The Saint of Malibu Shores
By Kimberly Ann Stephens
As told to Christopher Harding
The Saint of Malibu Shores
Copyright, 2000-2006, by Luminary Communications, a division of Luminary Entertainment Group, Inc. who serves as the publisher of record. Classification: Fiction —
Inspired by actual events
All rights reserved. Author of record: Christopher Lynn Harding
To the Reader
My psychiatrist would scream if she knew I was going to tell you this story. It will only convince her and my mother to keep me here, locked away in this place they consider to be so safe for me. I do understand their fear—better than they may think—and it is not that they are really frightened for me as much as it is that they dread what I represent to them.
But life has a way of guiding us through such challenges. In my case, my soul called out fervently, silently asking for someone to come into my life who could comprehend the depth and remarkable nature of what I had experienced. And though my confidence waned at times, mostly it remained strong and steady—as if I could feel the energy of my heart’s desire traveling across the transom where it was working some magic for me.
Finally an answer did come. On the other end of my cry, a friend I had not seen since college was inexplicably moved to seek me out. At first he thought it was just his own nostalgia calling to him, yet as the promptings grew stronger he began a gradual but regular search that lasted for nearly six months. In spite of the many barriers placed in his path by my well-meaning family and friends, he ended up finding me here in this sanctuary for the lost. He has truly been a godsend.
His unquestioning acceptance of my story reminded me of how much I had missed our friendship. And it left me knowing what my heart had been telling me all along: that I am not crazy; that the things that he has helped me share with you in this book are as real as you or I.
Perhaps with time my family will understand. Possibly people’s acceptance of this story will help them be less fearful—to see the light, so to speak—to have the courage to face the deeper realities about themselves and their own lives.
But in truth I am not concerned, for all of these things will happen in their own good time, if that is what is best. As for me, in telling you of my journey I will have fulfilled my purpose. And if by reading this story you are inspired to open yourself up and discover once again the awe and beauty of life, then my soul will be at rest whether here or in some far away place.
Finally, let me say a personal thank you to you, the reader, for hearing my story; for allowing me to sing the song of my soul to you. May your life be blessed. May you always know that you are a beautiful expression of the Divine; that you too are Love. This is my sincerest wish and I leave it with you freely, in the honest hope of your continual well being.
Kimberly Ann Stephens
****************
Chapter One
I wonder, as my mind again visits the peace of the ocean shore, if there is any way I could have known how dramatically my life was to change as a result of one decision—one beautiful, terrifying decision that would alter my pleasantly mundane existence forever.
I will never know how my path would have varied had I not followed the strong call of my soul that day. But it is useless to wonder, for this is the path I have chosen. And though many would think me foolish or perhaps even crazy for saying so, it is a journey I have never regretted taking. It has been my destiny, the very purpose for which I was created.
Drifting back in time, the memories come floating into my mind as if it were yesterday. And oh, the clarity that comes with time.
It was May, in the year of El Nino, when he seemed to emerge from nowhere, or perhaps appear out of the mist of some long-brewing storm. He was the personification of my soul’s call to me, I know now—as if the yearning would be ignored no longer.
I had been aware of him quietly sitting on the beach for several days before my first real encounter with him. I remember feeling an almost imperceptible stirring from deep within my heart each time I saw him. Too resistant to understand these feelings, I would turn away, go inside and try to lose myself in some seemingly safe distraction. But inevitably my curiosity would linger and, in spite of my fear, I would turn to watch him.
Usually he was walking at low tide with a smooth grace and an effortlessness that made one take notice. Not because he intended it to be so, but because he appeared so alive, so natural—like an integral part of the ocean setting—as if he belonged there every bit as much as the seals, the gulls, or the dolphins that had inhabited this region for many a millennium.
All I could do, it seemed, was simply appreciate his unassuming beauty with the same respect I felt for the sunset, the striking blue of the ocean, or the ancient rocks that stood like silent sentinels on the sandy beach below my home. But on one particular morning in early June, all of that changed. It was the morning of my destruction, one might say; the morning of my soul’s emergence into the divine.
Having risen just before the sun lifted its fiery body out of the ocean to begin yet another day’s journey across the pastel blue sky, I stood on the deck of my comfortable beach home as I did each and every morning. At that point in my life, those few fleeting minutes were the totality of my personal ritual—my daily but brief encounter with the spirit of nature that resided with such obvious presence on the shores of Malibu.
So with eyes closed for a few seconds, I breathed in the salty spirit of the ocean below and exhaled. Soon I would turn and walk into my house, slip out of my satin nightgown, shower and then dress. By eight, I would be heading out my door to begin the forty-five minute drive to my office where another day’s challenges and rewards waited patiently.
As the primary business affairs executive of an up-and-coming filmed entertainment company, I was at the top of my game and constantly in motion. There always was a new deal to close, an agent to haggle with, or a producer to appease. I felt needed and more than that, I believed that I was a valuable asset to those with whom I worked.
Yet even more deeply, as a woman, I felt the satisfaction of knowing that my personal power had a productive outlet—that I was respected as an equal. This was something of which my grandmother would have been extremely proud. She was an early advocate for women’s rights, not in a militant sense, but in a steady, sure fashion that left one feeling that she knew her value and worth were never a question.
Still, in spite of this satisfaction, and though I was unaware of it most of time, there had been a growing uneasiness rising within my mind for about a year—a deep and dark calling, so it seemed. Dark not because of the quality of this yearning, but rather because it was something I was unwilling to shed any light upon. I had it all, I told myself. Existential questions of deeper purpose would only mess things up and I didn’t want that to happen. I was where I belonged, I whispered reassuringly to my mind. I would leave the mysteries of the soul to someone else and, instead, give myself this harmless morning ritual.
Opening my eyes again, I looked out onto the awe of nature’s creation. The foggy marine layer that sometimes crept onto the coast this time of year had not completely lifted and it hung like delicate gauze, allowing streaks of the pale azure sky to peek through. Sipping hot coffee from my favorite mug, I savored the serenely haunting feel of this mood, reveling in the evocative smells that were carried on the ocean’s breath. “Stay longer,” the sea called to me.
I did not notice him at first, sitting like a monk on the rocks below. But almost as if an inner compass was controlling my gaze, my eyes moved smoothly, effortlessly downward until they rested upon his figure. At the surprise of seeing him, my body breathed in a short startled breath, held it for a brief moment and then released it peacefully, as though I had just seen my home after a long and arduous journey. And then I smiled— serenely, involuntarily. It was as if by his very presence he was calling for the sun to rise, for life to continue for yet one more day.
As the sun began its ascent upwards out of the ocean’s depths, my mysterious monk rose and spread his arms wide as if to welcome it, as if to give it life and to draw life from it. It is difficult to explain, but I almost felt ashamed, so sacred, so intimate was the rite I was witnessing.
Somehow though, I could not turn away from him. Instead, drawn by the inner force of my own being, I moved to the edge of my deck. My hands clutched the railing.
“My god,” I thought. “What is happening?” It was as though that I was witnessing . . . no, actually taking part in this act of glorious creation. I felt an energy rising within me, an ancient power that seemed so foreign and yet so deeply a part of me.
A few moments later, this shaman of the beach brought his arms together in a graceful sweeping motion that ended as his palms met in deep reverence. And then, silently, slowly, he bowed to the sun, to the ocean, to the earth, to all of life it seemed. I did not know why, but I felt a profound emotion that I could not name.
Tears formed in my eyes and I whispered, “Oh, to be so serene.”
Having completed his simple ceremony, the man stepped down from the rock upon which he had been sitting. It was then that I realized that for this entire time I had not even seen his face. But just as I was beginning to notice his very pleasant features, he sensed my presence and looked up at me with a slight turn of his head.
It was then that I saw his eyes. Though from a distance of probably sixty feet or more, those windows to his soul fixed upon me almost hypnotically. My first inclination was to escape his gaze and run, lock my doors and hide. And while part of me knew the unalterable chaos that was about to enter my life, something stronger—from the center of my soul—pleaded, and then demanded that I stay and look.
My heart was pounding with apprehension, yet still I gave in. And with an uncharacteristic act of surrender, I allowed him to take me within the wonder of his eyes. It was in that brief moment, I realize now—in that very precise instant of abandon—that my life was changed unalterably, forever transformed, destroyed, obliterated and then, miraculously reborn. For in that predestined moment outside of time, I felt as if I was looking into the eyes of eternity, into the eyes of my very own soul.
I stood mesmerized within his entrancing gaze for what was probably no longer than a minute. And yet, it was as though time had utterly ceased and all that remained was him and me—as if this moment was all that had ever existed.
I believe it was his smile that released me, or perhaps allowed me to release myself. It was a sincere smile, one that seemed deeply kind and knowing and yet, almost sad. I smiled back and nodded at him in stunned acknowledgment. He held my smile for a few seconds and then sat down on the sand turning his eyes out to the sea.
I knew what I must do next. There was not even a question in my mind. Later my friends and family would chastise me for my decision, but I had never experienced such complete clarity before. For in that instant, destiny itself spoke, telling me that I must go down the stairs from my deck and meet him, sit with him, fall deeply and endlessly in love with him, and, I would later discover, in love with myself as well.
Unhesitatingly, with rare lucidity, I set my coffee cup down on the deck table and walked to the gate, unlatched it and descended to the sand below. He did not turn to watch me—he knew I was coming—he had known it even before I was born, I thought to myself. The dampness of the sand against my feet was smoothly invigorating as I moved across it and closed the brief distance between us.
Sinking down beside him, I sat on my knees with my legs folded beneath me. Innocently and without a word, I began looking at his face with the earnest curiosity of a child, the yearning of a devoted seeker.
His deep green eyes were wise and yet a hidden playfulness was lying just below their surface. And while the hint of wrinkles upon his tanned face seemed to tell me that he must have been nearing his forties, it felt as if he were endlessly young. His nose, I thought, was straight, not too distinguished. I observed his mouth and smiled absently for it appeared kind and vulnerable, but able to speak the truth evenly, whether painful or blissful. His beard was little more than soft stubble, and its color matched the longish waves of his auburn hair.
And then I noticed his hands. Dear god, they were such gentle hands, but so strong. I felt a ripple of sensual energy move through me, as if my body had, on its own, contemplated their touch upon the soft skin of my thighs, the caring caress of his fingers against my face.
“I feel as if I know you,” I finally said to him without thinking at all.
I was not sure whether my words had been spoken out loud or intuited directly from my soul to his. Nevertheless, he turned, looked at me and smiled. “Would you like to see into your soul again?” he asked me calmly.
“Into my soul?” I wondered in a brief moment of trepidation. But then, as if I had stood and let my nightgown slip from my shoulders and fall at my feet to be washed away by the ocean’s waves, some deeper part of me gave myself to his request and said, “Yes.”
In a wonderfully natural response, he reached up with his left hand and gently touched the side of my face, holding it tenderly, yet surely. His eyes, which had not left mine since turning to me, now wandered briefly, carefully taking in the features of my face, my hair, my neck, and shoulders.
And then those clear green eyes returned to meet mine, to kiss them, as only eyes can do—to take them in their embrace only to merge with my heart, traveling deep into my being, into the naked parts of my surrendering soul.
We sat for what seemed like several lifetimes, gazing into one another’s souls. It was as if the window to my being was found within his eyes and his within mine.
And though the depth of this intimacy felt somewhat uncomfortable at first, I didn’t want to look away, even for an instant. For like lovers under a spell, we kept peering into the mirror of our beings, cascading down further and further into the depths of eternity.
At times I felt a warm wave of ecstasy rise within me, starting in my womb and then surfacing up through my stomach, my heart and then up and out the top of my head. It was like a gentle, yet deep orgasm of the spirit.
“It’s like he’s reached in and touched the secret places in my soul,” I thought for a moment, but then I was off, lost again in this timeless tumble into forever.
During those moments, all sense of my whereabouts—of the ocean, of my house, of time—thoroughly escaped me. I was, it seemed, floating effortlessly in space, in the cosmos, aware of nothing but the rapture of our communion. Then, at one particular point, thoughts of panic arose in my mind.
“Who is this man?” I found myself wondering. “What have I done?” It seemed as though I was going to completely disappear into the presence of this being who sat before me. And then a calm peace came over me.
“That is as it should be,” it seemed to be saying. “As you have always known it would be.”
It wasn’t until the ocean’s frothy fingers touched my leg and signaled the return of the late morning tide, that I came back to normal consciousness. Like coming out of an ageless dream, I looked through my eyes and saw that my soul’s lover was smiling at me. “Welcome,” he seemed to say. “Welcome to your destiny.”
In response, I felt a spasm of laughter erupt from my bosom—a laugh and a frightened cry all in the same spontaneous movement. Then, without provocation, I began sobbing uncontrollably. All of my strength seemed to drain away as I fell helplessly, face first, into his lap, wrapping my arms loosely around his waist. I was broken, it seemed, shattered. He could have done anything to me at that moment, and I would have accepted it—anything at all.
The feel of his hands, his fingers gently moving through my hair was so comforting, so unexpected and yet precisely what I needed. “You’ll be all right, Kim,” he said softly. “It‘ll take a little time, but you’ll begin to re-coalesce now and by tomorrow . . . ”
“Oh no, what time is it?” I muttered in a passing attempt at re-grounding myself. But then I felt him pull me into his arms, my head was resting against his shoulder, my hands dangling limply. Slowly he rose to his feet and carried me carefully across the sand and up the stairs to my deck. With one hand he opened the sliding door to my bedroom, parted the sheer silk curtains and ferried me to my bed where he laid me down with gentle care.
As I lay there looking up at him, I realized for the first time that his clothes were those of a beggar, a man without a home. But the beauty that radiated from his presence seemed to be truly divine.
“God is the bagman,” I stammered, as tears filled my eyes. “God is . . . ”
“You,” he interrupted.
“What?” I wondered helplessly.
He smiled. “I’ll be back to check on you later,” he reassured me as he stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “But your angels will watch over you while I’m gone.”
I grinned like a child, still too pleasantly delirious to comprehend how debilitated I was in that moment. “Don’t worry,” he added. “I already put a call into Thea, to tell her you won’t be in today.”
“Thank you,” I said, almost whispering. It only occurred to me later that he should not know my name, let alone the name of my assistant, nor should he have called her before any of this had even taken place. But he left, before any of those questions arose, quietly closing the sliding screen door behind him. Gracefully he moved across the deck with hardly a sound. “Goodbye,” I offered weakly.
After he was out of sight, the breeze blew through my curtains and I felt its velvet kisses on my skin. “Praise be,” I said with the unfamiliar rapture of a virgin saint. “Praise be, to my precious living soul.”
I was not a religious person and yet, I was almost certain that I had just been in the presence of someone holy—someone divine. I had just been ravished, it seemed, by the Source of my very being.
Chapter Two
“Thea, I’m fine,” I said weakly into the phone. It was evening and I had finally pulled myself together enough to get out of bed. After walking feebly to the large sitting chair in my living room, I had flopped down exhaustedly just as the phone rung.
“I wasn’t sure what was going on,” Thea was explaining nervously. “A man called my home early this morning and said that you wouldn’t be in for work, that you were going to be a bit under the weather. I was kind of stunned, but he said he was a friend and not to worry.”
Thea was freaking and I hardly knew what to say. How could I possibly explain what had happened to me? I didn’t know myself. “I think I must have had a virus,” I said lamely.
“So who was the man who called me?” she persisted.
“A friend, a guy who lives close by,” I stammered, struggling to make sense. “He was just looking in on me to make sure I was okay.”
I told Thea I would be in the next morning and tried to think of some business-related question to ask her, in order to prove to her that I was okay. Nothing came to mind though, as a matter of fact I was having difficulty even remembering what it was I did for a living.
Without really saying good-bye, I set the phone back on the receiver and pulled my legs up close to me, wrapping myself in a more secure embrace. Gently rocking back and forth, I drifted between a state of euphoria and one of fear. “What is going on?” I asked out loud.
It was just at that moment, from out of the corner of my eye, that I saw him standing patiently in the deck entrance of my living room. I gasped in a half scream, but then noticed he was holding a white paper bag in his hands and was smiling slightly. There was a captivating glint in his eyes.
“I brought you some miso soup,” he said raising the bag and its contents slightly. “It seems to be the perfect thing at a time like this.”
While I was still too weak to protest much, I reached inside for what I thought might be the appropriate level of indignation. “Who are you?” I asked with a measure of impertinence. “And what right do you have to just come into my house like this?”
Walking across the room to set his white-bagged offering on the end table next to my chair, he answered kindly. “I promised I ‘d look in on you. But I can leave now, if you’d prefer.”
“Yes,” I responded quickly. “You should leave now, and you shouldn’t come back unless you’re invited.” My fear , it seemed, was winning out over euphoria.
“Of course,” he said pleasantly, as a smile tried not to make its way across his face.
“But he’s so beautiful,” I angrily found myself thinking. “Look at him just standing there, so radiant and totally unashamed of his tattered clothes.” And then I caught some motion out on my deck.
“Oh my god!” I stammered, realizing another man was just outside the door. Pacing nervously back and forth, the stranger had his arms folded against his slightly hunched over frame. His hair was a complete mess and he was dressed in multiple layers of filthy coats that covered even more hideous pants—like one of those babbling schizophrenics you see walking the streets of Santa Monica.
Realizing that his neurotic companion had startled me, my self-proclaimed nurse motioned toward the door and said with genuine nonchalance, “Oh, don’t worry, that’s just Stanley. He’s perfectly harmless. He wanted to perform a little community service, so I told him he could come with me to deliver your dinner.”
“Community service!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “He’s performing community service for me?” I could feel the anger and hysteria from this whole seemingly insane chain of events starting to surge within me. “Get out!” I shrieked, rising from my chair like a Greek goddess about to banish one of her subjects to purgatory. “Get out of my house, and take that freak with you!”
Bowing calmly like a Zen monk, the man who had enraptured me just this morning took a few slow steps backward. “If you need me, you can find me at the Santa Monica Mission,” he said evenly. “I’ll be there for a few weeks.”
Sensing that I was not going to respond, he smiled, turned and walked out on the deck where Stanley met him like a lost and frightened puppy. “Don’t be afraid,” I heard my visitor tell his troubled friend, “She’s just upset now.” Stanley looked in at me with a weak little smile, as if he understood.
As they left my deck and descended the stairway to the beach, I felt a shudder of fear move through me. “Did Stanley start out like me?” I wondered.
I quickly pushed the question out of my mind and wasted no time moving across my living room to the deck entrance. With purposeful panic, I closed and locked the screens and the glass doors, as if this all-too late of an action would keep the day’s experiences from invading my dwindling peace of mind.
But serenity was clearly not in my cards this night. For as I stood blankly staring across the living room of my freshly secured home, I could still feel the presence of unwanted company. Only now, it was in the form of an inviting aroma that called to me from the bagged soup on my end table. “Have some,” the soup seemed to be saying. “What are you so afraid of? The man was just trying to help.”
“To hell with the soup,” I thought to myself. “What I need is a good stiff drink.” Pulling a bottle of vintage sipping tequila from my liquor cabinet, I poured myself a shot, tipped my head back and threw it down my throat like a seasoned pro. I was anything but a regular, however, and my body convulsed slightly from the shock of strong alcohol entering my system.
Then, so as not to be intimidated by a sack of miso, I strode angrily across the room, picked up the white package and walked to my deck doors. Struggling to unlock them, with a shot glass in one hand and the bag in the other, I finally jerked the door open.
“Screw you!” I yelled at the soup, as I hurled it over the railing of my deck along with its plain-looking container. A squishy thud on the sand below signaled their undignified landing.
“And that goes for you, too, “ I said, looking up into the starry-eyed sky. God was messing with me, I could tell. But I wasn’t about to give up so easily. “You’re going to have to try harder than that,” I yelled. Having second thoughts, I wondered if it was not such a good idea to tempt fate like that. But then again . . .
“Joshua!” a disembodied voice shouted from somewhere down on the darkened beach, hundreds of yards away. I turned toward the sound of his voice, startled that my departing guest was still out there within earshot.
“You asked who I am,” he reminded me with a shout, in case I’d forgotten the demands of my earlier inquisition just moments ago. But I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned around, walked back into my house and slammed the sliding glass door behind me. I was shaking, shocked at the intensity of my own anger.
“Tomorrow,” I reassured myself, as I tried to remember how to breathe. “Tomorrow, I’ll be back in the office and everything will be okay.”
Chapter Three
As the morning light quietly filtered into my bedroom, the peaceful undulation of the ocean’s waves gently called me to greet the new day. When I opened my eyes, I lay for just a moment in that blissful state that comes from being only half-awake . . . and then I remembered!
Drawing in a short startled breath, I sat up. The events of the last twenty-four hours were now pounding at the door of my consciousness. “What actually happened?” they were demanding to know. “And what was I going to do about it?” Should I be afraid? Or should I surrender to the enlivening sense of ecstasy that I found still lingering within me?
I shook my head slightly and decided that the best thing to do was to not even think about it. Instead, I should just get back to my normal routine. Whatever it was that had happened was a one-time aberration and it would not happen again. Of that, I would make sure.
With firm determination, I climbed from my bed and began to stretch out precisely the way I did every morning. Unlike other days, however, right in the middle of my routine the fresh roasted aroma from my automatic coffee maker came wafting into the room like the enrapturing call of a siren song. Strangely mesmerized I became lost, savoring the rich seductive scent of coffee in the air. To this day, I do not remember readying the machine the night before.
But like someone in a trance, I rose to my feet—completely oblivious to my earlier oath to not let the past day’s events recapture my mind—and walked into the kitchen with an unusually giddy expression on my face. With great relish, I poured myself a cup, leaned against the counter and took a long slow sip. As the fresh warm liquid entered my mouth, my taste buds and nostrils seemed to commune with its flavor in such a profound way that I actually found myself becoming aroused by the experience.