He, Jimi and I had this deep thirst for life, which we came to from different places, and with different boundaries.
Having a deep thirst for life…well…it may be a sufficient condition to bring a group of people together, but their “different boundaries” probably means that they inevitably come together for very different purposes. What brought Nancy so close to Jimi Hendrix is a question future posts may try to answer. They’ve been described by people who knew them as “soul mates.” What brought Nancy together with Mike is a tougher question, but clearly their different boundaries made for very different objectives. I believe Nancy was more than a pretty face to Mike, but what more there was for him in his relationship with Nancy is, well, hard to say. It appears he trusted her, and maybe her innocence aided his need to trust. He needed people, Nancy believed. It was if at times he was searching for “missing chromosomes,” as if he mixed with others just long enough to acquire some of their DNA.
Anything that bumped up against him got explored.
Any invitation got accepted.
He tapped every source.
He knew who would work for him, but he also felt perhaps that there was a type of DNA that he could work towards.
If he sensed it in others he tried to reach it, blend with it, then move on.
People could do jobs for him, but they never understood what he was up to.
He wanted to replace what he felt were his missing chromosomes.
It kept him on the move.
It was the only thing he cared about.
If he had a philosophy, he couldn’t express it without other people, and that bothered him.
If he were autonomous, he could have had it all at once.
But he had to give up one thing to get another, over and over.
There’s such a thin line between a leader and a follower.
Maybe Mike was a ‘trick glass’ ….
You know, one of those magician’s glasses that looks like it’s filled with water but is really empty.
No doubt sometimes Nancy’ innocence….probably more like most of the time…was hopelessly out of sync with Mike’s “boundaries.”
When I told him how beautiful he looked with no clothes on, I meant it in the most elegant and pure way.
And he replied, ‘You’re such a sauce box!’
It was like a blow torch to my brain.
He was so stupid.
But for a young beautiful girl in her twenties, no measure of reality could overtake her romantic fantasies.
The subtlety was unspeakable for me.
To utter a word would be to break a spell.
But I loved listening to him.
His delicious enticements.
His piano, with my silent movie.
Undiluted, concentrated passion — I took it straight.
He was like some disembodied force that coursed through my veins
And occupied my head
And took me into outer space
Where I floated up to him like a junkie.
Sometimes, when I stood in the studio
I could feel him coming up behind me without an inch to spare
For those moments I didn’t stand alone.
He knew how to want me the way I wanted to be wanted.
Love can last forever and be as lonely as Hell.
When someone thinks your delicious, they relieve you of your burden, by devouring you.
Still, from time to time, Nancy saw little more in Mike than….”the Manager”
I saw him come around a corner.
Dark suit, sunglasses.
‘The Manager’ I thought.
Mike could shuttle to a new world while everyone else was crossing the street.
It sometimes became exhausting.
The dark figure sliding through.
Agenda deep in his skull.
Once more I saw him,
Coming through a pair of french doors.
He passed like a foreign car
turning a corner.
It’s a funny thing about first impressions.
Like a die-cut.
The third time I met him he talked to me.
And I couldn’t see him clearly any more.
Mike’s delicate demeanor was carefully tailored to camouflage the muscles in his mind.
I would imagine that more often than not, their separate boundaries became all too apparent. When Mike got high, and didn’t let on, even though they were together, the chasm between them meant mountains to Nancy.
The fact that Mike was taking LSD when he was in my presence
in my company
in my arms
was more of a betrayal to me than anything he could have done with another woman.
First of all, he was in a completely different state of mind than I was.
He was seeing our common surroundings differently and not sharing it with me.
He was totally without me.
He didn’t tell me, and I was therefore clueless,
being observed rather than joined.
It was like sending his twin in to date me while he was off somewhere else.
And everyone else knew, and assumed I knew
So when I wasn’t communicating with him on his level
Being a nurse to his condition,
Eric (Burdon) got mad at me.
The shock of finding out that way was doubly hurtful [Burdon’s reaction was apparently to sympathize with Nancy]
It was like being in a survivor type of plane crash.
He would eat to survive and let me starve.
Horrible.
Poignant. Especially this line :
Mike could shuttle to a new world while everyone else was crossing the street.
She’s very keen and insightful …..
Yes, thanks for noticing that!
I also like when she says “I liked listening to his piano, with my silent movie.”
Nancy certainly has a way with words. Her artwork while a bit more well known is obviously just part of her ability to express herself even as she struggles to understand herself.
Glad you’re appreciating Nancy’s art.
And her sometime lover, Hendrix, was quoted as saying “No one can get close to me, if I do not want them to”. That is a sad way of bragging about refusing to be vulnerable…but pretty common among creative types.