Our purpose, the meaning of it all, is revealed to us one step along the journey at a time. If we’re confused, or feel stuck, or are frustrated because we don’t know what to do next, the thing for us to do is to take the next step, without knowing.” – Chloë Rain
I was 22 years old when I bought a one-way ticket, in steerage, aboard the S.S. Leonardo DaVinci, an Italian liner bound for the south of France. On March 28,1976, I sailed out of New York Harbor, bringing only one suitcase, a Martin D-35 guitar, three college semesters worth of French, and a purpose – to be a writer. With two years of military service under my belt, followed by another two years of college education, I was convinced that I had a deep enough well of experience and knowledge to draw from in order for me to begin writing short stories and, perhaps, a novel. So, off to France I sailed.
The very first person I met aboard the ship was David Bowie (whom I had just seen in concert, in Detroit, four weeks earlier). David was sailing to Naples; I was disembarking in Cannes. Although I was traveling Tourist Class, I spent the majority of my time, over the next nine days, hanging out in the First Class Lido Lounge – with David, his personal assistant, Coco, and a collective of other fascinating eccentrics who would become the inspiration for my characters in a future (albeit, unfinished) novel. But I digress.
I only mention David because I have come to the realization, these 42 years later, that I was not the only person trying to find his purpose at the other end of that transatlantic crossing. You see, up until this auspicious voyage, David Bowie’s life had been in a virtual tailspin. His cocaine addiction was well known throughout the music world, and he had just been arrested, one week earlier (in Rochester, New York), for possession of marijuana. He was now headed across the Atlantic to begin the European leg of the Thin White Duke tour. Of course, what David had no way of knowing, at that time, was that this particular crossing would take his career to new creative heights, and away from the psychosis he had experienced from excessive cocaine use. He was about to find a new purpose for his life.
Berlin was the sanctuary that saved David Bowie’s career and life. Following his European tour, he moved to an apartment on the west side of town. The Berlin Wall was symbolic of David’s escape plan from the drug culture of Los Angeles, which he described as “the darkest days of my life.” Berlin gave David a newfound freedom, and anonymity: “It was the first time in years that I had felt a joy of life and a great feeling of release and healing,” he later said. “It’s a city that’s so easy to ‘get lost’ in – and to ‘find’ oneself, too.”
Over the next three years, David completely reinvented himself, while also transforming pop music forever. His next three albums – referred to as the Berlin Trilogy – were Low (1977), “Heroes” (1977), and Lodger (1979). David specifically credits the album Low for being “one of the better things I’d ever written. That was the start, probably for me, of a new way of looking at life.” But of the Berlin Trilogy itself, he said, “It is some of the best work that the three of us have ever done. Nothing else sounded like those albums. Nothing else came close. If I never made another album, it really wouldn’t matter now. My complete being is within those three. They are my DNA.”
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been almost three years since David Bowie passed away from liver cancer, at the age of 69. He was but a young 29-year-old man when I was blessed to spend those nine days sailing with him across the Atlantic. I will forever treasure my memories of him playing Jacques Brel songs (Amsterdam and My Death) on my Martin guitar, playing Tom Waits’ Shiver Me Timbers on piano (in the Lido Lounge) while I accompanied him on guitar, and sitting on the floor in his deluxe suite, in the wee morning hours, eating scrambled eggs and lox on a huge silver platter, while drinking Chivas Regal and Rémy Martin.
The night before I disembarked in Cannes, David and Coco stayed up all night with me, and a woman with whom I had developed a close relationship. Since I was arriving on French soil the next morning, with neither a residence card nor work papers, David suggested that I stay closely tethered to this woman who had offered me a job as her chauffeur in Nice. The last photo I took of David was of him saying goodbye, while hitting a tambourine, wishing me the best as an aspiring writer. That was the last time I saw David Bowie.
Ironically, the type of writer that I “planned” on being, when I was 22 years old, never materialized over the years. Although I have a plethora of unfinished drafts of novels and short stories, some published poems and newspaper articles, and a completed screenplay to my credit, finding my true purpose as a writer didn’t manifest itself until I published The Pono Principle one year ago this month. The book that I was “called” to write had absolutely nothing to do with fiction, and everything to do with truth. I am very grateful to have finally found my purpose in life, and to embrace it fully.
In the same way that David “found” his purpose in Berlin in 1976 – by recovering from addiction and exploring a new direction for his music – I also found the same pathway to recovery as David, while having discovered a more purposeful use of my writing talents. Whereas my 22-year-old egoic self merely wanted to impress the world with my interesting life experiences, my true self now wishes to write about matters that are not unique to my life, but are shared by everyone, everywhere.
All of humanity is, literally, “in the same boat.” Our distant ports-of-call may vary throughout our lifetimes, but ultimately we arrive at the same destination – a place where First Class and Tourist Class passengers can play music together, eat and drink together, and discuss their dreams of the future together. Only within the safe harbor of our shared humanity, our common soul, do we truly discover our purpose in life – and it is to welcome a fellow passenger aboard our mutual journey through life . . . sailing on the same ship, on the same ocean.
Bon Voyage!
