I Wonder

I Wonder

(2024/02/14)

We did not fight or argue,

Though we drifted apart.

It has been years,

And on this Valentine’s Day,

And every day,

I wonder why.

Lament

Before I let go of you, I thought I could find happiness. When I let go of you, I thought I would find happiness.

I was wrong.

2024/03/06

You Still Reach Into My Dreams

(Written 2014/06/04, not previously posted, edited 2024)

To: Elizabeth

You are the only one . . .

My dream, filled with strange imagery, shifts into a home.  The house is a muted combination of the two places where we had lived.  Like so many dreams about you, there is a hint of Christmas.  We are in this house out of some odd occurrence.  Our real lives are still true, both of us independent.  As always, your warmth and cheer reach out, letting me know this momentary encounter is not an inconvenience.  We are figuring out where I can temporarily store my things, when we enter into conversation…

You are the right person for me.  Our years were perhaps my most joyous.  Alone in my hermit hole I have learned a lot about myself.  I was not the right person for you, and I lament any pains I cause.

People frighten me.  In my desire to please and keep the peace, I push down, push away, and hide bits of myself, little by little.  I lose myself.  There is a person in me who wants to sing out, but holds it in for fear of upsetting or unsettling or changing the perspective of others about me.  I need time alone, not to be merely in another room, but to be truly alone.  I need that time every day.  I need time to bang on the piano mindlessly, like a little child who enjoys the cacophony, with no fear of ridicule or rejection, not that you would, but the fear that anyone would is an every present pressure.  I cannot stay with anyone for more then a few hours, and then I must run to my hole of solitude, where I can expand.

I think of how we met.  We were at our mutual friend’s party.  And where was I?  There I sat, alone in the den.  Party goers came and went through the kitchen with fleeting greetings.  But then you came in.  You came in, and your warmth filled the room.  You more than spoke, you came over to me, and sat beside me, and beamed your cheer right at me.

You, and only you, full with your warmth and bubble, were able to reach down into the abyss of my solitude and pull me up, and out.

The dream brakes and restarts, a Christmas tree in the mingled composite of our dwellings.  Then suddenly I am old and feeble, and small.  As if a Benjamin Button, I had shriveled into a tiny old man in a hospital bed.  Alex comes in and says there is a visitor.  It is you, age making you more angelic, rather than the raisin it had turned me into.  All I can do is weep.  You are the right person for me, providing the most joyous human connection I ever had.  It is so sad that I was not the right person for you.

Unforeseen

The greatest hurt…

That I am no longer allowed to tell you, I love you.

2024/02/27

It All Went Wrong

Originally Written May 11, 2013, edited in 2024, never posted (until now 02/13/2024)

In a dream, I walk into the gym to begin teaching.  The room is not as it really is, but is a dream-spun training room.  The floor banks from the entrance down to the far right corner.  The students are scattered about.  I have difficulty getting them to pair up and get ready for training.

Several older grapplers are near the entrance of the room, playing with the timer, until they finally make it malfunction completely.  One of them had tried to set it to do 100 minute rounds.  I try to explain that the clock doesn’t allow it, besides, who would want to work multiple rounds longer than an hour and a half?  As we all gather around the timer in an attempt to fix it, one of the larger grapplers puts me in a poor headlock, eventually tying up his own hand within his gi so that he cannot release me, while he also cannot set the lock.  Though not threatened, I cannot get free, nor could the grappler free himself from his own grip.  Eventually I slip out of his trap, and continue to try and instruct the unruly class.

A student, with his girlfriend partner, uses the focus mitts improperly, holding them as well as striking them.  In effect, he feeds himself for his own kicks, which he executes toward his partner – a very dreamlike distortion that is physically impossible but seems normal within the dream.  I chastise him, pointing out that the feeder does not strike, the striker does not feed.  I then proceed to show the class the next combination to work.

I select a student with whom I am familiar.  I have her use the larger Thai pads and feed for me as I demonstrate a kick sequence.  As I began to throw my kick, she backs up, slipping magically through the wall, forcing me to stop mid kick.  With the partner gone, there is no way to demonstrate the sequence.  The class, which seems to be about five groups of two or three people each, becomes even more unruly.

In frustration, and feeling class time is nearly done, I begin to exit the classroom.  I pass by several folding chairs near the entry way, chairs that had not been there earlier.  As I pass the chairs, which at first appeared empty, I realize they do have people in them, and one of them is upset I had not noticed her, though I really had not noticed the people there at all.  I decide I need to return to the room and formally close the class and apologize for having not provided a good training period.

As I turn around to reenter the room and address the class, there she is in one of the chairs.  She turns to look at me, and I lose all words.  I stammer, trying to apologize to the few students for the clumsy nature of the class, but I cannot focus or form words completely as I became more and more aware that she is right there looking at me.

I turn to leave and she gets up.  We both met up in the entry hallway.  She has with her a small child, six or eight years old, who is proud to announce that he had just gotten his middle name.  I have the sense the child is a nephew of some kind.  As the three of us walk out to a main room, I congratulate the boy on his new name, and then he turns and simply evaporates.  It is only then I get a full and clear look at her.

She looks as she did decades ago when we first met.  Her hair a bit longer then it had been in our last years.  She is wearing a very familiar heavy blue sweater, black open weave shawl, black shin length skirt, black transparent hose, and black shoes with two inch heels.  A very common outfit for her, one I have seen her in many times.  The sight of her and that outfit creates a sense of continuity, of past, of familiarity.

She moves to a well-padded sofa that does not have arms.  She sits down on it, and says, “I think I have a Valentine somewhere.”  She has several small gift wrapped packages, each in a metallic paper, one yellow, one blue, one green, one red, and so on.  She begins carefully opening a bit of the wrapping to look inside, searching for a suitable Valentine offering from her store of emergency gifts.

I beg her, “Please don’t.  Don’t.”  I cross in front of the sofa and sit beside her.  As I sit down, she turns and sort of curls up, her head against the back of the sofa, facing downward, as she brings her knees up on the seat.  I sit against one of her knees, my back lightly resting beside her head.  I keep repeating, “Don’t.  Please don’t.”

In my dream, I fight back tears.  I feel a bawl growing in me.  My dream moves from dream to half-dream.  I am neither awake nor asleep.  In my real self, I can feel the tightening of my chest.  My throat is clamped in the grip of holding back a cry, my breathing small gulping inhales as I avoid exhaling, knowing that a long expire will result in an uncontrollable burst.  My eyes feel heavy, full, warm, and wet, my closed lids holding back what would be a torrent of tears.

As I rise from dream toward waking, I realize I am physically experiencing the feelings in my dream, and holding back its sorrow.  Moments of effort remove the rhythmic pumping of my breath, and allow the tears to dry, and the hammer in my chest to cease.  I wake.

It all went wrong.

Some would say I should let it all go.  Let go of the love.  Forget the memories.  I’m only hurting myself by hanging on.

Then I realize, it is never wrong to love someone, even if they do not return it.

2024/02/23