A dream I wish I had forgotten

The dream: I sat next to her, my cheek unbearably close to her shoulder. I think I could smell her hair, or body spray or something that smelled of promise. It was dark outside; the window simultaneously framed some of the street lamps in the distance and reflections from the room we were alone in. I knew I should not be that close to her, but I felt more excitement at the prospect of sharing the closeness with her than fear at the prospect of getting what I wanted so badly. She spoke in light-hearted tones; it was something important to her and hence to me at that moment, but not really important to anyone else. That is the way of this type of conversation. We were close. We had bonded. We now both new what we meant to each other. Other than sitting side by side with shoulders touching lightly and deliberately, we had no "meaningful" contact. Somehow that was the only contact that mattered at the moment.

The dream shifted, in that way that only dreams can shift. We were now sitting at a fast-food style booth. One of my buddies was across the table from us. We spoke to him about this terrible secret we were just now discovering about ourselves. It would be the first of many such confessions, at least I think that is why we told him. I suspect we also wanted to make our feelings clear to each other, as we really were too afraid to speak it out loud previously, even to each other. There it was, we said it. Still with shoulders touching, intertwining our arms as the joy of at last being together set in. The euphoria was unbearable! We looked into each others eyes, deeply at long last. "We will find hapiness in each other, consequences be damned." Our eyes locked, seemingly peering into the deepest corners of each others' souls; in reality not look past the malestrom of emotion of that instant. Our faces inched closer, slowly, slowly, oh so very slowly. The fire raging inside me burned impossibly hotter as our lips touched... and there it was. A feeling I can not describe. I could not possibly do it justice. All those men, remembered for thier written word tried so very hard to capture this feeling with meager human letters. They failed; how can I demean thier greatness by attempting it?

This sensation, the focus of my dream and the cause of the gnawing unease in the back of my mind this entire day; I can not describe it, but I do remember when I felt it last. It is that same intensity I have felt the few times I have made this bond with a woman I desired. I do not refer to lust: I have experienced that often enough that I am sure it pales in comparison to this. It is the exhilaration of knowing you love someone at this very instant and you are certain they feel the same. Will she love you tomorrow? Will you love her five minutes from now? Is it really love? You can not hold these questions in your mind at the same time as this emotion; they do not fit in the same cognitive space, nothing can. All you can be sure of is that you love her now, like you have never loved anything before or ever will again. Time stops and you don't care about anything else, except...

I am married. This woman I dreamt of is not my wife. To make matters worse, I had full knowledge of this as I dremt. I remember looking out thgouth the window, not because the street lamps were beautiful, but because out there, somewhere was my wife. As my shoulders touched this woman, I was fully aware that I was prepared to betray an innocent. The fire of the moment could not extinguish the knowledge that what I was doing was not just forbidden by the society I lived in, but more importantly cause terrible pain in the person who least deserves it on this planet. Still, I allowed myself to fall in love. What a horrid creature I am; willing to inflict this pain on someone I care for so deeply, just so that I could experience that feeling once more. I apologize to my wife; she might be reading this, hence experience some of the pain her dream counterpart almost certainly would have.

The reality: I have not felt this excitement, this thrill, this life affirming joy in quite some time. This does not mean I do not love, or desire my wife. She is more than I could ever deserve and a better person than I can ever strive to be. I kow I felt this way with her at some point, but that is now a memory dulled by the incessant passing of years. I can honestly say that even this is a normal part of the experience for this sensation. You can only fall in love once. There after, you are in love, or you aren't. It is that incredible moment, when you realize you are losing the better part of your rational mind that I felt in that dream. It is fragile, instantaneous, and though unbearable while you are experienceing it, it is gone way too soon.

I know the person I dreamt of. Though remarkable and without equal in my dream, in waking life she is only mortal. Again, that is the way of dreams. I perhaps should not admit to this, but I know I could feel towards her what I felt in my dream. I could elevate her to the status of a god, if for a moment. Of course, this will never occur. Not only am I married to a better woman, but I ave no interest in knowing her better than I do currently. She is not even uniquely able to inspire this feeling in me. I suspect there are a few women walking around my life-space that could make me forget it all. Were I single, I could perhaps try to capture this feeling and once more remember what being alive is really like. I can not exchange what I have for that singular emotion, life affirming though it might be. I must deny myself this joy and instead take what comfort I can from the plethora of other, more frequent joys that are part of my daily experience. Humans constantly make this bitter bargin for the benefit of all: Though we have few enough moments of extacy in our lives, we have deicded that a good life can only be lead by avoiding them.

This is the shame of the human condition.
This is my shame for knowing better.

Dead Kitty By the Road

There is no beauty in death. There may be some value in the act of dying; perhaps ones dying act can save the life of another... Perhaps one can avoid a meaningless death by going in a flame of glory, but there is no beauty in death itself. There is a reason why hollywood productions only show us the hero dying, but never the heroes broken, lifeless body.

I never really put two and two together, that is not until recently. The trigger for this line of thought was not an entirely strightforward one. I have never seen someone die, nor have I even seen a dead body. I am certain I would not enjoy it.

Here is the story: I was driving home from a grocery trip and I saw a the body of a gray cat lying on the side of the road. I have seen lots of dead critters in my life and none have touched me quite like this one did. Seared into my memory is the one white-socked paw covering the dead kitty's face, much like a human would sheild his eyes from a bright light. That one small detail forced upon me the realization that this was once a living being. It once breathed, meowed, scampered, and probably had what passes for kitty hopes and dreams. I have seen my own kittens do the same thing... while they are grooming themselves they will often put thier paws over their face, or when they are flopping around the carpet to catch my attention in the hopes for a belly rub. All that life, all the charm that can be attributed to a living and breathing fuzzy critter is absent in the corpse. The dead, crusty, bloody body had none of that; it was only a grim reminder of what has been lost, and so senselessly I might add.

I felt really shitty! I didn't kill him (her?), but I knew I shared in the responsibility just for being on the road. I live in a society that values human life and convenience over all other types of life, values which make the senseless death of the innocent acceptable. I felt compelled to hurry home to hug my little guys and try to somehow attone for the sin I shared in, despite the knowlege that they have no forgiveness to offer... they are just cats after all. I thought about all the beauty they have to offer and how they enrich my life, just by being alive around me. Then my thoughts strayed to Michael Moore's F 9/11 (I'm not attempting to coin a cool new abbreviation, I just can't spell the F word). I supported the war for what I thought were the right reasons; not the rationale that was used to sell the war (if anyone cares, I may make this the subject of a future post).  Despite the knowledge that it had to be done, alot of people died. Much like the empty shell that made me think about the waste of death, we have made a lot of empty shells, so much waste. I know some will think me insensitive to compare the lost lives of men with that of a feline, but this is the path my mind follwed. How much have we wasted, how much are we still wasting? Why do I still find it necessary to continue the waste? I am not happy with this logical rift. I can not make these two positins agree with each other, nor can I change either one of them.