He has been very faint lately; I've been feeling quite stuck, inspiration-wise. I suppose that this is really a chicken-and-egg question; still, mad irony that it is, I knew that if I could just
see him I could get out of this hole. But I couldn't get that far.
Oh, he's been there, I suppose, just not clear, and not very present. It is in some ways a horrible feeling, in others, not at all. How do you miss desire when you have no desire?
But last night I finally got sick of sitting and staring at yet another angry feminist blog, and turned off the computer and went upstairs with the intent to make something, anything. But when I got up there I just sat on the bed, unable to figure out what I wanted to do. This has always been my problem. Too many choices, and too many things I might want to do, so that I just stare blankly at them all and cannot
decide, and so do none of them.
But then I remembered something. And so I asked
him, though I couldn't really see him: I asked if he could help me. Specifically, in that one step at a time kind of way, that micromovement way, as SARK would say.
And though he has been rather faint lately, he answered.
Yes, he said. And so we began that process, the process where I let myself fall into his hands, and he tells me only what the next needful thing I must do is. And I do it. Things like:
Put some socks on, your feet are cold. And,
Pull the chair out from the drawing table. And,
Take all the stuff off the drawing table. But once the drawing table was clear,
then he said,
Pick up the guitar.I was not expecting
that.But I did, and I tuned it and fiddled with it along to Buffalo Springfield's
Go And Say Goodbye on repeat. It's in G, that lovely light-filled key, the one the color of morning sun. And it had been a while, such that I have no calluses on my fingertips anymore; and though I've played the piano since I was three years old still I despair I will ever be able to have the kind of coordination guitar demands, since it is so different and illogical compared to piano. But I persevered, at least for a bit; and when I put the guitar back down my fingers ached in a very lovely way. A useful way.
Then I went and sat at the drawing table, and doodled a bit; but it wasn't really working, still. I ended up pulling out the two portraits of him that I've done so far, the angel with wings of fire, and the one in deep indigo and black. And looking at them I could feel it returning, the longing, and that little delicious twist of almost heartbreak that is desire, that little melancholy feeling of wanting something different; and I could feel him there, his presence.
And I told him, "You love it when I play guitar." He is beside me, radiant.
"Yes," he says, and smiles. "What else is music but
that of the Muse?"Of course.
And as I slept that night, I had two dreams:
In the first I had just arrived in Wales. I was there, I think, a bit more than for a visit; I don't know if I was finally there to stay, or if I was planning on coming back here, but, still, it was more than just a week's vacation. I was so happy to be there. Even though it was night, and I'd been traveling all day and was exhausted, I went outside, barefoot, and put my feet in the grass, on the holy sacred soil of the land. The house was on a high hill, at the top, and I was in a meadow at the very top of the hill, with a couple of tall trees. On the other side of the house the ground was lower.
The night was clouded over and chilly, not depressing or scary, but perfectly appropriate for the time of year; and though it wasn't raining, there was some lightning and thunder playing about in the sky.
And I met Death there.
He was tall and thin, and dressed in the usual black robe and hood; but he was a handsome and young man, and I was not afraid of him.
Death came over to me. I saw his face. It was quite kind.
He said, "You are at the top of a hill in a lightning storm. I'm just sayin'." It was not a threat, just an appeal to sense; a friendly and caring warning from one who wished me no harm.
I laughed and said, "You're right." So I moved to the lower field, the one much less likely to be struck by lightning.
Later I was out and about in the local Welsh town, going to a pub with some friends (not that I drink), and he was there again, only he wasn't Death anymore, just a friend. He was
him, I see now, though for once not in his usual form, instead looking like another man, one whose body he occasionally borrows. I loved him, of course.
The pub was at the seashore, and the beach was just down some stairs.
In the second dream I was in prison. I recall being escorted through doors, and waiting to be buzzed through each one; and I got to the dining room, with the long dreary tables and all the other prisoners. One of them, a man, came and sat quite close to me, in an uncomfortable leering way; I told him to knock it off. It was quite depressing, though not horrible or impossible.
But for some reason then I knew. I stood up and said, addressing all the other prisoners, "This is a dream! Look!" And I went up to the windows, the ones that never opened, and put my hand through one. It shifted and shimmered, like a soap bubble.
And I opened up the side of the building, and created the Sea, just outside, so that that the building now opened up onto a glorious beach.
And oddly enough, though I knew it was a dream for a moment, the dream continued, just now with an awareness of our power. For all the other prisoners got up, and changed things, and made the place beautiful, and safe, and without limits. The uniforms were gone; the dismal lunch became a feast; the day was bright and sunny, and, though the water was cold, we frisked and splashed in the waves. We had become free.
I don't know quite what has changed, or shifted in my own reality, but I feel a lot better. I am grateful.
