Olga

I used to have this "woo-woo" friend named Olga. I say "woo-woo" because she read palms and tarot cards, made "special" candles and had her psychic on speed dial. She once took me to this place in Venice called "Audrey's Good Vibrations" where I had my chakras read. Blew me away, it was so accurate. And then, if that wasn't enough, during our lunch later that day she read my tarot and was surprisingly dead on about everything that was going on in my life at the time (I chose the cards that she read, folks. So yeah, it was pretty eerie). She helped push me out of my own way and got me breathing again at a time when I was just...lost. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone who wanted to be the only person in my life. But that's another story.
She wrote poetry and performed it. Her and her husband hitch hiked from Florida to California, and she told me that he was born with a genital deformity, but he was the sweetest person she'd ever met, and she loved him, so she married him. I can't remember exactly what was wrong with him but I know that "it" didn't operate up to par. Otherwise, he seemed pretty normal. When we first met I remember her telling me about a roommate that she and her husband had sex with from time to time. According to Olga, the girl flipped her lid one day and they asked her to move. Shortly after that, Olga and her husband...Jason, I think his name was... moved into some woman's house in Malibu. This lady was a magazine editor who was intrigued by Olga and wanted to help her get her latest project off the ground. The Dream Project. By this time, she and I had begun to speak less and less but she'd email from time to time and I'd check her blog online to see how she was doing and drop a line. People flocked to her like they simply couldn't resist doing so. It was amazing to watch. Then, sometime around March, she disappeared. Right before I could fully use her as my crutch, lol. I'd come to depend on her to keep me strong enough to climb out of the lousy situation I was in, and didn't realize that it was merely the power of her suggestion that lifted me out of that muck, not her. After she left and I saw that I was ok, my spirit still in tact, it occured to me that she stayed around just as long as she was supposed to. Some people never stay present longer than absolutely necessary in order to serve their purpose in your life. She left a few fingerprints and then she was out. Last I had heard she was living in Spain and eating cake and lots of coffee for breakfast. Fast forward to last week and I stumbled across an old journal she'd bought me for Christmas. There was an inscription in it about hoping I fill the book with words and spirit and other mumbo jumbo. I hadn't, lol. But finding that journal made me wonder where she was so I googled her and discovered that she had abandoned the Dream Project and is now in London...singing. She sounds like shit, lol. Nothing spectacular at all, honestly. Like, she really has no business on a stage...but she's there, she's booking gigs, and writing songs, and she has the gall to perform them. You've got to admire that. She's doing what many people only dream about but most don't have the guts or wherewithall to actually do - live their dreams. I think maybe it's her unsual sense of freedom that's attractive to those who cling to her and follow her. They see in her what they wish for themselves. She doesn't seem to have much of a care in the world other than living her truth (<---she loved to say that). She wasn't rich as far as I could tell/knew (she made a living as a graphic designer who hated being told what to create), yet she often picked up her roots and left on one grand adventure after another at a moments notice. Like a gypsy. From the pictures it looks as though she has left Jason and is now in a relationship with a chubby lesbian. I don't envy her life but I respect her bravery, and am glad to have known her. In a way, I think she's kind of inspiring.