Strange Dreams & Strange Music

Last night I had the strangest dream (I know that's a line from too many dreams). In my dream, I understood exactly how to prepare to die and go to the next life. I was explaining to someone this epiphany, but as I began to explain, the understanding left me. The explanation of how one can accept mortality and prepare to leave this life we know involved a deep love of God. There was more to it than that, but I could not hold onto the understanding when I went to explain it. What a shame. It's funny that I am struggling with this problem in my dreams. Many of my friends have died over the years, but I never thought too much about the fear of death or my own fears. I'm sitting hear listening to Tom Waits and it's about 2:00 a.m. I can't sleep anymore and the song he is singing is called "Starving in the Belly of a Whale." Well! Death has certainly swallowed me up at this moment. The sun will come up soon and that whale will surely spit me out. I'm going to change the music right now.

Dia de Los Muertos & the Voice of My Love

I've been canning grape jelly and grape tomatoes this week. What a job! I'm trying to teach myself how to do it correctly. It is a bit difficult, but I'm learning. I don't know what to do with all the jars of jelly, jam and misc. I was cleaning up my hard drive and I came across a video my love and I made just a short while back before he became so ill. I can hear his voice saying things about humming birds and the land. He is speaking to me and I just love to hear his voice. I did not know I had such a precious gift. It really was a gift from the Universe this week. I thought I would never hear his voice again, but that is not so. The video reminds me of what a gentle and sweet man he was to me. I miss him this week. I found a really neat video that you can watch for free. It's about the Day of the Dead. This is a Mexican celebration that kind of laughs at death in order not to cry. The short film is animated and a little girl who has lost her mom is taken to the land of the dead for a short while to learn what Dia De Los Muertos is really about. You will love it. Actually it will be the most beautiful 3 minutes you will know for sometime. Just copy this in our url and you will be there.

http://vimeo.com/71853142

i know a path

 "i know a path in your heart that merges with mine, my sweetheart and i know of a tranquil sea, within me, that mirrors your moon face with delight."   Rumi

Funeral for a Friend

Once, long ago, my love and I attended a memorial service for an acquaintance of ours. It was like no other ceremony to which I have ever been. There was music and poetry and you knew that a man was gone, but the good things he had done lived on in the people in the room. Actually it wasn't a room but an outdoor dome fashioned from bricks where people sat on beautiful Persian carpets. The sunlight streamed into the dome from the places without bricks. When the people sang or recited Rumi, the sound was amplified. Many people filled that dome to honor a Persian man out in the desert who had been a poet and engineer and other things too. His wife was there. His son was there. It is easy to remember how lovely and sad that day was. My thoughts at that precise moment were somehow that service, that moment of death and peace, would never come again. I wanted to steal the memory so one day when I faced incredible grief, I would remember the feeling of death and peace together. In the future, I figured, no matter how bad I would feel, I'd envision that day, that service and I do.  I remember the instruments that the musicians played that afternoon. There was a drum that had little pieces of metal hanging from the rim which made a rhythmic drumming sound. I think it was called a tambor. Of course nobody tells us about love the way Rumi does. Love was there that day with Rumi seemingly in all things. The engineer was released from the earth with music and poetry. I hope that is the way people will celebrate my life one day. A moment like that is the magical culmination of every moment that came before it. Celebrating life is maybe all we can do or all we should do. We can share that together and we did. My love and I together will always be in that dome with love and music and Rumi forever. I can picture us with the enginer who built domes in the desert sitting on the carpets and reciting about love.

Don Quixote and My Chivalrous Man

When my love died, I gave away many of my books. I could not bear to see them anymore. I understand now how foolish this was, but at the time, in my anger, I did this stupid thing. One of the beautiful and very old books I gave away was Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantez. I can remember watching Raul Julia in Man of La Mancha in Orange County in the early 90's. That was such a wonderful show. I was much younger then and I could only see Don Quixote's great love Dulcinea as this really mean woman. I could only see she was always angry with Don Quixote. What I didn't understand then was that Don Quixote was living out the code of chivalry. At that time, I had never taught the story of King Arthur, so I had no idea about chivalry. More importantly, I did not understand the impact that the character of Don Quixote has on Dulcinea (Aldonza).  Lucky for me today I bought an old VHS of Don Quixote with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. I saw the story from a very different perspective.  Much older now and having lived a great deal more, I can see what Don Quixote does for her not only by his love, but by his seeing her as she should have been (had her life's path been different) and not as she was. This is surely what my love did for me. He chose me and made me feel as if I was worthy of great love. From my experience, this is rare. At the end of the story, after Don Quixote dies, Aldonza calls herself Dulcinea. She feels different about herself. This is true for me, as well. I go on and I hold my head up high.  

Waitresses from Heaven and Free Coffee

When I was young, I was a waitress. I was a waitress for many years. I remember all the people who came and went from my life and there were many. One couple who ate at the diner each week were really old (as I saw it) and really in love. Bill would help his wife out of the car and into the diner. They would always eat the same thing--cheese blintzes. I never thought much about the wig that Bill's wife wore on her head other than it wasn't very becoming. Then one day, after several years of seeing the two of them together, Bill came alone to the diner. He ordered the same food, but he had tears in his eyes. When he told me about his wife, water came from his nose and his mouth and his eyes. It was as if his soul was just washing out of his body. I was pretty young and I could see that he was lost and destroyed. I hadn't experienced such loss myself at that time so even though I was mortified, I could not ultimately connect. I still have a picture of myself sitting with Bill in the booth at the diner. This picture was probably taken at Christmas or Easter not so long after Bill's wife died. We are both smiling but Bill looks really frail and it won't be too long after that picture that Bill will stop eating blintzes (which he loved) and stop coming to the diner. You never know what an impact you have on people and how people you hardly know become your family. Yesterday, at the diner where I go sometimes for breakfast,I had my usual. the diner is really a bar but they have a great breakfast special that is really cheap. I watch the people drink beer up at the bar at 8:00 a.m. I eat my fabulous breakfast with potato pancakes and eggs. The waitress is always so nice and she's just this kind human who doesn't give me a hard time when I walk out while the juke box plays sad love songs. She's just like I was when I was a waitress way back when. Yesterday, I told her I was celebrating not having cancer. She bought my coffee. Life is good and life goes on.