Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again, and again and again. Only it was not the Manderely of Daphne du Maurier's mind. This one had no name and came from the creations of my own mind.
As a point I hate when writers write about dreams. Usually they are as dull as hearing someone tell you their dreams in real person and usually it has little plot point.
Not many people are aware of the fact that I am a dreamer. I make up stories in my head all day long about the strangers I see, or the actual people I meet. That is not the kind of dreamer I am talking about.
I am what is called a vivid or lucid dreamer. I dream like the movie Inception, or Groundhog Day, or Nightmare on Elm Street. Oft times I am aware of the fact I am dreaming and I am able to marvel in the things going on around me.
Much in the same way I do when I am awake, I know I am awake and I marvel at the stories that pop into my head about my surroundings.
I recall my dreams from my childhood. Scary ones mostly. I have dreamt I met the devil (he drove a VW Bug and wore an expensive suit), The Virgin Mary (She looked much like a prettier Jacki O and drank tea with white gloves on while signing autographs), just the other night I dreamt I met Barack Obama, and I am still kind of pissed off at him for what he said to me.
I have watched my children die with me frozen in some dream like grip unable to save them. I have seen my husband come back to life just to tell me he never loved me. I have had my father sit at the foot of my bed after delivering my first child and nod with approval. Okay that one may be chalked up to pain meds.
I dream of houses, water, mountains, secret rooms. I dream of elevators that make Willy Wonka's look like a trip on a mall escalator.
I can awake from a dream be awake for an hour or so and pick up where I left off. That is where I am now. I am sitting at my kitchen table pounding out these words with a bit of frustration, anger and fear.
Today alone I have witnessed the death of so many people in my dream. Every time I tried to change it someone else died. So much for a relaxing nap. I was afraid to go back to sleep and have it all pick back up again and be inside that macabre house.
Sleep did find me, and I was at Manderley again. This time it was the corpses of the family pets reanimated from Hell to kill and slaughter my family.
Last week in my slumber I was at the Hotel del Coronado (where I have actually never been) having coffee with Hemingway. This week my dreams make Stephen King novels look like a episodes of Sesame Street.
I do not know why this gift of vivid or lucid dreaming has been given to me. When I do extrapolate on a particular dream I often make people jealous. I get responses of , "Wow I usually dream I am out of laundry detergent."
I am making coffee now because I can not risk going back to Manderley a third time. I would rather be awake and tired.
I have read books on my kind of dreaming. I know what Freud, Jung, and Miss Cleo would each tell me about my dreams.
Tonight however I am in like minds with Descartes; " I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake."
Now I will try to balance my visions and eradicate them from my faculty by drinking coffee while keeping a keen eye on my pets lest they turn evil with eyes protruding, flesh falling off and I must hack them to death, again.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Wanna See A Dead Body?
I have never been much of a goal-oriented person. If there was something I was wanted, I wanted it immediately. I was not a planner.
My summers as a youth were for the most part lazy. I lived by a lake, I swam, saw friends, was shipped off to sleep-away camp for many summers. Nothing special.
Many of the stories people tell me or that I read involve a summer spent trying to attain a goal. Endless visits to the lake to climb the tallest diving board, only to slink back down the ladder again and again until finally, as the summer comes to an end, the person walks barefoot across the board that stretches out in time and distance and leaps. Their hair wet and heart pounding with as much fear as pride when they emerge. Goal achieved.
The part of the lake where the younger kids and families went to in my town was simply called, "Island Beach." I can tell you it is much larger in my memory than it is in actuality. About 100 yards out is a floating dock. Again my memory is increasing size and distance. Maybe it was 100 feet. Whatever the distance, if you were under a certain age you had to do a swimming test to get a little tag that would spend the rest of the summer pinned to your bathing suit. This tag said, "I passed the swimming test and I can swim out to the dock if I want. So there."
I passed that test more than one summer, but it was never a goal. I had grown up with swimming lessons, so passing was no big deal. And the mysteries of being able to hang out on the dock were not as mysterious once you were dry and realized you had to swim back.
Summers for me were a time to just be a kid. Not a kid you would read about in a novel. Not a kid who found a dead body, or bounced a ball for 79 hours straight to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I was, in all honesty, just an average kid without any goals or ambitions except maybe to learn all the lyrics to Grease.
My youngest daughter and her friends have made this summer one with a goal. One very specific goal. This summer, this group of five girls have decided that they want -- no need -- they need to raise enough money to buy tickets for a concert that will not take place until next summer.
The plans and chatter are endless. Selling old items, calling in to a radio show offering a cash prize. Setting alarm clocks to remind them to wake up and call. Making jam to sell for $5 a jar. Car washes, baby sitting, and even begging to be paid to clean their own rooms.
They have a goal. They have the ambition to follow up and the motivation to keep at it. I watch, I listen, I offer ideas. Mainly when I am not annoyed at the chatter, I am honestly impressed.
These are the kind of kids that are written about in books. These are the characters that make up a good movie. These are remarkable humans. I see into their futures and I see the tenacity continuing to grow, the goals they will create and achieve. I am slightly jealous.
If I am the one who instilled such stalwart values in my daughter it was by accident or default. I can not even claim that I had the goal to raise ambitious children. Just happy ones.
It is summer now in Texas and when I am not hiding away in my air conditioned happiness I will venture to take the children to the lake. It is not a walk down the block as I had, but it is worth the drive. The wood of the docks is such a familiar feeling, it is as if I am walking in my past.
I have become the mom who regales my children with, "Well when I was growing up there was a lake..."
My only goal for summer since moving to Texas has been to survive it. Ignore it. Avoid it. And on the occasional trip to the lake, enjoy it.
How is it that I have nurtured beings who have goals while I remain floating without an anchor? I am still the person who wants things immediately. I have not learned how to plan, plot, work toward and ultimately achieve any goal in particular.
I am completely apathetic about this awareness as well. I do not feel remorseful, or driven to pick up a sword. I feel no shame or guilt.
I am a watcher. I am a thinker. I prefer to sit on the dock and watch others attack the water over and over again trying to get the perfect dive.
Then I see that it is my children diving. My children with ambition. I am filled with unwarranted pride. I smile. I encourage. I bear witness. I may not achieve much else but deep thought and pleasure from what I have been given, but I am happy. Happiness alone is a goal worth striving for.
My summers as a youth were for the most part lazy. I lived by a lake, I swam, saw friends, was shipped off to sleep-away camp for many summers. Nothing special.
Many of the stories people tell me or that I read involve a summer spent trying to attain a goal. Endless visits to the lake to climb the tallest diving board, only to slink back down the ladder again and again until finally, as the summer comes to an end, the person walks barefoot across the board that stretches out in time and distance and leaps. Their hair wet and heart pounding with as much fear as pride when they emerge. Goal achieved.
The part of the lake where the younger kids and families went to in my town was simply called, "Island Beach." I can tell you it is much larger in my memory than it is in actuality. About 100 yards out is a floating dock. Again my memory is increasing size and distance. Maybe it was 100 feet. Whatever the distance, if you were under a certain age you had to do a swimming test to get a little tag that would spend the rest of the summer pinned to your bathing suit. This tag said, "I passed the swimming test and I can swim out to the dock if I want. So there."
I passed that test more than one summer, but it was never a goal. I had grown up with swimming lessons, so passing was no big deal. And the mysteries of being able to hang out on the dock were not as mysterious once you were dry and realized you had to swim back.
Summers for me were a time to just be a kid. Not a kid you would read about in a novel. Not a kid who found a dead body, or bounced a ball for 79 hours straight to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I was, in all honesty, just an average kid without any goals or ambitions except maybe to learn all the lyrics to Grease.
My youngest daughter and her friends have made this summer one with a goal. One very specific goal. This summer, this group of five girls have decided that they want -- no need -- they need to raise enough money to buy tickets for a concert that will not take place until next summer.
The plans and chatter are endless. Selling old items, calling in to a radio show offering a cash prize. Setting alarm clocks to remind them to wake up and call. Making jam to sell for $5 a jar. Car washes, baby sitting, and even begging to be paid to clean their own rooms.
They have a goal. They have the ambition to follow up and the motivation to keep at it. I watch, I listen, I offer ideas. Mainly when I am not annoyed at the chatter, I am honestly impressed.
These are the kind of kids that are written about in books. These are the characters that make up a good movie. These are remarkable humans. I see into their futures and I see the tenacity continuing to grow, the goals they will create and achieve. I am slightly jealous.
If I am the one who instilled such stalwart values in my daughter it was by accident or default. I can not even claim that I had the goal to raise ambitious children. Just happy ones.
It is summer now in Texas and when I am not hiding away in my air conditioned happiness I will venture to take the children to the lake. It is not a walk down the block as I had, but it is worth the drive. The wood of the docks is such a familiar feeling, it is as if I am walking in my past.
I have become the mom who regales my children with, "Well when I was growing up there was a lake..."
My only goal for summer since moving to Texas has been to survive it. Ignore it. Avoid it. And on the occasional trip to the lake, enjoy it.
How is it that I have nurtured beings who have goals while I remain floating without an anchor? I am still the person who wants things immediately. I have not learned how to plan, plot, work toward and ultimately achieve any goal in particular.
I am completely apathetic about this awareness as well. I do not feel remorseful, or driven to pick up a sword. I feel no shame or guilt.
I am a watcher. I am a thinker. I prefer to sit on the dock and watch others attack the water over and over again trying to get the perfect dive.
Then I see that it is my children diving. My children with ambition. I am filled with unwarranted pride. I smile. I encourage. I bear witness. I may not achieve much else but deep thought and pleasure from what I have been given, but I am happy. Happiness alone is a goal worth striving for.
Monday, May 28, 2012
IMHO
When I was about ten years old my father took my brothers and I to an Island for a winter get away. There I met a girl wise in years, (she was twelve). One evening I asked if she could join us for dinner. She leaned over to me pointed to something on the menu and said, "See? THIS is why I do not eat any meat at all."
The item was Dolphin.
Dolphin?!
Immediately I became a vegetarian. Unless bacon was involved. It did not matter that my favorite stuffed animal was a a pig (named Piggy), bacon held a spell over me. But the rest of the meat family was off limits. Was I really expected to eat Bugs Bunny and Bambi?
I did not remain a vegetarian for long and it was years and years later that I learned Dolphin is also a fish. Now more known by its original name of Mahi Mahi. One that I happen to love.
I held on to my opinion for years before discovering the truth, The Dolphin on the menu was not the one who smiles, jumps in waves and says, "Faa loves Bee".
This is an election year and I am being bombarded by politico opinions. At some point our politicians opted not to tell us what they would do if elected, but rather they decided to use their time to tell us what their opponents are doing wrong. This includes everything from what they did in college, or denied doing, to where they worship.
They have very strong negative opinions of each other.
If someone has too many opinions they are "opinionated". Not usually used in a positive sense. If a person has few opinions they are wishy washy. Again, not seen as a good thing.
Then there is me.
A friend often asks me my opinion on certain things. She is not asking for advice, she clearly has already developed her own answer and just wants to see where I stand on the matter. I have found that most of the time I have no opinion one way or another on the subject in question. It has neither entered into my radar, or the only opinion I can give is that I have none.
This may seem apathetic, but I prefer to look at it as a moment to learn something. I will listen to my friend's opinion and most likely follow that up with some minor research until I can form some sort of opinion on the matter. To wit I often end up with the same opinion; I have none.
Next to politicians the most opinionated people are those that fall into the age group of what we call "teenagers".
Having at various times a house full of opinionated teens I have played devils advocate to see how far into their convictions they are. I have the advantage of age to not engage in their passionate opinions as I once held a few myself. Their enthusiasm is commendable, and I know they are only trying to define their beliefs and thus define themselves.
One year as my children were preparing to start school a close friend of mine told them to be "Happy Sponges". A brilliant turn of phrase. What they did not understand is that sponges have the ability to be squeezed of all things, go back to its original form and begin again. My friend did not say, "Be Happy Wet Cement."
I am always curious of people's opinions. Not so much what the opinion is on, but rather why they feel so strongly about it.
Asked recently, "How did Star Wars not change your life completely?" Here is what I remember about the epic release of this life changing monumental movie. It was 1977 and I stood in line with my friend and her father. My own father was in the hospital and I was jealous when my friends father took her hand in his. That is all I remember about the movie. I was eleven years old. It did not change my life. I did not hate the movie or love it into fandom. It was just a movie.
I am not a sports person and hold no strong convictions about any team of any sport.
I tend to keep many of my positive opinions to myself as I have had them verbally shot down, and subsequently poked fun at for having those opinions at all. "I can not believe you think she is a good dancer, she obviously sucks...oh my god that song is awful why on earth would you like it?...what do you mean he was a good painter? look at those horrible brush strokes..."
The best I can do is, "She is not technically the best I agree, but she is lost in the movement which is something so many dancers lack...I have loved this song since I was fourteen and it has helped me in emotional times of need...I see the entire painting and when I look at it it makes me feel good."
Possibly not the most educated of retorts. Not even the most impassioned of responses.
My lack of opinions, or of expressing the ones I have with pithy, is just a choice I make.
I will listen to your opinions. I may change my own based on your arguments, but I will not try to persuade you to take on mine, as I know for the most part I am acting a sponge and I know my opinions may change, take new shape, or be squeezed out of me.
People used to say, "In my humble opinion." Opinions now are expressed as facts.
Plato says, "Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance."
I will most likely continue to be the person who does not express my opinions with vengeance. I will remain the sponge, changing, redefining, and in a constant state of learning.
Lest you think I am void of all opinions I offer these to you without preamble, explination, or reason:
Getting in to a made bed is always more comfortable.
Thunderstorms are awesome.
Teach Safe Sex not abstinence.
Gay marriage should be a given.
Blue toenail polish makes me happy.
Ooh Child is my favorite song.
I don't think Angelina Jolie is pretty or a good actress.
Though I have no cubist or surrealist art in my house Paul Klee is my favorite painter.
Abortion should be safe and legal and left up to a woman to decide.
Chanel makes the best handbags.
Lakes are better than pools.
My children are more amazing than most.
Forgiveness is not given nearly enough.
In the words of the truest happy sponge ever introduced to culture, "...And that is all I have to say about that."
The item was Dolphin.
Dolphin?!
Immediately I became a vegetarian. Unless bacon was involved. It did not matter that my favorite stuffed animal was a a pig (named Piggy), bacon held a spell over me. But the rest of the meat family was off limits. Was I really expected to eat Bugs Bunny and Bambi?
I did not remain a vegetarian for long and it was years and years later that I learned Dolphin is also a fish. Now more known by its original name of Mahi Mahi. One that I happen to love.
I held on to my opinion for years before discovering the truth, The Dolphin on the menu was not the one who smiles, jumps in waves and says, "Faa loves Bee".
This is an election year and I am being bombarded by politico opinions. At some point our politicians opted not to tell us what they would do if elected, but rather they decided to use their time to tell us what their opponents are doing wrong. This includes everything from what they did in college, or denied doing, to where they worship.
They have very strong negative opinions of each other.
If someone has too many opinions they are "opinionated". Not usually used in a positive sense. If a person has few opinions they are wishy washy. Again, not seen as a good thing.
Then there is me.
A friend often asks me my opinion on certain things. She is not asking for advice, she clearly has already developed her own answer and just wants to see where I stand on the matter. I have found that most of the time I have no opinion one way or another on the subject in question. It has neither entered into my radar, or the only opinion I can give is that I have none.
This may seem apathetic, but I prefer to look at it as a moment to learn something. I will listen to my friend's opinion and most likely follow that up with some minor research until I can form some sort of opinion on the matter. To wit I often end up with the same opinion; I have none.
Next to politicians the most opinionated people are those that fall into the age group of what we call "teenagers".
Having at various times a house full of opinionated teens I have played devils advocate to see how far into their convictions they are. I have the advantage of age to not engage in their passionate opinions as I once held a few myself. Their enthusiasm is commendable, and I know they are only trying to define their beliefs and thus define themselves.
One year as my children were preparing to start school a close friend of mine told them to be "Happy Sponges". A brilliant turn of phrase. What they did not understand is that sponges have the ability to be squeezed of all things, go back to its original form and begin again. My friend did not say, "Be Happy Wet Cement."
I am always curious of people's opinions. Not so much what the opinion is on, but rather why they feel so strongly about it.
Asked recently, "How did Star Wars not change your life completely?" Here is what I remember about the epic release of this life changing monumental movie. It was 1977 and I stood in line with my friend and her father. My own father was in the hospital and I was jealous when my friends father took her hand in his. That is all I remember about the movie. I was eleven years old. It did not change my life. I did not hate the movie or love it into fandom. It was just a movie.
I am not a sports person and hold no strong convictions about any team of any sport.
I tend to keep many of my positive opinions to myself as I have had them verbally shot down, and subsequently poked fun at for having those opinions at all. "I can not believe you think she is a good dancer, she obviously sucks...oh my god that song is awful why on earth would you like it?...what do you mean he was a good painter? look at those horrible brush strokes..."
The best I can do is, "She is not technically the best I agree, but she is lost in the movement which is something so many dancers lack...I have loved this song since I was fourteen and it has helped me in emotional times of need...I see the entire painting and when I look at it it makes me feel good."
Possibly not the most educated of retorts. Not even the most impassioned of responses.
My lack of opinions, or of expressing the ones I have with pithy, is just a choice I make.
I will listen to your opinions. I may change my own based on your arguments, but I will not try to persuade you to take on mine, as I know for the most part I am acting a sponge and I know my opinions may change, take new shape, or be squeezed out of me.
People used to say, "In my humble opinion." Opinions now are expressed as facts.
Plato says, "Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance."
I will most likely continue to be the person who does not express my opinions with vengeance. I will remain the sponge, changing, redefining, and in a constant state of learning.
Lest you think I am void of all opinions I offer these to you without preamble, explination, or reason:
Getting in to a made bed is always more comfortable.
Thunderstorms are awesome.
Teach Safe Sex not abstinence.
Gay marriage should be a given.
Blue toenail polish makes me happy.
Ooh Child is my favorite song.
I don't think Angelina Jolie is pretty or a good actress.
Though I have no cubist or surrealist art in my house Paul Klee is my favorite painter.
Abortion should be safe and legal and left up to a woman to decide.
Chanel makes the best handbags.
Lakes are better than pools.
My children are more amazing than most.
Forgiveness is not given nearly enough.
In the words of the truest happy sponge ever introduced to culture, "...And that is all I have to say about that."
Thursday, May 10, 2012
On feeling infinite
There is a book that all of my children and myself have read. Its pages are soft and slightly tattered. It has been lent out to friends and upon return names of the various readers have been signed on the front page.
My youngest has reached the age where she would appreciate and at least understand most of it so hers is the most recent signature gracing the page.
Anyone who reads it is free to underline or make notations. This is rare as most of us in the family treat our books like gemstones, some in the family would rather break a bone than a binder.
I came home from my usual dropping off at school and grabbing coffee and a Diet Coke to see the book on the table.
My youngest has finished it.
I have a world of things I need to be doing. I need: to do laundry, pay bills, clean the kitchen, make phone calls, return emails, make more calls, check the cats for fleas, check my work schedule for today, figure out how and when to repair the A/C Unit (this is Texas and no air conditioning is akin to Hell on Earth).
I need to: figure out all the arrangements for my daughter's graduation from high school. What family members are coming, what to plan as a meal.
I need to: track what I have eaten thus far so I can remain in my allotted points.
I need to: move that damn last Christmas box to the garage, which leads me to need to clean the garage.
Instead, I picked up the book and began to read it again. I am not one to normally re read a book. There have been maybe three in my life that I have read more than once. There is a certain danger to re reading books. As I get older the memory of certain books become fonder and more sepia toned. If I were to open that chapter and go back I may not feel the same way. I may feel ashamed at my youthful optimism, or over eager enthusiasm on the subject matter.
If I read Are You There God, It's Me Margaret right now I am certain it would mean something completely new to me, and erase its original feelings. I would not be giggling with my friends, or reading it by flashlight under my blankets. I would not come away with so many questions as I did at the first reading.
I have questioned what I will be writing about in this new adventure. Someone told me that my last blog was redundant. Actually she did not use that word at all, as I doubt she knew it. I have thought about what she said and like re reading books, I do not go back and read what I myself have written.
Admittedly I can be a bit depressing, when I allow myself to wallow.
I was prompted to write today by one line in the book I picked up off the table.
"Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse."
I disagree with the first half of that sentence. I think everyone has their own sob story, no matter how it may be perceived by others. To them it is their story of sob.
I do believe in the second half. It's no excuse. I have a sob story. I have told it. My woes have been everything from the weight of my scale to the weigth of death. I lived heavily in those weights for a long time believing they were my only identity. For a time they were.
No longer.
The other phrase that grounded me was, "...sometimes people use thought to not participate in life."
I am guilty of this. Over thinking everything. Being on the outside and looking at people and life in a curious puppy head tilt way.
I look at the sky a lot. At red lights, when sitting outside, when sitting with my girlfriend on her patio. I look at the sky so much that she has taken to calling me her "Sky Girl."
I considered that and realized; that is the time when I do absolutely nothing but be. It may for ten minutes or ten seconds, but for that time I am here and not here. I am not in the midst of my sob story, or my never ending list of things I "need" to do.
It took picking up a book and re reading it to remind me to stop and enjoy the moments when I look up at the sky. The moments when I do in fact feel infinite.
(The book is "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky)
My youngest has reached the age where she would appreciate and at least understand most of it so hers is the most recent signature gracing the page.
Anyone who reads it is free to underline or make notations. This is rare as most of us in the family treat our books like gemstones, some in the family would rather break a bone than a binder.
I came home from my usual dropping off at school and grabbing coffee and a Diet Coke to see the book on the table.
My youngest has finished it.
I have a world of things I need to be doing. I need: to do laundry, pay bills, clean the kitchen, make phone calls, return emails, make more calls, check the cats for fleas, check my work schedule for today, figure out how and when to repair the A/C Unit (this is Texas and no air conditioning is akin to Hell on Earth).
I need to: figure out all the arrangements for my daughter's graduation from high school. What family members are coming, what to plan as a meal.
I need to: track what I have eaten thus far so I can remain in my allotted points.
I need to: move that damn last Christmas box to the garage, which leads me to need to clean the garage.
Instead, I picked up the book and began to read it again. I am not one to normally re read a book. There have been maybe three in my life that I have read more than once. There is a certain danger to re reading books. As I get older the memory of certain books become fonder and more sepia toned. If I were to open that chapter and go back I may not feel the same way. I may feel ashamed at my youthful optimism, or over eager enthusiasm on the subject matter.
If I read Are You There God, It's Me Margaret right now I am certain it would mean something completely new to me, and erase its original feelings. I would not be giggling with my friends, or reading it by flashlight under my blankets. I would not come away with so many questions as I did at the first reading.
I have questioned what I will be writing about in this new adventure. Someone told me that my last blog was redundant. Actually she did not use that word at all, as I doubt she knew it. I have thought about what she said and like re reading books, I do not go back and read what I myself have written.
Admittedly I can be a bit depressing, when I allow myself to wallow.
I was prompted to write today by one line in the book I picked up off the table.
"Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse."
I disagree with the first half of that sentence. I think everyone has their own sob story, no matter how it may be perceived by others. To them it is their story of sob.
I do believe in the second half. It's no excuse. I have a sob story. I have told it. My woes have been everything from the weight of my scale to the weigth of death. I lived heavily in those weights for a long time believing they were my only identity. For a time they were.
No longer.
The other phrase that grounded me was, "...sometimes people use thought to not participate in life."
I am guilty of this. Over thinking everything. Being on the outside and looking at people and life in a curious puppy head tilt way.
I look at the sky a lot. At red lights, when sitting outside, when sitting with my girlfriend on her patio. I look at the sky so much that she has taken to calling me her "Sky Girl."
I considered that and realized; that is the time when I do absolutely nothing but be. It may for ten minutes or ten seconds, but for that time I am here and not here. I am not in the midst of my sob story, or my never ending list of things I "need" to do.
It took picking up a book and re reading it to remind me to stop and enjoy the moments when I look up at the sky. The moments when I do in fact feel infinite.
(The book is "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky)
Monday, April 16, 2012
Take My Keys
"I've been thinking of writing again."
"You should. You haven't written anything for a while."
"I haven't done much of anything for a while."
"You have been thinking."
"That is never good for me."
"Something will happen to make you want to write again."
"I used to say that about dancing and I have not danced in twenty years."
"I would love to see you dance."
After being fully caffeinated this morning I delayed heading back to the house with a stop by a field. I got out of the car, grabbed my camera and lay down in the grass to get the right shot. Passing cars were not very pleased with me. They did not see what I saw. They did not see the way the sun was peeking through the clouds and illuminating the field.
What is it with me and fields? I have been caught in them. Walked through them to get to some cows, stopped in the middle of them to look at the woman I love patiently waiting for me.
One thing about me few people know is, I like to drive. Since I first got my license I preferred to be the driver. I drove myself to the hospital while in labor for all my deliveries. Through two husbands I drove.
Now I am no longer the main driver. I gladly hand over my keys to her, and become the passenger. I don't think she is even aware of the significance of this action. Does she know it is not out of laziness but rather a huge act of trust? It is so much more than the literal being her passenger. With being the passenger I hand over the decisions that the driver makes, what we listen to, or don't, the temperature of the car, the route we take.
On this morning's commute I sat mostly silent, only responding to her occasional questioning of, "Are you mad at me?"
We all have our insecurities. How could I tell her that, no I am not mad. How could I say, "I am the opposite of mad, if there is such a thing. I am your passenger. I am free from having to worry about the road. You have taken that burden from me and now I can look at the fields, the cars, the sky. How could I be mad when you have given me the safety of freedom? For the first time in my life I am relaxed in not driving. I am thankful."
Instead I just said, "Of course not."
After dropping her off and again taking the keys out of necessity I adjusted the radio, the air, the mirror. My focus narrowed to the road and what I was supposed to be doing.
Until I saw the field.
I lay in the field with my camera, keys in my pocket.
By giving her the keys, she has given me freedom. The freedom to think, to write, to dance.
So this is what it feels like to be a passenger. I have driven for too long.
I finally know what it feels like to give up control and just trust she is there.
I will write.
Possibly I will dance.
For now, I will breathe.
"You should. You haven't written anything for a while."
"I haven't done much of anything for a while."
"You have been thinking."
"That is never good for me."
"Something will happen to make you want to write again."
"I used to say that about dancing and I have not danced in twenty years."
"I would love to see you dance."
After being fully caffeinated this morning I delayed heading back to the house with a stop by a field. I got out of the car, grabbed my camera and lay down in the grass to get the right shot. Passing cars were not very pleased with me. They did not see what I saw. They did not see the way the sun was peeking through the clouds and illuminating the field.
What is it with me and fields? I have been caught in them. Walked through them to get to some cows, stopped in the middle of them to look at the woman I love patiently waiting for me.
One thing about me few people know is, I like to drive. Since I first got my license I preferred to be the driver. I drove myself to the hospital while in labor for all my deliveries. Through two husbands I drove.
Now I am no longer the main driver. I gladly hand over my keys to her, and become the passenger. I don't think she is even aware of the significance of this action. Does she know it is not out of laziness but rather a huge act of trust? It is so much more than the literal being her passenger. With being the passenger I hand over the decisions that the driver makes, what we listen to, or don't, the temperature of the car, the route we take.
On this morning's commute I sat mostly silent, only responding to her occasional questioning of, "Are you mad at me?"
We all have our insecurities. How could I tell her that, no I am not mad. How could I say, "I am the opposite of mad, if there is such a thing. I am your passenger. I am free from having to worry about the road. You have taken that burden from me and now I can look at the fields, the cars, the sky. How could I be mad when you have given me the safety of freedom? For the first time in my life I am relaxed in not driving. I am thankful."
Instead I just said, "Of course not."
After dropping her off and again taking the keys out of necessity I adjusted the radio, the air, the mirror. My focus narrowed to the road and what I was supposed to be doing.
Until I saw the field.
I lay in the field with my camera, keys in my pocket.
By giving her the keys, she has given me freedom. The freedom to think, to write, to dance.
So this is what it feels like to be a passenger. I have driven for too long.
I finally know what it feels like to give up control and just trust she is there.
I will write.
Possibly I will dance.
For now, I will breathe.
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