dream gifts

DREAM:

I'm approaching a large colosseum-style building. I'm drawn by the sound of the injunction song for RavI Shankar's 'Chants of India,' a great pulsing song, steady as a heartbeat. In the dream, all the animals I've had as pets (who have died) are with me -- I have a parrot named chico on my shoulder and another in flight beside me; my dog, shadoe, trots contentedly beside me and we all are in procession to the great event happening inside the colosseum. The feeling in my bones is that this event is for me, but as I look around and see others all streaming into the colosseum, I realize that everyone feels this is for them. Then I know the infinite Love of our true Home, each of us the subjects of our own ceremony, held in honor of the divinity we all possess.

DREAM:

I dreamt that i died and not in any horrific sense of the word, although there was that moment, suspended midair as T and I propel off the cliff in our car. T and I look at each other and without words, we communicate that this is it, our end has arrived. Then we drop and drop and drop, and when it's time to hit the bottom, instead of immense pain, I experience the most intense relief i've ever known. it's all the accumulated moments of relief i've ever experienced, combined into one joyous, sweet feeling. I am aware of the weight of my skin and my body, which i am now free of and all the work it takes to survive on this earth, eliminated once and for all.
so I do not fear death, nor do i seek it.

lobotomy for the sexes

i pulled up to their shiny black car and saw their smiling faces inside. "hey amber, where are ya headed?" jeff asked with his foster park cowboy talk. i said "just dropped off charlie at school. now i'll go home and work on that article. since i didn't work on it yesterday, i feel a little..."
at this moment both jeff and kasey interjected -- kasey said "stressed" and jeff finished the sentence with "refreshed." i laughed and said "that pretty much sums up your two personalities! and mine and ted's too!" we had a good laugh about it and went our separate ways, but it left me thinking about how different men and women are in general. at least that's what i'm hoping. i'm hoping it's not just ted and i that think so differently 99% of the time. the truth was that i felt stressed, just like a woman should. stress gets shit done. maybe it's not true for a man's brain, which when faced with stressful situations, switches off and starts receiving messages from his penis, his other head. men have sex to relieve stress; women need to be un-stressed to have sex. i'm generalizing here, and i'm sure there are plenty of women who have stress reduction sex.
but i often wonder in my marriage if i'm crazy or if we REALLY think differently most of the time. for example, i'm nursing H and talking to a friend on the phone on a bench outside the restaurant, and ted says he's going for a walk. he tosses me the keys and says he's walking down el roblar. now i have both kids at the restaurant, and H is falling asleep on me, so i no longer have free hands. i wait for over an hour, enjoying my conversation, but definitely ready to leave. when he pulls up in his friend's car and has no idea why i would wonder where the *bleep* he's been, i have to pause and ask myself, "does he really not know how i'm feeling? is it possible he truly wasn't thinking that i would want to leave?" no he doesn't think like this at all. the moment he told me he was walking on el roblar and tossed me the keys, he was communicating 'come pick me up when you're ready.'
now this is just a day in the life, and thousands of these interactions have happened in the course of our marriage. so one must concur, men are from mars and women from venus. two entirely different entities expected to cohabitate, make decisions together and attempt to decipher the other's martian subtleties. good luck! i can see why so many marriages end in divorce! it takes some serious grit to not only tolerate one another, but actually learn to appreciate the differences. i'm still in training on this one. lord knows i love that man :)

yes, i admit to a subtle feeling of imprisonment. i try to dash those thoughts that would describe my reality as such. it's not such a big deal, really. my mind has made it important, this show ted's playing tonight at zoey's cafe. that's where we met eight years ago, talking about architecture and cultural design for the city of ventura, the Avenue. anyway, we met that night at zoey's and the story from his sister is that he came home that night and told her he just met his wife. it would be a year before we would be together and another four years before we would marry after breaking each other's hearts.

so these two beautiful children, whose needs are forever number one. no babysitter or available family, so i'll be home with the kids and my mind built up this Night of Nostalgia at zoey's cafe, a rekindling of that original spark, the Big Boom of our life together. no big deal, just all the closest friends and family on a cozy november night gathering for music at the site of our true love's beginnings!!

perhaps this is my night of remembering, typing to cyberaudience in my reverie. we met at the turn of the century in a european courtyard called 'El Jardin.' ted was so mysterious in his own right. he didn't let on that he was falling in love (of course he shouldn't, what with my boyfriend of three years). until one day we were in the couch-sized kitchen of zoey's at the beginning of a shift i was working with ted, training him as it were. he announced to me that he needed to clear the air, that he didn't want it to feel weird when we worked together. i had been experiencing a few heart attacks every time we worked together from the crazy magnetism between us, but i wasn't going to let on (what with my boyfriend of three years) so i feigned indifference to the anticipation of what he would say. he wore a blue plaid cowboy shirt, his hair was damp and curly, his eyes were solid and blue, and he said "you're really pretty, and i know you have a boyfriend and all, but your presence, just affects me. so i guess i just needed to say that" he wasn't coming on to me but from that moment i was his.

zoey's is a magical place with long tendrils of trumpet vine covering aged brick buildings, art in every corner, music, tea...it was a mythical place to fall in love and tonight my stomach flutters with the remembrance.

paired up, gemini

what a strange life indeed. a film noir journey through the twisted labyrinths of man's heart. outside the jackyls hackle to the rising moon and some familiar feeling is pushing up inside me, like a wearwolf nature. i roam, i die to live on flesh and scent and taste with such sensual delight, i might just never come back.

but then i hear a little cough, my little ones sleeping through the night, strong bodies fighting colds. they sleep facing each other on our huge bed, and tonight they are my companions and i will never be happier than this.

ama

dear grandma marilyn,
just to say your name in my head immediately brings tears and that familiar ache of sadness behind my face. i remember you today because you passed on, and i'd like to think that in some way, i am carrying your memory just by being me.
when i was pregnant with hazel (who's a cancer baby like you were), i found myself cooking up a storm! i was doing wine reduction sauses and rump roasts, lots of midwestern goodness. i felt your subtle lead all through my pregnancy, even your strength which you offered through the eyes of my mother, grandmother, when i was in travail, riding the wave of contractions.
i'm proud when i see a picture of you and see myself and my mother before me. thank you for exemplifying servitude to your family and for being the strong woman i know you were.

grandmother, great northern star

sincerely,
amber dawn

ode to mom

my mom and her soft-smelling skin, which seemed always to be warm. my comforter and undying loyal defender, she gave me a safe haven to explore who i am. native american rituals, sundance, the kiva, 2nd mesa, hopi, and the wind slipping through window cracks while the steady beat of a drum lulls us to sleep. the sweat lodge, the topless days at verde river with hazel. sunday drives with tracy chapman in the rambler. more driving across the southwest to the midwest and back. we were at home, us air signs, in the constant movement of road travel. born to stretch the limits and expand boundaries.

my mom has a slight dimple on her cheek and green eyes the color of yellowstone. i inherited her mischievious humor and celebration of life. she was the wind beneath my wings and i beneath hers--two birds skimming the waterline, dipping here and there.

ti amo mama

common law

i've been getting quite the education on proper codes of conduct between the sexes within the boundaries of marriage. i come from one of those dilapidated relationship structures that i have been repairing since my first boyfriend at age 14. perhaps we all go through a process of redesigning our understanding of love, having certainly been wounded (or at least misinformed) by the relationship(s) we witnessed our parents endeavor.

because i so explicitly watched my parents' marriage dissolve with such painful and unfortunate dabblings with infidelity, i have been carrying the burden of their pain for many years. specifically my father. i was his mule as he climbed out of the deep, deep hole of mourning. i carried all sorts of goodies: mistrust, anger, fear and an overarching certainty that i would never ever get married. i eventually mistook this baggage as my own and started weilding it in my relationships like a very sharp knife that has unnecessarily accused and cut some very genuine souls.

so when i half-heartedly conquered my fear and accepted to marry the love of my life, to my surprise i discovered i was still the mule carrying around all that baggage for my parents. my poor husband! i didn't know that when i say 'i love you', i am including all the misinformation about love i have acquired. like 'love can't truly be trusted' and 'this love could end, even though it begins beautifully.'

i had to almost deceive myself in order to get married. i had to tell myself that marriage would be some kind of jedi force field that protected both partners from the wiles of attraction and seduction. marriage would be my saving...what? what is marriage? it's a moment that lasts as long as we both shall live. it's the chemical combustion of two individuals, creating an entirely new entity.

which says nothing of our bodily senses, our attractions, our very humannness. i didn't want to believe that my husband could be attracted to another woman. in order for me to trust marriage, i had to believe that was impossible. more shocking even than the truth that my man could be hot for a woman, is the truth that i can find another man attractive! what atrocity is this! what evil person could come in with their dirty boots and trample the pristine fallen snow of my marriage? but those people aren't evil at all...they just exist as i do, and they are just going about their lives as i do. and in our humanness, in the invisible sinews of energy that propel and guide us to another person, we find ourselves still as vulnerable to making grave mistakes as ever.

so...proper codes of conduct between the sexes. walking the razor's edge. eye contact for 4.5 seconds and no more. at least a six inch margin around my body at all times. choosing not to engage with the person that is obviously attracted. i understand the arab wife, eyes downcast, head covered, body engulfed in long garments.

and yet that's not the answer either. we can acknowledge another person's attractiveness. we can even enjoy their charm, their wit. to hide is to strengthen desire. stand bare-breasted in the sun. did you catch the spark in her eye? it's only god, it's just me. it's only you.