You know how everything we perceive in this world is illusion? And how, on some days, when you remember that, it makes you feel sad, and on other days, its a huge relief?  Today it feels like a huge relief.  And that is ok.  Because today is a moment, an illusive moment, and it is all that I have.  And on a day like today, I am choosing to write to you, because that is one of the things which helps my moments feel worth the pain of their infidelity.

Some years ago I was burdened with chronic hopelessness, and while I still believe that unconditional cheerfulness is a sign of psychosis and/or shortsighted marketing, I have learned finally that bitterness is no badge of honor, does not stand for truth or resilience any more than a scar stands for courage.  I've learned that I create my own mind, that I will grow the seeds I plant, and that sometimes, if I've got shitty soil and shitty weather, it will do me some good to hone my brain-gardening skills.  That said, some years ago, I didn't think I could garden in that crap, and thought a lot about ditching the brain garden to push daisies.  I won't go into goth detail on that; it's an expired scene, thankfully.  What I want to tell you (read: remind myself) today is how it changed.

One day I was lying around shooting at hopes like bad guys in a video game. It was a February afternoon, and giant, slow-motion snow muted the streets.  My mind was worn out, my eyes bored of tears, and as I went to sleep, I asked for guidance.  In my dream, there was nothing.  No set, no actors, no silhouettes.  There was only an expanse, like a giant, limitless room of light, and a message so clear that I could hear it, though it was soundless.  "Karen, pay attention to the way that you wake yourself from this dream, because you will wake yourself from your life in exactly the same way."  In a breath, I woke up, feeling that I'd just hung up on someone.  As soon as I identified the magic white space as the sheet over my head, I remembered the dream.  Fearing I'd missed the message, I fell back into sleep, trying to rewind and playback.  It came again, as a variation.  "Karen, pay attention to the way that you wake yourself from this dream, because you will wake yourself from your pain in exactly the same way." 

And so I began to dissect the act of waking. What did I do?  How did I get myself from one state of consciousness to another?  It just happened.  I didn't do anything.  Maybe I simply realized I was asleep?  Perhaps it was time to wake up.  In my mind, I drew parallel lines from sleeping & waking to living & dying to suffering & not suffering.  They were all mind places, all moments, the distance between which always seemed navigated by something other than me.  If I'm driving, I thought, why does this trip suck so much?

I remembered the relief of lucidity, the peace which floods the heart upon realizing that a nightmare is only a nightmare, and could imagine how it will feel one day to be free of my attachment to this life.  I will wake up - I believe we will all wake up - to a truth so much more real and obvious and ultimate that it will embarrass us for ever sweating money, love and public transportation.  Just as we know in our waking life that a dream is an infinitely small, infinitely short little arrangement of wiggles in the brain, we will see that this whole world we have created here is just that small beside our next knowing.  I got up and put on my stretchy pants.  Epiphany or no, I went out to lead a group of strangers in transcendental jazzercise at the Metropolitan Club.

Snow was well over a foot deep, and I lifted and dropped one boot at a time thinking, "this is a funny dream." Over a blanked out Federal Plaza, snow eased down so slowly, making deep orange and white stripes of the huge Calder there, and I thought,"this is a beautiful dream."  Three overworked corporate attorneys wearing elastic bottomed sweatpants and identical club-issued sport tees asked me how they should arrange their bodies to alleviate lock jaw, hernia and a trick knee and I thought, "this is a weird dream." 

Today I am having a bad dream.  The one where you get chased to school naked and accidentally kill a baby Schnauser that turns into a zombie of your ex-boss who blows up the world with poison gas pork chops and, in the rubble of the apocalypse, makes you join the new army or pay for your crime by breaking all of your own bones, your choice, which turns out to be the same choice.  Think of how great it will be when I wake up from that.  All I have to do is realize that I am dreaming, that there is something so much more ultimately true than this little torrent, and then let it pass.  Or get myself the heck out of here. 

I am also at high risk for Seasonal Affective Disorder, as is everyone north of I-70, so I must be mindful that any present discord may seem disproportionately disturbing for the next 4 months.  It is important to fight through this.  Someone I love very much often reminds me, "don't let the sadness of the swamps get to you ARTAX!*" 


*Of course, Artax dies.  But try not to dwell on that.