My Song

Fell asleep hearing Paul Simon singing Song for the Asking. That’s a new one. I like the tune but it’s never played on my internal turntable before. Huh.

Woke from a dream where I was looking for a new crib – a new place to dwell. I was alone and  wanted to stay in Boston or closeby but what could I afford? What appealed. A friend helped me think on this. We looked at a brightly colored map in an attempt to focus my search. Nothing made sense though. Southie and Nahant were next door neighbors. Brighton didn’t exist at all. Eastie was WAY up north. Downtown was gone – the ocean had moved in and taken over.

I ended up living in a rundown section of Dorchester with a couple whose young, toddler aged, son had recently been snatched – kidnapped.

Was he alive or dead? Would they ever see him, hold him again? Fear, grief and wickedly sharp edged, mega anxiety abraded and splintered the very air.

Husband was sitting on the living room floor, intently poring over a sprawl of record albums. I got it. He was escaping, channeling his grief through music – organizing it, listening, getting all intellectual on those discs.

Wife came home. She wasn’t able to distract her intense fears, her wild grief. She was anxiety made flesh. I told her that it might help to scream, to give howling voice to her horror, her mega angst. She said that she wanted to but couldn’t. The screams wouldn’t come. The dread, panic and roiling terror boiled near the surface but wouldn’t break free.

I left her, going back to my ugly room in this beat up apartment. It was a mess – books all over the floor, the walls half painted with a plaid (!!!) pattern. (a big fat clue that I was in Nightmareville – PLAID walls!)

I knew how she felt. The Amazing Bob had been MIA for some time. He’d been taken, along with the car he was driving – he was the victim of a carnapping. I saw it all in my dreaming head. The rat bastard beast-thug hit my man over the head, pushed him aside so he could take the wheel and drive away, stealing TAB – stealing my life.

The difference between the young couple and I? I knew beyond doubt that TAB was dead. I thought, I should have a funeral for him but I don’t have his body. At that point, in my astro-deep sadness, my legs went out from under me. As I lay on the floor, staring up at those damn patches of plaid, I thought, I should contact TAB’s son, tell him that TAB’s gone. His son would blame me. He'd hold me responsible. I knew.

As I emerged into the Wakey-Wakey World, I had to struggle to remember that TAB had expired from multiple horrible illnesses. The violence he was victim to was his own body's traitorous whims.

Damn horror-show vivid dreams.

Ask me and I will play
All the love that I hold inside
Paul Simon – Song for the Asking