Dawn to Dusk

'I am not my body.' Statements like that can be so misleading. In awaiting dawn I send such an email to a dear friend, and then rethink it. I resend: 'We are everything.' With some certainty I recall my childhood dissatisfaction with the apportionment of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Oneness, even then, felt fragmented. God was difficult enough to make obediences toward, why complicate things? And then there was Mother Mary, if not all the Saints, and every Religion too. Perhaps it was last night's late-night watching of Marie Antoinette (Kate Blanchet’s lavish portrayal), or perhaps it was my pained dream that so awoke and invigorated my senses this early morning, but as I type at my window and see the light emerge over the seascape before me, I am compelled yet again to type one of 'those' essays. After all, down on the dark path below my fourth floor window, though it be raining, and though the window whistles and even howls, there is by the glow of the lamplight globes an occasional dog walker, lone jogger, and some or other mysterious soul. In the dark! We are not alone. Heroism is everywhere.

Seems that some psychic instinct in me was always headed toward yoking everything all together. A conceptualization of Oneness was perhaps the foundation of my earliest thinking. Even as a child I delighted in the idea of the Queen on the toilet too. The rank and file of life felt like a dislocation. Below me now a garbage truck drives on the narrow path, stops with orange lights blinking at every container, and empties it. Plenty of packages of poop. Ever dumped warm coffee grinds into a small plastic bag and had that squishy warm goo in the palm of your hand to chuck into the kitchen-catcher? I had dogs; it felt like that. And we make coffee every morning. These are the things that yoke us together: Dog poop, Marie Antoinette, Father, Son, and Mother Mary. Holy cow!

Avoiding expletives is something one can train the mind to do. Many an adult will not swear around children; many a man not swear around a Lady; many a gentleman not hardly ever anywhere (unless that word, a word, be useful, funny, appropriate, pertinent, or relevant.) We give ourselves excuses. But dreams are unbidden. They arise and we can feel ourselves smile in them. We can be lucid. Aware. We can recall them. We can direct our own course in them, rewind, pause, and even redirect the outcome. At least, at times. But not always. Most dreams, for me, lead me by a series of transportations as vivid as flipping through a picture book; I am conscious of the disjoints, disturbed by the lack of continuity, even as I dream. But I swear I do not swear in my dreams; rather, I am more authentic with my physical frustration. My body wishes to be free of pain. What soul does not so wish for itself too? Perhaps this is the real leavening? We release bits of ourselves into the night; yet let us hereby not discount daydreams too.

This three a.m. jolt to consciousness is becoming a habit. It was the rancor in my dream with which I defended myself, due to pain, that had my heart pounding. I could not contribute toward a group-function by laying cutlery on a table. The man, I think it was my alter ego, actually lay contrite at my feet. Yet still I tossed the three pieces of cutlery at his chest. And in my dream, even in the air, I quickly transformed them from a fork, knife, and spoon to three spoons; I did not want to harm. I just wanted to have some attention, some rest, some surcease from the expectations of others.  I recall saying, "I'd like to be driven home now." I guess I just wanted to drive my point home. Painlessly.