That Was The Story of My Life

I've long had the idea that we come into the world with some vague plan, a faintly drawn map with general directions marked and junctions to be met. I also have the idea that you can the take the wrong exit, or miss a turn-off and get hopelessly lost, stuck with no way back until conditions arise to get you to where you were meant to go. I know what it's like to be stuck, and I know what it's like to stumble, almost accidentally, back onto the path. 

There have been three times in my life that I've been aware of being lost, knowing there was some invisible turn I'd failed to make, leaving my existence to unspool uselessly like a film that had jumped its sprockets. The first two were distinct moments of knowing something had gone wrong, the third was a slower knowledge, a growing realization that all efforts to change my circumstance had come to naught. In each case, the sense of an unlived life haunted me, unseen but present like a prickle down my spine.

In other words, it was a lot like being under a hex, but knowing all the while that I'd somehow hexed myself. 

So it came to pass that, realizing the gravity of my situation, I decided I needed to be unhexed. At first this might seem a tall order, but it turned out to be as easy as waking in the night knowing it could be done. While I didn't have the map of my future, I did have the map of my past, so it was quite a simple matter - methodically, secretly, intentionally unwinding my life from the nodes of fate that had held me fast. (How I did it, I might tell you one day, but not yet, not yet.) As it happened, it felt natural, really; like laughter, a new memory that overtakes old sorrow, the chill of significance now pleasantly warm. No longer haunted, always half somewhere else, for those moments - the tiniest sliver of time - I had an idea of what it must be like to be normal.

Unravelling the warp and weft of my previous life, I see now how teenage dreams were only precognitions of this moment, the eerie chill merely signaling a memory that hadn't happened yet. Not without a certain melancholy do I watch the loose threads blow away, the comfortable discomfort of the familiar past. What is left behind is a path to the truly unknown, and beyond that, a future - whatever it might be - to be lived in the present tense at last. 

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Signs And Symbols

Back in March, I posted about an unnerving dream I'd had. Most of what I wrote then concerned my rather fraught relationship with an old schoolmate who'd appeared in the dream, but in the months since, other elements of the dream have gained prominence. Below, I've excerpted the parts concerning the dream itself. The original post is here.

...


March 31, 2018 

Last night's dream was an unsettling one. Not a nightmare really, but unnerving somehow. I am still unsure what it means.

A winter storm was coming, a blizzard the likes of which we'd never seen. It hadn't arrived yet, but everyone was warned to be prepared. I was at home, alone. Where everyone else had gone I've no idea - it didn't seem to matter. You know how it is in dreams.

I looked around - the house was dark, and not warm, but the walls were sturdy and I figured I'd be all right if I chose to stay. At the same time, I'd had an offer - who knows how it came - from a group of hippies who had set up a tent site on the edge of town. They were nice tents - more like yurts, really, specially insulated and heated - in which to ride out the storm.  There were 200 tents, the hippies said, and they had one for me if I wanted it.

I was doubtful at first. I didn't even know these people, and maybe it was best to keep to myself, but the hippies convinced me it was better not to be alone, especially in a storm like this.

The tents were set up in a field below mission hill, all of them bright white. All the people were dressed in white as well, although there was no obvious reason for this. It occurred to me that when the snow came we'd all be camouflaged, invisible to any predatory eye, though whether this was intentional or not, there is no way to know.

I was shown to my tent, which was indeed very nice, and put on my warm white clothes. I then went out to wander among the people in the field. All of them were strangers, and as usual I was feeling shy. Starting conversations has never been my strong point.

After making a few nodding acquaintances, I was surprised to be introduced to someone I already knew, a woman named Lori.

[...]

I shook [...] Lori's hand and said "I don't know if you remember me." She said, "oh, of course I do" and I replied "well, we have known each other since the age of 7."

Just then, though, my hand began to bleed, ghastly red dripping all over our clean white clothes. I apologized, although I couldn't quite explain it. "It's no problem" Lori was saying, but by then I had noticed that the blood had run into the lines of my palm - the left palm, the lines that mark the potential with which you were born.

That's when I woke up.


...


It was in April that the parent/child separation policy went into effect for migrants on the border, and June when the first tent city/children's detention camp went up in Tornillo, Texas. This has caused an immense amount of distress in the state as well as the country. Indeed, I've had a sick headache just about every day since then. All the same, when I saw the pictures of the tents, I couldn't help but recall the dream. The scenario was different, but the imagery was strikingly similar. 

I found this similarity interesting, but not necessarily relevant, until I learned of all the protest marches being planned. The marchers are requested to wear white. That spooked me a bit. White clothes - was this only a coincidence? Considering this, I became concerned about the final disturbing image in the dream, my spontaneously bleeding palm. 

Today, there was a protest at the capitol, and i happened to see the news footage on TV. There was a banner being carried by some of the marchers - it's the one at the top of the page. It wasn't evident at first glance that it was a small red hand print inside a larger yellow one - it first looked to me like a bleeding palm, outlining the fate lines of the left hand.

I still don't know what to make of this. As a coincidence, it seems vanishingly unlikely. Perhaps these are images that happened to filter back to my psyche from the future, and my dreaming mind folded them into a story. I can't pretend to know. but I confess I am concerned. 

In any case, I expect the road ahead will require courage of us all.

Spirit Of The Water

When it's been raining for a while, the sides of the road fill with water, like little flood-meadows.One morning after a particularly wet few days, I dreamt that I went to look at one of these puddles, and saw a golden koi rise to the surface.

I didn't know what it meant, but it felt lucky somehow. After all, what else could a golden koi mean?

The next day, I happened to be next to a murky pond. I didn't imagine there was any living thing there, but suddenly a golden koi rose to the surface, much like the dream.

It's not clear if that week was any luckier than usual, but I felt an uncommon peace surround me.

I suppose luck is in the eye of the beholder.