Dream of the Baby Woodpeckers

I was on my way home from a much needed massage, this evening, when I heard this song on a radio station that I inadvertently yet serendipitously stopped on.

I dub it: Dream of the Baby Woodpeckers.

Or: Once Upon a Time in the West, if you will...




Particularly haunting if you have it playing in two separate instances, one behind the other, but I wouldn't recommend that unless you're going to bed.

You know what?

I need some fresh air and real water.

I'm tired.

Fermata (Hold On)

Aside from the many positive things that may or may not come of it, one of the drawbacks of going to bed at shortly after eight o'clock is that when you wake up in the middle of the night, it's not really the middle of the night; it's just past some other folks' bedtimes.

I wanted to stay in bed, but creaking floors and my uneasy heart conspired against that desire. I lay in the dark, and considered the final scene of a dream I'd just awoken from, in which I was with a couple others, attending a class. We were studying a workbook together, with some kind of guidance from an apparently not present/visible teacher. I lost place and began to flip through all the pages of the book, without much regard whatever instruction was being provided. I glanced to my right, where a young girl sat calmly, following along. I slowed down and found what I thought to be the right page, or pages, which changed from theory to musical staves, in the way that dreams do. The assignment was to fill in the blanks, in a sense, on the second movement of a large composition of music. I was feeling somewhat lost still, when the woman to my left--who happens to be, in actual life, a soon-to-be colleague of mine--offered some advice. At the bottom of the page there were a few, perhaps four, blank bars, before the key change into the second movement. She explained how she had inserted a long rest, there, while my eyes followed naturally to the next page. There, I surmised, I was to transpose what was written into the key of G# major (which, as you may know, is a somewhat less than common key, but I suspect this is a somewhat irrelevant detail, though I'm not sure. If this were a computer game, it would probably be a key to something, eh?). I looked at the four blank bars, and decided that I would place my own rest at the end of them, rather than at the beginning, as she had done. The dream went on, or it didn't...

In any case, I woke up shortly thereafter and spent several minutes in the dark before finally turning on the light. I listened to my thoughts for a while, thinking about getting up and writing them down versus just not doing that. I have this strange ability, mostly at night and immediately upon waking, to compose sentences, paragraphs, whole pages of actually coherent and eloquent strings of words, in my head--or at least, I think I do...I suppose they compose themselves, really, while I impose a minimal amount of control by repeating each subsequent phrase, as in A...A, B, C...A, B, D, C, E, F, G...so as to refine any rough spots and commit everything to memory, with the goal of writing it down. The problem is that as soon as I try to articulate these thoughts in writing, they become something else, take detours, get lost, change meaning. In one way, it's as simple as this: once I stray from the original path (insert sound of one drop of water falling into a small bowl of water on bathroom floor down the hallway here), by insertion of a new thought, choice of word, or punctuation, then all the rest goes with it, in that new direction. In another way, it's more like if I were a clay vessel full of water, instead of the water flowing out freely into the stream, it's instantaneously vaporized into the atmosphere. But setting all that aside, do I really want to get out of bed? At this point my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bottle cap--compliments of my phone, which I hadn't turned down and put on standby for the night--reminding me of something I did not need to know.  It's waaay earlier than I thought. Well fine, I'm up anyway, and there's an open beer in the fridge.

There are pages more to this story, but I think I'll go back to bed now. I need that rest, and the key change...More to come.

'Tis the Gift

Some days it is wise to sleep in. 

This morning, in my last hours of sleep, I dreamed a story, in it a man who loves me, and of receiving many gifts. It was unexpected, a box I believed to be mine which I opened without knowledge of what was inside, only to find many beautiful, many small, fine, precious, delicate but also useful things, almost too many...each was followed by another, a seemingly endless amount, as if to subdue all suspicion or doubt, and reinforce my knowing that they were intended for me, given to me... I'm not sure I've ever opened a gift in a dream, in that way, and unwrapped so many sweet surprises. 

This was a good dream to remember, and I'm not sure I would have if I hadn't taken a short walk in the warm sunshine this afternoon. I need to move, my thoughts and my heart are always in motion and if I stagnate, so do they, and vice versa. To the hardware store then, even if it's only a few blocks away, and to the grocery on the way home again, with supplies in hand for making soap. It was my first batch, made better by the suggestion of my companion, both to do it in the first place, and to make use of what I already had by adding the orange zest, for color, texture, aroma, pleasure, skin... It won't be my last. 

Today was a long day, marked by emotions I did not control and a general sense of anxious restlessness, broken by moments of carefree peace. The evening has come to a close on a softer note, thankfully, and I am looking forward to returning to the cozy embrace of my bed, which I left some time ago, to write down these thoughts as a goodnight wish. I hope to sleep, to dream once more, to awaken rested and changed. Tomorrow is a continuation of yesterday only in that each moment gives way to the next...they blend together like oil into a base, becoming solid only temporarily, before they can be put to use, and washed away... 

Even the simplest thing can become. 

I'll rise early tomorrow. Find a gift to give someone.

Off to the Office

I woke up in the wrong life this morning.

A couple minutes before my alarm went off I got out of bed to refill my water glass, which was more than half empty. Then I got back in bed and just laid there, thinking. That was a while ago now. There's a dream I had that escaped me, and now it's lost, I can't remember it. It had someone important in it...

The thing about loneliness is that it involves a certain amount of shame, i.e. "Why don't you just...?"

Like, why don't you get up and do something instead of worrying about the tendinitis in your elbows, the constant pain your wrist and shoulder, and your numbing hands? Small price to pay for a life of comfort, right?

Quit your complaining and get to work. Pain won't pay the bills.

Loneliness will kill you another day.

No substitutions

I want someone to make me dinner.

I don't want to order pizza or Chinese, I don't want to pick up take-out, I don't want to sit down at my favorite restaurant or the nicest one in town.

I don't even want my mom's best home cooking.

I don't want to go to a potluck or dish myself up from the stove.

I don't want any choices or questions or options. 

I just want someone to make a meal, with their own two hands, and serve me up a big plate of goodness.

Please. 

And thank you.

This.