This has little to do with Christmas, except, perhaps that the wish centers of our brains or hearts are hyper-activated. Long-ago desires, met or unmet, take form, fit themselves around us. They move in close. In voices sweet or taunting, they remind us of all the ways in which we felt heard, acknowledged, even spoiled. Or they illuminate gaps in the continuum, whatever might have been the piece that pulled our metaphoric room together. Ever the daydream believer, I think there may be a yearning for which it is not too late. Even the possibility is enough to carry me along.
Since I cannot speak for others, I will say that, through my decades, I have displayed a remarkable capacity for getting it wrong. Misreading the signs, succumbing to brain chemistry that is not all it might be, discounting intuition, hastening forth on too little information, doubting that the good which seems too good to be true might, this once, be so. With grace and good fortune, we survive our mistakes. If we don't survive them intact, we still continue as altered, mutant versions of our once-selves.
There is a dance, one slow dance, that never happened. It is 40 years later, will be later still if it ever becomes real. That a brief and ferociously under-fed romance survives to flare occasionally through dreams and conversations, outlasting the Berlin Wall, marriages, reliable journalism, John Lennon and George Harrison, and youth, is, well, my definition of a miracle. An almost sure candidate for extinction, the resilient creature lives on. Who would not love a beast so stubborn.
Picked for the day we shared a bowl of lentil soup and it was playing in the car, what follows is my choice for the dream-sequence dance. It also has Santo and Johnny overtones that resonate for the teenaged part of my brain. Once I play it here, I can return to my normal life, surrender expectations and be happy that I gave a fantasy some air. It could be enough to keep it breathing on its own for another 25 years.
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14 comments:
This is beautifully rendered.
I agree with Laoch, Marylinn, this is beautifully 'rendered', like a fine piece of silver work, and it puts me in mind of all the pain of my own unmet expectations and the sheer pleasure I get when thinking of 'loved ones', past and present when they are not there.
I find myself fantasizing thus often times and it brings great comfort.
and how I love the cowboy junkies,
some of their songs never fail to mist my eyes up..
Marylinn-beautiful piece and thought-provoking as always. Thank you.
Welcome to the human condition;)
the dream life is powerful. and what is real is not always visible in front of us. what is most real lives inside us. the feeling, that is what stays.
such a thought-provoking and beautifully expressed post. peace.
Sometimes illusions and fantasies are more substantial than our everydays.
Your 40-year-old dance is beautifully realized with this languid Cowboy Junkies tune.
marylinn, this wonderful posting flashed me back to an interlude, 25 years ago, in which i experienced such profound longing that i spent hours lying facedown on a hard-wood floor, listening to the most emotionally wracking music in my collection, pushing myself to the point where i was unable to take in air, drowning over & over in the lost moment.
thank you for that!
:)
Laoch - Thank you very much. I will, I promise, be back at your blog very soon. Stay warm.
Elisabeth - Fantasy does bring comfort, doesn't it, like an effortless vacation in an agreeable location. Thank you, a fine piece of silver work is high praise, indeed. What a marvelous vehicle, the mind. (and I am sorry to have been absent from your writing for too long).
Denise - There is something so ethereal, so dreamdancing, about that particular song. They got to me the first time I heard them, they still do. Plus, if you ask me, one of the great band names.
Artist and Geek - The human condition, something you always have with you. Thank you. While I write what demands to be written, I am always heartened to know it resonates with others. Other humans.
Angella - Thank you. I'm happy to see you here again. It does seem we reside in parallel universes, the outer and inner, participating in the one but being made of the other.
Kass - It is so languid, isn't it, sort of skirt-swishing, head-weaving, just too dreamy (what am I, 14?) Thank you. We have the chance to honor our closely-held fantasies by sharing them, in such a welcoming environment.
Susan - Thank you. An equivalent of face-down on the hard-wood floor is certainly part of this saga, happily in the distant past. There are some tangled reels of fishing line from which we never quite escape, not that we even want to. It is our...4th, 5th? day of steady rain and memories such as these seem to take on added flavor, quietly indoors and alone with our thoughts.
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