The Three Dreams

I miss Jared terribly.

That just gave me my best grin so far today.

I haven't seen Jared in years.

During a tumultuously time in my early twenties, my Grandmother made and sent me an elf. I bought an appropriately sized chair, messily painted it with colors that didn't match and gave him a palm sized teddy bear (also made by my maternal grandparent) to hold. I named my elf Jared.

My Grandma knew why, of course and approved. Today Jared sits upstairs in the office/ art/ imagination land room.

It has been a decent consolation for the old friendship.

Jared was there for The Three Dreams that are the waypoints for my life. This set of coordinates anchors me to myself. If you ever heard an asterisk in a conversation, where it sounds like I wandered off a little, it is because I am looking up a footnote reference to these Three Dreams.

As a child, Jared, my imaginary friend, met me the moment I drifted away to sleep. In the land of my imagination I investigated and discovered treasures, dove with dolphins, conquered worlds, flew in clouds and danced with trees; always with my tolerant friend in tow.

As my dreams have always morphed into metaphors, I relied on my friend to help me understand.

I was very young when I had The First Dream about a statue on the mountain. This dream may have only come this one time but I think about it often. Just as I re-read a couple of worn out favorite books, I curl up with this dream, a cup of coffee and re-open my dog-eared copy, flip to certain pages and remember it and the dog. In my Dust and Dog post, I share it exactly as I dreamt it.

Interestingly, to me at least, is the role of the canine before I fell asleep and when I woke up. That creature played as critical a part as the dream and the two are the corner stones of how I see myself, my beliefs and how I see and treat all living things.

The Second Dream began when I was twelve. In the beginning it was about the shape and form of the window and I spent many a night keeping my distance. The walls to the smallish room, behind and beside me, are simple and blank. No doors. At the time, outside of my friend, the room is completely empty. With Jared's encouragement and support, I would approach my window and begin to hear, and then see, what was outside.

As I say Unhappiness and Georgia, this dream has returned many times. I know it so well I could swear the dream is an actual place. It never changes, even as I do.

It is a strange, to hold up my hands and check them for clues. To see my reflection in the glass and know I am not the girl, not the teen, not the young woman but an adult, returning once again. And every time I look to see if Jared is still there and every time he isn't, I swallow the lump in my throat as I stand alone and listen.

Sometimes when I see this dream starting, the flood of my resignation overwhelms me. I have sulked in the back and ignored my window, hoping the dream change and give me something else for the night.

On occasion it does but I know the next night will start with it. And the next. And the next. It will keep re-starting until I go to my window. Many many of my insomnia nights can be attributed to my stubborn refusal to face my window, to listen and look.

I think this dream returns when I need a reminder to be kind, to myself and to you. To accept that sometimes I cannot accept and maybe you cannot either. The hardest part? That neither of us is Wrong or Right. That there are only consequences.

It is such a contradictory thing to try to learn.

The Last Dream came gradually and in pieces. The first piece came when I was fifteen. Another arrived during a black out after being hit by a car. The last part came just after I turned twenty.

Once I had all of The Last Dream, it played out in it's entirety, beginning to end. All of the pieces joined in symphony, cresting as I opened my eyes, looked out of a sliding glass door and locked eyes with a fawn. It never returned.

Most of this dream has already tied into my life (Or perhaps I have tied life into the dream). I consider it a road map and in the end I believe all of it will happen. And since I dream in metaphors, I must be careful to not use it to make choices but instead use it for clues, not facts. But sometimes, something is not a metaphor and I catch my breath in the moment of recognition.

I never wrote the whole dream down. I have shared parts of it, such as the car accident posted here. But most of it I hold closely. I have this superstition that writing things down makes them real. I believe this so strongly that it doesn't matter how rational an argument is against it. If I write it, I will bring it to life.

In the first dream, Jared was my protector, he was a big brother and watcher. In the second, he was my guide and teacher. In the last, Jared was my companion and friend and unable to do anything more, or less, than offer support through presence.

This is laughable and weird but I confess it anyway. I believe Jared is real. And no, I do not worry about defining what ‘real’ means. To define Jared is impossible and unnecessary. You may try to define your own faith by putting it into neat little boxes. Or maybe you are like me and you do not.

Either way, truth is relative. If a person really believes their religion has the monopoly on God, then it doesn't matter that another person really believes their totally different religion has the monopoly. In the end, there is only one way for peace.

We all must accept when another cannot accept and live on.

I hope this confession has given you some vulnerability. We are all a little crazy, a little strange and nearly all of us ask, "Am I the only one who is a little crazy and little strange And am I all alone?".

The answer from The Three Dreams is no you are not and yet in the end, we all are.

Be Present

A drop of water slides down the inside of my palm and as it traces it's delicate way along the inside of my wrist -I slap at it as I would a mosquito.

I am fidgeting; I am that kid -unthinkingly, unknowingly, popping their gum... over and over and over...

Be Present.

I chant this to myself whenever I am getting ready.  Like at launch at Strawberry reservoir last week. I had built a 'wall' with my wing, lines in my hands and I considered the ground under my feet, the rock behind my left foot and the sky clear behind me...

I came back to my wing and looked at my wall.  Mentally I pulled it up, watching for my check, tossing quick glances to assess my lines while turning, hands dancing -and then I came back; back to my wing, back to right now, to the moment and then I launched.

Returning to this right now-  I am working on a painting that means something.

All of my work means something, of course.  Some of them are expression of laughter, joy, wonder; while looking at a couple I hope you are a teeny bit tipsy like I was too....  Some are a memory, others are wishes and then there are the ones embodying my questions -

This one is a tribute-

-No, that is the wrong word.

This one is Remembrance.

That may be the word.  Let me roll it around in my head for a minute.

A few nights ago, I had a dream.

I was sitting on the front lawn with Dee.  We were scheming; our bright eyes and crooked grins lit with excitement as we planned out the 'Year-We-Both-Would-Be-Eighteen'.  In this dream, at a pause between Dee and I; I reached over and squeezed my Grandmother's hand.  She was standing slightly behind me and had leaned over to show me a bear.

As I started to ask her about her latest creation, Grandpa, gruffly, interrupted our conversation to tell me I looked all right.  Light flickered in my eyes and I looked away from them to register that I was seeing Rinny's Dan, leaning against a tree, smiling at me.  Bemused I waved and then my old lady, my beloved Sal, came over and settled half way onto my lap (not an easy feat; my Sally weighed in at 90 pounds in her hey days).

This piece is them and that they are still with me.  I don't know what happens after Reader.  I haven't any misconceptions about a God in a cloud or Angels at Golden Gates.  I just feel they are still with me. Sending glimpses of what was and what is.

And maybe all I can catch are leaves and feathers from the other side but I am grateful for the damn feathers.

Be Present.

My hand hovers, nervous with need, that hungry driven ache in my eyes, my hand hovers over the blank white canvas.

And then the wind sighs outside; she sighs and I feel her breath in my bones, and I relax and begin...

'Still Here'

16" X 20" X 1.5"

(Oil Pastel, Acrylic, Canvas)

The Thrill of Being Alive

Are you familiar with Dylan Thomas's, 'Do no go gentle into that good night'?  I read it years ago in high school and I am sure many of you know it too; his words resonate with just about all of us.

I tell stories with my work, with acrylic, oil pastels and chalks.  Gouche brings such a delicate feeling to a piece that I swear that my morning mountain renditions almost taste of the mist I was breathing in.  In another, flashy chaotic colors of the sea and building cumulonimbus broken with blinding sunlight show the world as it is felt by me.

I've had this recurrent dream and I didn't realize it's presence was persistent until a couple of nights ago.  It arrives when in the dream, I am a bird, wings beating against a glass ceiling; a fleck of dust spiraling in a ray of sunlight, a butterfly, caught in a net -Here is when the repeated dream arrives; when I am panicked; wedged and flight impossible.

At that pinnacle of raging abscond, something gathers me close, like I am a child again, whispering "shhhhhhh....shhhhh..." into my hair.  That something is usually an element, sometimes sunlight, other times the Wind Woman; once it was Dee.

I have fought with that something, struggled to get away, but the bind is too strong and I usually give into exhaustion and listen to the breath on my face "...shhhhh......".

My sweetheart asks why am I so much more restless these last few months. What has changed? I didn't know. To figure it out, I have spent erogenous amounts of time studying myself and the people around me, my life, their lives, my choices, their choices; weighing and considering. The thing is he is changed too and we are holding hands while the rest of us is changing. That's thing about individuals and relationships; the trick isn't to change and change to together, it is to change and stay together.

Yesterday, as I flipped through work from my early twenties and pre-internet days, I saw ideas that were more chaotic, more flashy -more wild, random and yet measured, then my work today.

I think I cannot help my restlessness because I don't want to help it.  Most of the time I am glorying in it.  I love the burn, the ache, the raw scorched heat on my palms.  When storms build, when hot summer days drag into the next, when the ice of winter fries my face - I cannot describe the thrill of being alive.

When I am royally wiping out on my skis, plunging down hill at reckless speeds; do you know what my one and only thought is as I inhale powdery snow and try to halt my flailing self?

It is, "ops, more edge" or "ops, less edge".  It's never ever, holy crap what am I doing?

Last night, I reached for the moon and she reached back and found me.  She cradled me close, smiled and whispered, "...shhhhh....".  Safe with her, I saw I have been trying to conform, to tone down, to blend.  I have been trying to change my work, change my posts; I have even begun to edit my journals.

And in reply, my inner six year old has awoken with the shout, "No no! I will not go gentle into the good night."

PS: Have a tolerant husband; although regularly exasperated with his dreamer/ artist/ semi-professional girl; he still coaxes, cajoles, argues, debates and encourages.

PSS: I have also decided all women, including self, are, at least mildly, unstable.  We can not help it. Our hearts are too big, our self image too bizarre and our perceptions are all thus eschewed. Men are toast.  Thanks for trying to put up with us.

"Do not go gentle into that good night"

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

2am Doodle

I had a dream. Falling in cords of blue, spinning around; I was doll, a rag doll but then the wind caught me, wrapped me in gold and spun me into a bird.  

Forgive the doodle, it is 2am,