What has happened when you would rather be dreaming than awake? What was the marking moment when the desire to wake up became the desire to linger, to breathe - to dream. I am worried at the revelation that struck me today, in the park and watching pigeons. I wish I were dreaming. Moment to ponder. What? I’ve never said that before. I’ve always been the person who says, “I must be dreaming,” because I’m, by what I thought was nature, a very happy and optimistic person. But no…I wish I were dreaming. The real has become not only painful, but seemingly hopeless. Just for me, I think. Everyone else still has a shot. I think I crossed some point of no surrender. My boots are wet with the waters of the Rubicon, which I crossed all too willingly.
I got some life-altering advice the other day. Well, not advice, but rather a question was posed that I had never considered, and its implications made me uncomfortable. I have a tattoo on my wrist that says precáre, which, in Latin, means ‘pray’, in the form of a command. A few days ago, a young guy asked me about it. I told him, and he said, “Oh, so you’re really religious”. I said, “Well…no, not at the moment.” He looked at me oddly.
"Okay, so I got the tattoo at a time that I really needed a reminder to pray. It was important to me then that I had it, and I’m glad that I got it."
"But you said you don’t pray."
"Well…I don’t pray now, but I know that I will again someday."
Here it comes, the question.
"If you know you’re going to pray again someday, then why don’t you just go ahead and stop wasting time?"
Poof. I was not dreaming when he asked me that. At least I can tell the difference. This was one of those uncomfortable moments when someone figured me out and could see enough to speak to something important. If I already know that I’m going to pray again, why don’t I just go ahead and start. Typing those words was easy…way easier for me than actually doing it. I’ve contradicted so much of my presupposed truth. Strayed so far from the track of the race. I have lost my moral compass…and God’s phone number.
Of course, you can’t lose God’s phone number, can you? That’s the most frustrating fucking part. For example, you meet someone and go on a date. It doesn’t go well, and you pretend “not to see” her number fall out of your wallet and into the toilet…in tiny pieces. That way, when you don’t call back, you don’t feel bad. Even if you regret it. Even if you realized that she was the best woman you could have asked for, you lost her number. It doesn’t matter anymore. You have no choice, so you just let it fade into memory. Unless you run into her at Target.
That’s what scares me to death. The thought of bumping into God in public, somewhere unexpected. Around some street corner that I walk every day, and he’s just standing there. Smiling, drinking coffee, and smoking a cigarette. He sees me, I know he does, and he knows that I see him. The awkward side-step. Leave. Leave. Leave. You can’t leave, he knows where you live!
Okay, side-step the other way, towards him. Lift the newspaper in your left hand awkwardly, waving and giving a head-nod. And that’s it, you’re stuck. In those last few moments, as long as it takes for you to walk the 10 paces to him, you think about everything you’re going to have to leave behind. Think about the people, the habits, the lifestyle, the self-importance. You know that after the first cup of coffee, after that first cigarette with God, you won’t want to leave. You’ll want to stand on that corner and drink coffee with God all day.
Maybe that’s what would wake me up. God suprising me on 82nd street. I imagine how that encounter would unfold. I can’t decide what I would want more. For God to just come at me swinging over how much I’ve fucked up and squandered. I would deserve it. Would I want Him to talk? To scream? To cry?
And what would I do? The first thing that came to mind was: run. At first glance it’s not the worst option. I might get away for a little while. Buy some time. Second option. Play dead? Hide?
Can you move when you see God? I don’t think so. I can only imagine, based on my extensive Sunday School classes as a child, that God has some kind of force-field thing that makes everyone freeze in his presence. It’s not a painful experience. That would be out of God’s character. If God had a Pokemon card, his power would be called something like “Radical Repemption”, and its description would be “God overwhelms you with Unconditional Love and binds you with Chords of Forgiveness. While you are technically able to walk away, you will remain Overwhelmed and Bound for the duration of your life. These effects cannot be annulled, by power of man or otherwise.”
I was never very good at Pokemon.
None of this is an issue when I’m dreaming. I don’t know how, but after all the terrible things that my eyes have seen, my dreams remain places of peace and joy. Night terrors do not find me. I have practiced and honed the ability to wake up to a noise, to go to the bathroom, and however many minutes later return to my dream as if pressing Play on a VCR. The people in my dreams are the people I long for, and they are nearly always in the mountains. I do not dream of these city streets. I dream of a trout on the end of my fly rod and John ‘Bear’ Moore watching from behind his pipe, downriver. I dream of traversing icy northfaces and sitting on my Mamaw’s front porch. I dream of driving through the Great Smokey Mountains in my little truck, windows down and Alabama on the stereo. My dreams are everwhere I’m not. In my dreams, I am what I am not.
Lester Burnham woke up one day. He quit his job, started working out, smoked a lot of weed. He woke up and found himself. He remembered his life, the goodness of it, and for a fleeting second was happy. Before the repressed, homosexual marine next door shot him in the back of the head. Here begin the series of questions. Why did the neighbour have to shoot him? Why did the marine get his gun? Why did he reject his son? Why did he reject himself and subject his family to the miserable life of mortifying self-oppresion and denial? Why are any of the characters as broken as they are? Why are we broken? In real life, why are Lester Burnhams miserable and people driven to the damage of repression and lies.
Fuck.
I don’t want to wake up when I’m 40. I’d like to wake up soon. I’ve been sleeping for a while and I’m getting tired.
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