I dream.
This is what I do these days. Don’t misunderstand; these are not night-terrors or bad dreams at all. On the contrary, these are dreams of harvest, of bees dancing and hanging like mobiles, of orchards ripe and rich with fruit, of apple and a perfect Eden, and in it I am carefree and happy and all of the usual problems of daily life seem to have vanished.
More, these dream are full of wisdom: in one, my cousin says to me, "If you do not sleep, you will not have bad dreams" (a Yiddish expression and I paraphrase here but am very close), then repeats it in French for some reason (something along the lines of "Si to ne reves pas, tu ne dors pas." The dreams, unlike so many dreams that have no logic or rhyme or reason, seem to follow a logical line, rather like Plato’s Meno drawn in the sand. I am sliding down the hypotenuse of life and landing at all odd angles, but that’s okay because — in these dreams anyway — there is always some one there to catch me, and I seem to land squarely on my feet.
In one dream, for example (and I’ve made no secret of this here, so here goes), I am being chased by my epilepsy –- by 10,000 volts of electricity — and there you have it, as I am running down Madison Avenue and finally cross over toward the East, there is a giant black helicopter –- a whirlybird as I call them –- and an arm outstretched to save me. When I reach for the arm, I am pulled in and saved by none other than my own cousin. It is a dream of sweetness and of love and in it, I am grateful. I am also grateful when I wake up, yes.
In one dream, I am in a great church and there is the scent of incense filling up the room and I, or rather, we (another family member and I), are penitent but gigging too. We have confessed and are light as air, bright as Klieg, as Tungsten, and we glow and glow and glow and yet, like the priest who says to us, “… and pray for me too for I am a sinner as well…” following the Book of Common Prayer.
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