Sometimes dreams are something else.
Standing in a bar in a Texa steakhouse, got a good single malt in my hand and am talking with a couple of people.
One writes something down on a cocktail napkin and says “the world works on a mix of science and magic.
Our job is to remember to find the magic while working the science.”
They hand me a package that I assume is a magic suit but I figure I’m not going to worry about having trouble flying or landing because the instructions are on the napkin.
Raise the napkin to read the instructions and then look back up across the room to ask if they handed me the right thing.
From just behind I hear ‘you know what to do.’
Turn around to respond thinking about what response to give and the cocktail napkin is framed but the voice is still talking just to the side.
I read the words.
“Looks like we made it
Left each other on the way to another love
Looks like we made it
Or I thought so till today
Until you were there everywhere
And all I could taste was love the way we made it”
I know something happened after but damn if nature didn’t wake me up so hell if I know.
Hours pass and somewhere in between sleep, arousal and the three gallons of sweat pouring down my face under an unforgiving sun I remember where the words in the frame come from.
It reminds me of a dozen other things and a clip from a show I once watched.
There is a familiarity and a magic in it that pulls more from my subconscious to the surface and I remember what I chose to forget and I wait for the waves that will wash over me.
Going to go deep with this one and search for the broken parts to see if the stitches that held the parts and pieces have broken or held.
Doesn’t matter because what is broken will be forced to labor along with the others in unison or bone upon bone until it submits or is ground into dust.
It is why Brother Pablo asks if we made it and I nod my head in affirmation.
“You fought the cancer until it took your father from you?”
I nod my head and say “as well as I could from a distance which is to say not very well.”
“You never gave up and you never let fear stop you from trying.”
“It never has, but it never prevented me from failing. I couldn’t save him and I couldn’t save other things, but I never stopped trying. It is a blessing disguised as a curse.”
Brother Pablo says others would accuse me of distortion.
“Others accuse me of many things but I am deaf or have grown deaf to their cries.”
Brother Pablo asks and I ask if my nether regions is an answer one should take figuratively or literally.
“I cannot tell with you. You speak in ways that are unclear and you do so intentionally.”
“I love hard. It is or it isn’t.”
Brother Pablo asks what that is a reference to and I say “bleeding.”
He says he is afraid to ask the obvious question and I say I answer when I please and with who I choose.
He shakes his head and tells me who I would be honest with and I shrug my shoulders.
“Perhaps. Not all deserve or require the truth. And some who deserve are on time out until things change…if at all.”
*****
The ideas keep flowing and memories come in as they had never left though they clearly had…maybe.
Something about it reminds me about conversations about what influences people and how they think.
They tell me that my thoughts are garbled and confused and I roll my eyes because their failure to understand isn’t because I haven’t provided a road map that moves them from a starting to a middle and to an ending point.
Instead I offer a chance to review 35 boxes of books in the garage and a stack of magazines.
“What will that tell me?”
“Maybe nothing but if you open your eyes it might provide a window into what has influenced me and helped lead me from one place to another.”
Could say more but I thought I forgot.
