I posted this earlier today online, and forgot to post at Myspace!
***
I live as intensely in my dreams as I do in waking
reality. Often I wake up laughing, or crying, or heart-pounding anxious, from
some dream or post-dream-image. Last night was an intense night...
I dreamed about my mom, and while I was at a
job-site, I noticed that there was wilderness outside the house I was in, so I
went poking around and found a water-body, and started to look for frogs, and
*just* as I spotted some, [It's been years since I've seen frogs, which always
makes me sad], I felt so intensely happy I started to cry, I saw my mom, sitting
in the yard next to the yard I was in. She was sitting with a bunch of other
people I didn't want to see or talk to, but when I saw her, I said, "I didn't
know you were here!!" And we hugged. (This morning a friend in Australia tagged
me in a photo she took of her frogs, which she's been helping to raise, the
progress for which I've been following...)
I dreamed several dream-segments about being
outdoors in wilderness, or in gardens, talking to people about worms and
compost, always with some down-to-earth or otherwise enchanting music in the
background, after which I'd wake up with that music in my head, and I'd feel
happiness, still hearing the music.
But this one complete dream was the most powerful,
and I think it's a birthday-gift-dream:
I was invited to a full-moon-celebration party. I
am not feeling like going to parties right now, and haven't for awhile. But
something made me go. As I entered the party space, I was instantly lifted into
a powerful sense of joy and well-being. The shelter for the gathering was a
forest, and the aroma was of woodsmoke and pine needles and food. There were a
lot of people, which usually makes me nervous, but I felt safe and protected,
and I don't know exactly why, but I know the trees and the light of the moon
made me feel warm and although I felt peaceful, I felt really invigorated and an
erotic power that's like the creative-life-force I feel when I'm steeped in "the
forest" of my studio-work. There were people who I didn't know, and lots I
knew, friends who were dead, and friend who were alive. People I wanted to talk
to, and people I didn't, but I didn't care if they were there, I was glad to be
there, because it felt so good just to be alive. There was one friend I have
known for 25 years who I love, and who annoys me a lot (and he knows it! ;) He
was hanging out with someone I was attracted to, and I knew this person was a
good person because he was with my (sometimes annoying, who finds me equally
sometimes annoying) friend. We were all laughing really hard and talking about
the moon and then there was food... I looked at the food. I was listening to
my friends. I smelled the air. I felt really glad that I came to this
gathering. I thought, looking at the food, that it's not what I expected at
all...There were two dishes being prepared, and I was surprised, but intrigued.
It smelled and looked really yummy. Then I thought that the whole night was not
what I expected at all, and I thought that was really funny. I started to laugh
to myself. Then, in the background, was this melodious music, voices humming
and singing a song that was a little like, chanting, and a little like
galloping, and it was funny and beautiful at the same time. I had never heard
this music before, but it grew louder and louder.
Then I woke up, laughing, and shedding happy
tears. I could still hear the music, and wished I knew how to write music,
because I think this song was a gift.
2009 has been an intense year... Since January, 11
people who've touched my life in the past twenty-five years have died, including
my mother. (It was ten until last week, when another person died...) One was a
friend closer to me than my mom. Not all of them were *very* close people, but
they were people who were in my community, who I at least hugged, people I knew
enough about to know that there passing was a deep loss to many others I know.
People who were very kind to me, and who were doing good things in the world. I
know I am not alone--I know several people who've confirmed that there is a lot
of death this year. A lot of loss. I've joked that I feel as though my life is
writing an obituary for me...Not of my life, but of something...
And this year has been hard in many other ways,
including that I have had to give up health insurance after 9 yrs of paying for
my own, because I cannot afford it anymore. (It kept going up $200 per
quarter!!) The general cultural mythology is that we need health insurance at
my age. The discourse about health-care that's been going on the last few
months *sickens* me...
And the other major change is that my car did
finally and completely, and inexorably, die. For awhile, until last week, I was
borrowing a friend's car every-other-week. It was hugely helpful in adjusting
to the transition from a car-dependent life to a car-free life. And now, the
clutch is gone for that car, and it's likely not going to be repaired [which
would make sense to not repair it, since this particular car would cost too much
to repair the clutch]. I feel badly that the car died while I was sharing the
use of it, knowing that my friends now have more hardship without it than they
had before, but I am deeply grateful for their help...
So, this week has been my first full work-week
totally bike-dependent. It's hard. It's complicated. There are many steps
involved in going from one house to another, with my supplies on my bike, and
getting into the house and figuring out what to do with the bike and where to
put the panniers, and managing time, time, time rushing by, while I'm tired,
hungry and don't have time to eat (and eating while cleaning has never been very
appealing or efficient)... I knew it would come to this eventually, and I
prepared with proper biking gear, and I know proper biking gear: I once rode my
bicycle year round for ten years, in Buffalo. But my friends who worry about my
safety and health remind me that I was younger then, and my life was simpler.
Now I have many more responsibilities, and consequently less time and energy to
navigate the complications of this sort of life.
I've always been pretty sensitive to what it is to
be poor, working class, and having no time to participate in activism... Most of
the activists I've worked with have been middle-class, teachers, or otherwise
people who sit at desks / computers all day, tho sensitive about this too, which
is what in part motivates their work as activists. Few are manual laborers like
I am, few are artists who, in this culture have to fight like hell to scrape a
few hours together to get our work done, and few still who see their art as part
of the activism. I feel this week, like my understanding of that working-class
culture, the segment of the population most negatively effected by the dominant
culture, is deeper, and more appreciative of the sensation of fatigue beyond
anything I can communicate, and fatigue which threatens to renders my voice
silent and inactive.
But I have an extremely keen sense of smell, and
the scent of the September air while biking is exquisite. And it feels good to
find a rhythm in my breath, when biking longer distances. And I love watching,
by direct contact, and not through a window, the leaves slowly change. And I
have friends who've been worried about me who've recommended I take a lot of
time for beauty and pleasure, after the year I've been having, and so I've been
planning little short trips away from Buffalo, to visit old (and new) friends
and family, to give myself some sense of possibility in the present time, and on
the horizon. Going to visit my aunt and uncle, my mom's brother, in CA, this
weekend...
And this morning, after day three of hauling my
life on bike, I feel fit, and strong and powerful and I woke up laughing from a
dream. Like I said, I think it was a good dream. I think it was a gift-dream.
Like the smell of the air in September...
Roxanne