My dear house finch, because I can’t have you, you are precious to me. Because you are free, I am free also; together we play, pushing and pulling in a field of possibilities.
I cannot help but learn from the pain of losing you, just as you’ve learned from the sound of lawnmowers and traffic, just as you’ve learned from my neighbor’s Roundup, and the city’s new concrete.
***
On my own I am impostor at best, an outright lie at worst.
On my own I know nothing of value – I roam around without ecology, without sense, without wonder, preaching the supremacy of lines in a spherical world.
On my own I breed disaster, pave the way to an objective Hell with my own subjective good intentions.
On my own I failed, time and time again, and suffered horribly the pain of clinging to stories.
On my own I cast blame, and create a world of shame, guilt and punishment.
***
My dear house finch, because we are equals I am large, I am expansive. Reflected in your eyes I see my world opening up like a nightflower that blooms once every seven years; rare, more beautiful than I ever imagined, translucent in its opaqueness.
The worst relationships bring out our shadows. The best relationships bring out our shadows.
Whether healing happens depends on the context, and the willingness by each to hold the tension.
***
I had to invoke the gods of our vaster nature. Well in all honesty I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, I didn’t even believe in them until they came to me and instructed me about my foolishness, my fallacies, my blindness and my shrinking violently a world that is immense and complete. Can you run away from your dreams, forever? Every day I am grateful they didn’t give up on me, despite this self-important, purpose-driven, all-too-human hubris. Can you run away from dreams?
***
Last night I dreamt of a tree, with hundreds of luna moths hanging like grapes from its branches. Their lime-green wings shone ghostly diaphanous under the light of the moon. All the magic returned to me, all the magic of all my childhood dreams, under that tree. I ran to tell everyone, but no one believed me. I tried snapping a photo with my phone, but the luna moths turned to an ashy-brown colour, and disappeared into tree bark and nothingness.
Last night I dreamt a stomping alligator had gotten into the house, and threatened to smash the place to pieces. I didn’t want to kill it, but I did anyway. I skewered it with a sharp stick and watched it thrash to death. Soon, the house was invaded and overtaken by other wild animals of all kinds and sizes. A snake flew into the dining room and knocked my mother’s expensive plates and figurines to the ground. One of them was a sweet clay doll, cracked and beheaded by the fall. I knew my mother would be sad but I laughed, and laughed and laughed!
Last night our city was plagued by massive flying insect swarms, witnessed by people from east to west and north to south. You and I were sitting and talking very gravely, wound to wound, when all of a sudden these little flying things came between us, reaching upwards for the light. “What is this?”, you said. “Oh, it’s just a termite”, I replied, not ever having seen one before in my life, not even knowing what I was saying. We jumped up and rushed to stop the invasion of termites pouring in from cracks in the doors, windows and ceiling. I squashed tens of them with my slipper, you sprayed dozens with the wasp poison. You barely touched your food, you went to bed hungry and grossed out. I poured myself a glass of wine and laughed, and laughed and laughed!
This morning my friend called with good news. She’s been sitting in the garden for hours looking at bees. She stopped running away from her dreams. “Nothing to do”, we said to each other. I looked into her diamond-sharp blue eyes and saw a large pair of lime-green wings with two long tails, fluttering briefly, then taking flight.
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