Mel Bossa | Energy Must Converge

"People are strange, when you're a stranger..."

I love the world, all of its people, but feel much better observing it from the safety of my thoughts.

I prefer a long complicated book, to a shallow talk with an acquaintance. I don't watch television and don't have social media accounts. I haven't read a best seller in over two decades and buy all of my clothes and furniture second-hand because I can't breathe easy in malls. I will listen to a perfect stranger tell me about his or hers deepest emotions, yet two minutes of mindless chitchat with a colleague will make me sweat.

Some say it's because I have too much Aquarius in my birth chart, others will say it's because I'm too much of an intellectual. Others will say I should try humans instead of books for a change. Some will judge me quickly and think me a cold- hearted shrew with a superiority complex. Some will be more empathetic and think I'm simply timid or aloof.

The more perspicacious suspect that us fervent cynics were once the tenderest of idealists.

Those who seek refuge in the mind, have their reasons...

When I started writing CRAVING'S CREEK, my latest book, I knew I wanted to write a character who struggled with finding balance between mind, spirit, and body. It was primordial to me that Alistair's very personality be segmented, as though it was impossible for him to inhabit his body fully while pursuing what he deemed a pure and noble goal; his committment to God and the higher spheres of the mind. But can we really forsake the pleasures of the flesh, and I don't mean just sex, but everything our bodies enjoy, and still preserve our humanity?

Or do we become austere and bitter as we close all those doors?

Alistair is a priest, a theologian, and a great thinker. But really, he's only a man. A man in love with his best friend Ryde. It isn't Alistair's devotion to the church that keeps him chaste. It's his painful and repressed memories. As I was writing the book, aware that I was touching on controversial themes, I slowly started to see parts of myself in Alistair. It was a strange revelation. I thought I was much more like my narrator Ryde. After all, he's the one with the pragmatic nature, the wonderful mother, the atheist views, the slightly obsessive personality. And oh yes, he drinks a lot too. But as I got deeper into CRAVING'S CREEK, I made some connections and realized I had my own dissociation.

Spiritus. Animus. Corporis Corpus.

Those three energies must converge.

I like to think that in the end, when Ryde and Alistair's burdened souls fuse at last, and that their long road to recovery begins, that subconsciously, some of Alistair's newly found peace lit a flame inside my own stranger's heart.

Alistair may be a priest, and the book does deal with difficult themes, but the main thing I was trying to express through Ryde and Alistair's story, is that as cliche as it may sound, love does indeed save. Throughout the book, there are several key scenes when Ryde is trying to find Alistair. As young boys, they play Hide and Seek and of course, Alistair always wins. Then later when they're both adults, the game continues.

Only this time, Alistair has found much more complex ways to hide.

But you're only a stranger in a strange world until someone sees you, finds you, and then makes a dear friend out of you. Then, you're a stranger no more....

And perhaps there's something divine in that after all.

GIVEAWAY

Where do you find your peace? Leave a comment below and be entered for a chance to win a digital copy of CRAVING'S CREEK. 2 winners; Open internationaly.

About Mel Bossa

Mel Bossa is the author of SPLIT and IN HIS SECRET LIFE, both Lambda Award finalists, as well as numerous other books and short stories. She lives in Montreal's gay village where she volunteers for a crisis center. As a queer Franco-Italian feminist raised in a patriarchal family, she's felt like the Other for a great part of her life and finds peace in dreaming up worlds where grace wins over fear.

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About CRAVING'S CREEK

For the man he loves, he will fight—body, mind, and soul.

Fourteen years ago, on a sun-drenched summer day on the banks of Craving’s Creek, Ryde swore to his best friend, Alistair, he’d never be alone in the world. Though Alistair was destined for the priesthood, there was something beyond holy about the first kiss they shared.

But a fun camping trip went horribly wrong when Alistair was involved in a horrific incident.

Now, at age thirty-one, Ryde’s life is a mess of alcohol and the painful imprint of his last look into Alistair’s desperate eyes. Since the evil they encountered on that shore, his first love has been lost to him—until he learns a friend’s wedding is to be officiated by a priest named Father Alistair Genet.

Amid the rush of emotions, one thought crystallizes: Ryde’s love for Alistair not only has never died, it’s stronger than ever. Stronger than God. But it may be no match for the church…and the repressed memories that are slowly tearing Alistair’s mind apart.

Warning: Contains a drunken confessional, a self-destructive clergyman, and a fight to the spiritual death for love.