, feeling somewhat intimidated. "I used to come here just about every day when I was in high school. But I haven't been back here for about twenty years. So I guess the answer to your question is no, I don't come here often." I answered shortly, half-wishing she wouldn't ask me anything else.
"I am sorry, Mr. Kingsley. Excuse me. Maybe you would prefer if I left you to yourself."
If I hadn't known any better, I would have thought that this woman was reading my mind.
"No, no, it is quite all right, Mrs. Bailey. It was me who asked you in the first place, and if I may be perfectly honest with you, I guess I do welcome the conversation. I must confess to you that I really don't know why I came here today. This morning when I woke up, I had this huge urgency to get back here, and so I came. I am still trying to work out the details of my return to the park." Almost immediately, I felt a sense of relief.
"Sometimes we like to go back to places that make us feel good. Besides, parks are wonderful places. I often visit a park close to my house in London, and it fills me with a feeling of joy and freedom and peace. Maybe that is why you have decided to come back here to this park."
As she was speaking, I felt I was listening to words that I hadn't heard in ages — joy, peace, and freedom. All I spoke about for years was balance sheets, cash flow, incoming, outgoing, cost-effective, and no more money. "Maybe. I think it was more like trying to get away from problems and looking for —"
"Peace, joy, freedom ... happiness," she interrupted me. "I think I may know how you feel, Mr. Kingsley. I, too, know what it is like to want to get away from it all, looking for that perfect moment of harmony. That perfect balance," she said in a knowledgeable but kind way.
"Well, I don't know if I would call anything perfect, Mrs. Bailey. However, I would settle for simple harmony." Man, if I could just have that, I would be happy — health, love, wealth, and happiness. Who wouldn't like that kind of harmony?
"And why not perfect? Wouldn't you like to dream about it, even if you didn't think it was possible? Don't you ever dream about having it all?" She was talking as if she was aware of something that I wasn't. Her questions came across with a tone of certainty rather than one that was questioning.
"Mrs. Bailey, pardon my incredulity, but to a man who just lost everything, harmony would be nice. I don't know about having everything. Having it all sounds like a faraway province in the middle of Mongolia." I felt a bit upset. To talk about something like that right now was off-putting to me.
I noticed Mrs. Bailey was looking away again staring into the horizon. She remained quiet for a few moments. Now I didn't want to talk about this anymore. I came here to be alone. I just wanted to be by myself, and here I was talking about my affairs to somebody I didn't even know.
"You had to come back to where it all began," Mrs. Bailey said.
"And why do you say that?" I asked, bewildered.
"I am so very sorry, Mr. Kingsley. I do not intend to upset you, but you should know you are not the only one who has lost everything in the process of life's unfolding. Many people have. Many people will lose everything this very day. It should not happen, but it is something that we human beings experience. You might not understand now, but perhaps you will later." We both stared at each other. I was feeling defiant. She was looking at me as if she understood my pain.
"How could you possibly know what I am going through?" I barked at her with little concern. I did not care what she thought of me. She sure wasn't getting any kindness from this stranger.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Dreams Truths Secrets"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Orlando Rivera.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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