I had the strangest dreams!!
You and I were on some kind of fair ground, like La Ronde but less crowded. A man who looked like a young Fabio was wandering around looking for a woman to date. Mom was looking beautiful but lonely, so you did something to distract one of them or get their attention so they’d bump into each other. It worked, and they did, sure enough he put the moves on her and they went off on a Ferris wheel together, romancing. He was wildly attractive and had very muscular arms, one more muscular than the other.
Then, you, Alura and I were in a massive gym like room, there were giant, muscular strong men everywhere lifting things in pairs and groups. Then one of them dropped a huge silver barbell wheel and it started rolling right towards the three of us. We were so stunned we didn’t move it’s like it was happening so fast we didn’t have enough time to process the thought to move so it rolled right over us. It was the size of a building so it would have been impossible to survive.
I knew it rolled over us, I saw it right until the moment of impact. I wondered, if it killed our bodies, where are we now? What did it appear to everyone else, it must have been gruesome, our bones must be crushed! But I felt no pain and couldn’t see us just knew we were there.
Then, you and I were walking with a man down to a gift shop type area where there were copies of his book that had wonderful wisdom and keys of love in it. There were regular size books and pocket size. I wanted one for myself and small ones to give away but he only gave me one. It was pink with hearts on it and I could see the pages but don’t remember what they said.
We go to find Mom and she’s sitting on a picnic bench with Fabio guy but his name is Sam. Sam looks like an older Robert John, with a rust coloured tank top, tussled hair and a very extreme duck face - Dolph Lundgren meets Owen Wilson. Mom also has her hair all tousled and you can see she’s making the duck face. Somehow being with him is giving her more physical confidence but it’s obvious he will just go with any woman at this point.
I walk over to say hi and mom introduces me and tells him I’m really good at shoulder massage and he says rub my shoulder he wants me to rub his shoulder right away which I find really weird that he doesn’t even really say hello he wants a massage immediately and even mom found it weird. He asked me to rub the more muscular shoulder and suddenly we both think he’s a creep. Many other details of leaving there, vintage cars, curious snacks.
You and I are then a little bit behind Nate and a bunch of other skaters. They are with one girl who is dressed in a spandex, colourful, Oscar Meyer wiener costume. We’re walking with our arms hooked and trying to catch up to them - I speed up more and you say chill chill, slow down… I say yeah but you go SO slow that by the time we get there they’re already gone! You laugh, we both laugh at our different speeds and decide to compromise.
Keeping in mind Lauren Berlant’s introduction to Cruel Optimism….
“A sustaining inclination to return to the scene of the fantasy with the thought that ‘this time it will be different’ I will be able to engage with it differently this time.”
This part struck me as a very real challenge embedded within the human condition. It is where my nonfiction becomes both science fiction and tragic-comedy or farce. To break the pattern of returning to the same old dead end again and again thinking that if I walk in a different way or on a different side of the street that the end of the same road will open up to a different vista. The problem is my pattern doesn’t actually change, at least not without a force of will.
I end up walking through the same ditches and rivets, my behavior doesn’t change even if at first the approach is altered, the magnetism always pulls me back into old ways and methods.
I do this again and again with obsessions, fixations, sensual illusions, fleeting highs. The one thing that does change over time, if not my patterns, is my perspective.
I have begun to step aside and observe what I am doing, using humor as a significant key or tool. By being able to laugh at my own psychosis, I am able to stave off despair, lifting myself out of guilt and shame into a place of deeper personal awareness. It is all just a story, anyway, a narrative crafted through action and reaction - in other words - responsibility. My ability to respond. In this way there is change through returning to the fantasy, though I go back to the scene of the crime and replay the same scenario with different people and situations the outcome can change through living experience.
The idea is to use creativity as a tool to break mechanical patterns of thought and behavior, to cease being a robot and to come alive as an organic being who is allowing themselves to fuck up or immerse themselves in the mire until the muddy waters settle and clear, opening into a bold caribbean blue.
There are elements of soul retrieval, losing myself to find myself again. Never saying never - because how many times have I said “never again! I left that behind!” only to relive the same so-called mistakes.
I’ve begun to research myself as a subject, from a higher vantage point.
He was in my dream. I was with him somewhere near my family and his mom. He is dating someone but he’s there with me and we kiss. The kissing is nice, I want to be closer to him and kiss more. There is something he is telling me about his mom, he’s opening his heart about something and it hurts, it’s like a long, layered story. Something about his family, his connection with his mom, his concern for her, some sadness and helplessness. Then there is my family, the hope, the support. Not articulated, just felt. He’s in several dreams and it’s more a feeling than a statement. There is a strong connection between us, it’s love but not really a romantic love, something deeper. He needs to go see the girl he is with but I try to delay it. There is someone in the bathroom who is an obstacle - a girl but not his mom or girlfriend. I give her a pill to sedate her. Unclear why or who. We drive somewhere with my family, to a restaurant, I can only think of wanting to be alone with him. Everytime we kiss it’s unique and intricate. There is a healing chemistry. Snakes are there, the snakes from my own symbolism and name and the snakes from his brand. It’s like my heart is speaking to his soul. I need to cut the cords and have a healthy boundary while I send love to the highest part of his being. I can pray for him, but I am not here to fix him or be another mother for him. I am just a source of safe, pure love, and I am free. I set him free every time.
I tend to be drawn to conundrums. Boys with strange stories and dark pockets of ancestry. If there isn’t enough of a mystery for me to write about, it bores me. He needs to evoke a little book out of me, he who enters my dreams, who inspires poems of fallen angels and effigies. There is usually something strangely magnetic and a little bit sad about him. Addictive tendencies. He becomes like a statue or a painting, a Mona Lisa. There’s a war torn element, a crisis around him. It summons the nurse in me, the holy mother, the angel. It raises my frequency, I become more acquainted with my own capacity to love. I align with my inner alchemist, I create scenarios and situations that feel magical to everyone. Almost like his darkness or the shadow he’s been exposed to calls me to anchor more light on the earth, helps me connect to my greater purpose. Like a firestarter.
ACTUALIZE
RETURN
BLOOD
GENE
Actualize
Contained dream
Container unseen
Dreamer revolving
Swirling intrepid
One is a mimic
One is a wave
Both walls are needed
To interpret the wind
We only exist
Because of malfunction
Somebody tell them
We are living mistakes
The source of origin
Unknown
An appointed tracer
Keeps digging rivets
Ultimate goal is
A pattern
Choice elusive
We continue to spin
Expression is fever
Temperature alarm
Earth holds solution
Ever in orbit
Movement chugs along
Like a train on a track
There is no diverting
The plasma of time
Pain brings
Recollection of sound
Birth drops revolvers
Which fits into space
One day the polyp
Will burst
The one who remembers
Will click into place
Return
The only hope
Was a total experiment
We swam for hours
Expecting relief
When the hand removed us
We rested in breath
Only to return
To the futile task
Somebody else’s idea
Of life
We were to be used
For a demonic endeavor
The biggest problem was
We were told
Exactly what they were doing
We ignored it
Everyone lined up
For their ticket and stamp
The mark of the beast
We all failed to see it
The only way out
Is a dimensional jump
We must move the timelines
to transcend the grave error
Blood
They wanted our blood
They wanted its magic
They took it too easily
We did not protect
For those that wield it
They walk with a shield
But the waves are electric
Relentlessly pummeling
Be careful They say
The ones who forgot
Be careful they say
In total amnesia
Misplaced caution
Is the unfortunate truth
For there to be exit
We must radiate the grail
Gene
They think if they tell us
Then we might refuse
They proceed undercover
Diabolical plan
I’m telling you
It’s evil
Not to scare you
But to shake you
Snap out of the slumber
Remember your pledge
The strands and the helixes
They carry your truth
Why am i surrounded
By those who still sleep
My joy is my wisdom
It’s actually a key
Hereditary codes
They want to pollute us
By creating a monster
Out of quality fields
The work never ends
No wonder you’re tired
How can we explain
To those who don’t listen
So I speak in silence
Vibrational code
Hum to remind you
Of biological quests
Strange Emotions
Dear Chief,
I thought we would have run into each other by now. I keep my eyes peeled for you, for signs of your things. I still walk by where you were posted up, where you were living outside. I squint my eyes to see if I may have missed something. Once when I walked by there was a shopping cart full of books, I wondered if it was yours. There was even a rare first edition P.D. Ouspensky paperback in there ‘The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution’, exactly the same as the one I brought with me to New York from Canada. What are the chances? But there was no sign of you. The scaffolding that used to be your roof is also gone, and the empty place you slept in front of is some kind of restaurant now. I will never go inside there.
When I first started noticing you, I’d just smile when I walked by on my way somewhere. Then I started saying hello. I could tell you weren’t pushy, you weren’t the type of person to interpret a polite greeting as an invitation. Last March when it started warming up, you put a chair on the edge of the scaffolding to sun yourself like a wise cat. That’s when I saw something in your eyes. They were steady and clear, observing people walk by instead of just seeing them. It hinted at your intelligence, but even more so at your serenity. I could sense you were outside by choice, not because of addiction or mental illness. I noticed other people saying hi to you or waving as they passed. The books with you started to increase in volume, taking on the shape of a little library. I saw someone stop to look at them. I slowed down and glanced at them too. I wish I could remember what the first book was that caught my eye but I asked you
“Are these for sale?”
“Everything is for sale, three to five dollars.”
“Ok, great, I’ll take this one”
I grabbed the book and handed you a fiver. I carried it with me in my little tote bag and read it on the subway downtown, chuckling to myself at my inability to ever return home without a new book. I was also growing more curious about you and your story.
One day when I walked by there was a young man there beside you, the milk crate bookshelves separating each of your areas like little rooms. You read a book wearing a blue windbreaker, your black dreads artfully placed like a wildflower bouquet with a touch of Jean Michel Basquiat. You had your legs tucked into an orange sleeping bag. He was under a brown wool blanket, looking through his phone. I wondered if this was something you did, create a safe space for runaways or at-risk youth. I wanted to ask you about it. A couple of days later when I walked by he was gone.
I was having a rough semester, Chief. Class on Zoom was burning me out, I felt lonely and isolated. My social life had always been downtown, in the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, but with colder weather and the pandemic no one was really hanging out. I chose the Upper West Side to be closer to school and to focus on writing, but with nothing on campus and nothing else to do it was starting to feel stifling and all too consuming. I cried a lot. One rainy day I decided to go talk to you, offer to buy you a tea. I figured you were a tea guy and I was right. I thought I’d buy myself a latte and you a chai tea with brown sugar, to warm us both up and chop it up with you. I was nervous but my instincts were louder than my nerves, telling me to just go make it happen. You asked for your tea and when I returned with our beverages you offered me a chair. I asked where that young guy had gone, if that was something you did often, create a space for people in trouble. You told me that was the first person that ever did that and you weren’t sure where he ended up going. I thought that was smart of him to come to you. Like me, he must’ve noticed that you were safe. It was then that I noticed that your reading glasses were broken, they had both arms but one of the lenses had fallen out. You wore them like that anyway. I offered to get you some new ones and you told me not to worry about anything like that “you do too much sometimes” you told me. I was right. You are wise.
Remember Chief, I asked if I could interview you? If I could bring some questions for you to go over to help me with something I was writing? “That sounds like work,” you told me. You just kind of shook your head no. You were protective of your inner space. You did confirm my suspicion that you were there by choice. We talked about our lives, institutions, society and the pandemic. We talked about the books, how people kept bringing you more and a pile was accumulating. I wanted to clean up the area and organize them better. You welcomed the idea. I started popping by regularly and doing just that. I found a hardcover first edition of Vonnegut’s ‘Breakfast of Champions’. Mint condition. I started handing you books to put aside so I could sell them online for you. You had no idea that some of them could be worth anything. Once I manned the spot so you could walk around the block and sold a stack of LIFE magazines to a lady for $30. You always asked me if I wanted a cut, which I never did. You insisted on giving me that Bolano book and the Tennessee Williams memoir that I wanted.
We became friends, I even started to consider you one of my best friends. You are a free spirit, like me, not a wanting spirit or a wandering spirit. What is the difference? A free spirit is someone who doesn’t want anything from anyone else, they create their own lives for themselves from their heart. They achieve and supply without taking anything from others. Wanting spirits always want something from others, they are always looking to see what others can give to them or how they can get the most for themselves from a situation. Wandering spirits haven’t found out who they are yet, they aren’t anchored within, they drain others. You and I are free spirits, Chief. That’s why I thought of you as a close friend. People who share and don’t steal from others are not easy to find.
You introduced me to other cool people in the neighborhood who would come and chat with you, like that guy hip hop dude Lester who wore oversized, colorful ‘The Simpsons’ gear. That guy Paul who you presented me to as a “fellow comedian” who ended up giving me all those tips about where to perform in the city. Once, an ex ballet dancer man who lived above you said it was so sad you were living like this. We told him in unison “but it’s not sad, it’s by choice.” People didn’t seem to understand that, but I did. Still, I told you I pictured you on a ranch or a farm, living in a shack on the property where you could garden or help with the animals. You’d be some rich farmer’s farm hand or something. We’d go over the scenario in our chats, adding more details to the picture each time. That was something you could accept. We could both see it.
I didn’t always stop by to see you when I was around. Sometimes I’d cross on the other side of the street to avoid conversation, being too much in my head and feeling like being alone. I was still figuring out how to socialize again and sometimes I would just avoid it all together, inadvertently calling on a weird gloom. I would always look over to see if the books were still there, to make sure YOU were still there. You told me there was nothing the city could do, they had no authority over you, they couldn’t make you leave. Still, I had to make sure each time I crossed on the other side to reassure myself you’d be there to chat another day. Your birthday was coming up on May 13th, your 50th. I’d already decided to spend it with you, and was gathering gifts. I’m a 13 baby too, in September, but all 13 babies have this in common: we always land on our feet. We are lucky people. We are spiritually plugged in. We have the magic touch.
It was a glorious sunny day on your birthday. I brought you the little bundle I’d compiled with the aromatherapy oils, palo santo to burn and crystals with their names and meaning written out. You loved that palo santo and asked for more when it started running out. I wrote you a two page card, telling you about Lakota Chief Orville Looking Horse, the carrier of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, and I wrote out the essentials of the prophecy. Chief is a sacred title. You told me you didn’t know anything about these other Chiefs and were grateful for the knowledge. I’d written out my email on one of the pages in case for whatever reason I came by one day and you were gone. Lester walked by and gave us both a fist bump. “It’s my birthday” you said and he was like “What? Ok, no way, hold up one sec, I’ll be right back I got you…” He came back five minutes later with a chocolate cupcake, your favourite. He knew.
It was officially Spring. Everyone was outside, more people were buying books. I came by one day to find that young guy back again, having a manic episode, organizing all the books meticulously into categories of theme and color. He told us he had a job at the hospital, put on some hospital pants saying he’d be back in a few hours, put his things into a little nook, covering them with a blanket. When he left you told me you weren’t so sure if he really had a job. I told you he was bipolar and you said you had never heard of that before. You didn’t know about manic depression but when I described what it looked like you agreed that was what you had seen. You were fascinated with the idea that some people could have that type of imbalance but it made sense to you. I started wiping down the shelves with sanitizer, and used your broom to sweep up the book area. People from the neighborhood started to stop and ask what I was doing, some not so happy about it. “You can’t set up here, you don’t have a permit.” I told them I wasn’t setting up anything, I was just helping my friend. I started to think it may not be the best idea to have the manic boy staying there. He was attracting too much heat.
I started going downtown a lot more. School was out for the semester and all of my old friends were outside on the Lower. Finally, I had a social life again. Comedy was back on. I was laughing and having fun with a spring back in my step. It felt amazing, I was intoxicated. The time I spent speaking with you was growing shorter but more frequent as I’d walk by on my way to the 79th street stop. Sometimes I’d let you go for a walk around while I manned the spot and tidied up the books. Most people were friendly, but those nosy ladies started asking me one too many questions. The cops showed up and said someone had called 311. You insisted they couldn’t do anything.
One night I was coming back from an extended happy hour downtown. I took a cab. As we rolled up Broadway I was impulsed to ask the driver to slow down as we approached 84th, to pull up to the corner where my friend would be. We stopped and I rolled down the window to see the place completely empty, totally cleaned up, nothing there. No books, no bags, no chair, no you, Chief. I told the driver to drive on, stunned, trying to tell him about you. I walked up into my apartment and cried. When I woke up the next morning and remembered, it shocked me all over again. Where have you gone? What did they do with all of the books? What about the special ones I’d had you put aside, did you take them with you? How did it happen? Were they forceful? The whole thing made me sick. I cried and cried for days. I phoned my mom to tell her and cried some more. “Are you…okay.” she asked. But not in relation to you. She wanted to know if I was losing it. She didn’t understand the depth of our friendship. But, like others, she also asked me “are you crying about him or the books?”
It was both. It was mostly you, but the books were a huge part of it. It’s what brought us together and fostered our friendship. We bonded over the books and I helped you maintain them. In a way, we were just getting started. I never heard from you. I realised you may not even have an email account, that I should’ve just given you my phone number. If you had called that day, I would have come to help you.
I still haven’t run into you. I think of you every single time I walk by there. A week after you were gone, I wrote a note and taped it up to the wall where you had lived both hoping you would see it but also as a message to both those who loved you and those who made such an effort to get rid of you. If you didn’t see it, Chief, here is part of what it said:
….I feel so sad because Chief is my friend. Even if his situation in this location was not sustainable, I just know his exit could have been done in a better way.
To those who stopped to talk with Chief, to look at the books, to bother to ask him who he was or how he was doing, I salute you. I am disappointed that as a community we would choose to be bullies instead of attempting to learn how things can be done in a kinder way. Ask. Converse. Help. Reflect. Don’t just destroy because you don’t agree with someone’s lifestyle. Especially someone as peaceful as Chief. I am heartbroken it had to be this way.
The note didn’t stay up for long. I’m hoping that someone who was sad about it like me may have read it. I know I’m not the only one who misses you or is saddened by your sudden departure. But, knowing you, as a lucky 13 baby and a free spirit, you may have found your way to that farm somewhere. I hope you have. I miss you Chief, and I want you to know that I will always cherish your friendship and the time we spent together. You are a true friend and you feel like family to me. Soul family. May the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman guide and protect you. One Love, Chief.
Yours Truly,
Sarah
++++++ Sections from Space +++++++++
Excerpt: Summer 2021
There are places I return to in dreams. That countryside with different cottages and houses is one of them. Another place is a snowy mountain at the top, I snowboard down and halfway it turns tropical, near the ocean with huge trees. Sometimes the top is Incan ruins, a concrete road into the sacred valley near Machu Picchu. I run into the air, feeling it pump under my feet as I fly. I fly like this frequently, just running into the sky like an airplane on a runway. Sometimes I’m in a basket and I can control how high or low it goes like I’m a human air balloon. If I forget and go too high it’s a relief to snap out of it and regain control. When I was young there were driving dreams of being beside a body of water and driving right into it by missing a turn.
The mind is like a gallery and I need to curate the space. What hangs at the opening, what takes centre stage. There is so much storage. The other day a Sherryl Crow song came on while I was having brunch and it reminded me that she once dated Lance Armstrong. I thought about his doping scandal, how he convinced everyone else on the team to cheat too, how he was driven to win above all else. Those livestrong bracelets, his altruistic image and behind it all he was a maniacal bully. All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun piped through the speakers as I thought about the whole debacle, chuckling at the mind’s capacity to retain such a range of narratives. Where we focus and linger becomes of paramount importance. Within the endless bounty of information stored in the psyche we must select where to dwell. The difference between an ordinary person and one who is resilient and capable is a will to discern and select how to frame things. We must become gallerists of the mind. Each thought that enters is only held by choice. To improve the quality of inner space requires constant effort to enhance, refine and discern what is of value. Worrying and complaining sully the space. Raising the frequency of thought doesn’t happen on its own. The good news is that inner space can change by appointing the self as curator and observer.
If I get on a bike and go for a ride I can engage with the space around me in a way that helps my inner space feel more free. Being near the grass and trees puts a feeling in my heart like being hugged from the inside. I switched from the train in Albany to the bus to Burlington and a tall, tanned blonde with a surfer glow and a guitar asked me if this was the right bus to Vermont. The bus was almost empty, he sat in the seats beside me and is now softly playing the guitar. My inner space feels safe, soothed, guided and protected. A moment like this goes into the inner treasure chest, something to draw on when challenges arise and times get tough.
Ditch Me
The ditches on Castelbeau were deep. Our family dog Magic, a border collie, used to crouch in them when a car was coming then chase it at top speed, nipping at the bumper. Drivers didn’t like that, but he was a sheep dog. He was just doing what sheepdogs do, trying to herd the flock, a domesticated pupper in a modern world. My neighbour Tara and I would play a game where we’d run from the oncoming lights at night and jump into the ditch at the last minute. Lying here now, these are my first thoughts.
There’s no ditch on this street now. The ditch I am in is lush with damp grass at twilight. I can hear crickets, distant bullfrogs, see the first stars in the sky and sparks of fireflies. There’s a thick cotton blanket under me so I don’t get wet, I wrap it around the places my skin is bare so the mosquitos don’t get me so bad. I rubbed my skin with eucalyptus and tea tree oil. Someone is building a fire out back, I can hear the first crackles and smell the wood smoke. I like this ditch. No one knows I’m here. It’s deep and it’s safe. It reminds me of Grandfather’s gathering in Maniwaki for some reason. I can pretend to be on the border of the lake where the loon calls and the elders prep the grandfather rocks for the sweat lodge. Some have already begun sweating, I can hear the drumming and the singing, the low moans from the heat, the crying from the healing. I can taste the fresh water and sweet berries of the last round. I start to cry. Are there any safe places anymore, beyond this ditch?
I wonder if I can stay here, while the earth cradles me without swallowing me up. Maybe the grass will start to grow through my pores, devouring all of the lingering shame I have from the mistakes I’ve made. I wonder what my articulation style will be when I emerge from this cocoon, when I learn how to speak from a place of self love, a lady who knows her own cards and how to stack them. The ditch is the place I become a woman. I won’t be a class clown anymore, ordering a round of shots at the bar, or a jamison with that tecate.
Remember when everyone ditched Danny? He didn’t speak to anyone for months after that. I wish he had known about this ditch. No one should suffer in a ditch. It’s a place for vision quest, a ceremony of self, a celebration of the neutral womb that delivers gifts to us all regardless of our missteps. Maybe I’ll roll a few times and stand up with a new name, one like my own but infused with the goddess, one like my own but sealed with a crest of protection. Here in this ditch I learn to honor myself, I’m ditching myself to come home, to the place that travels with me all over.
Vernon Howard’s
SECRETS OF LIFE ®
***************************************************************************
OPERATION OF COSMIC LAW
Ponder the cosmic principle, ‘Whatever you wish for another, you also wish for yourself.’
This applies to every person, whether or not he is aware of it.
Read it again. 'Whatever you wish for another, you also wish for yourself.’
It cannot be otherwise.
*+*+* *+*+*+*
I am an alchemist. With places, with people, with situations. My emotions run hot, so hot that I am beginning to draw closer to the concept of iciness, of inviting some ice in, warming to the idea of being cold. I am not a cold person, I’ve never wanted to be until now, now that I know the danger of heat. It hurts me, it leads me from open to opener to open wound. A scar is a wound that has healed, a beautiful, natural tattoo.