An Irritating Dream

I dreamt of something last night in my sleep.
I saw you sitting in a room without me.

Just joking; that's just the way a song starts. Seriously though:

I had a dream last night
And it fit me like a glove...

Two, actually; but they both involved houses. The first was the interminable sort of dream that doesn't have any apparent point. Something to do with staying uninvited--Goldilocks style-- in an exotically expensive house in Brady, Tx. (Where the heck is Brady, Tx anyway?) It seemed to have no meaning whatsoever, except i woke from it utterly exhausted, wishing i'd spent all that creative energy on something having less to do with Texas: maybe some sweet oblivion. Then i went back to pseudosleep and things got downright disturbing.

The dream that drove me to blogging had almost entirely to do with an attic. More specifically, it had to do with the door to the attic. There was a house around the door, and it seems like it was a fairly expansive one-- maybe a couple of stories and white. But the house didn't figure in as heavily as the attic door.

It was the square kind of door that's cut into the ceiling with a molded trim perimeter to make it look like it's supposed to be there. Seems like they're usually held shut by springs and are opened with a rope pull-- only this one didn't have a rope, and it had no desire to stay shut. It was over a carpeted landing just at the top of a staircase, which seemed important because it was very visible.

The door, as i hinted, wouldn't stay closed. It flapped open and clapped shut, over and over, mocking me it seemed; but without any expression, like a faceless nutcracker, a fleshless jaw. i don't know what was in the attic, only it was utterly dark, and i'd no curiosity about it. i did, however, strongly wish to shut that flippin' door properly.

First i tried holding it shut. That worked just as long as i held it. As soon as i was sure it had tired of being abnormal about its job, was sure it was just a plain attic door again, would turn my back to it, it would flap open, clap shut, open, shut, taunting me with whatever was inside. Finally i decided to seal it shut-- if the door couldn't just be a door, i'd divest my house of a door. Then the dream got weird.

i was back on my ladder with drywall and spackling and ... tools. (i don't know what tools-- it was a dream.) i was just getting down to business when a "friend" walked into the house and was clearly aghast. (i say "friend" and not just 'friend' because he was the dreamlike representation of someone, sortof like when you dream about your mother, but in retrospect she more closely resembled Carol Burnett. It's just an example; stay focussed here.) i only remember feeling abject confusion at his being thus aghast. He yelled at me; he stormed at me; for a while, he fumed at me. Meanwhile, i backpedalled furiously in search of a satisfactory explanation--yea, searching for the reason i was searching for an explanation. But to no avail: it was all too clear what i was doing standing on that ladder with spackle and a spreading knife. It turned out that my wrong wasn't in trying to fix the door, but was acknowledging that there was a door at all, or for that matter, an attic for the door to secure. With that understanding, the wrongheadedness and insufficiency of my attempts were crystal clear (to him, at least.) So he threw a Molotov cocktail into my house: the whole thing had to go.

i ran out of the flames as they ate the house, still trying to make some sense out of what had just happened, still trying to rectify the situation. But he didn't care and he walked away; i'd had an attic, i'd touched the door, and that was unacceptable. And now the house behind me was only smouldering charcoals. Then came the strangest part of the dream, the bit that made me minorly nervous about getting up to go to the bathroom: that stupid door was still there over my head, liberated of it's moorings, leading to nowhere, still clapping at me idiotically even while i watched him go.

Then i woke up.

Redemption

Steph's grandmother-- her dad's mother, whom we call "Bamba"-- is expected to pass away in a few hours or minutes. i'm waiting by the phone because the kids are already asleep while Steph is with her family at the hospital. It's probably not yet a week ago that we found out that she's in a far progressed stage of an aggressive form of lung cancer/ lymphoma, but until earlier today we understood that she'd potentially live another six months or so. This morning the prognosis worsened to maybe a few more days, and now to hours, minutes. She's an awfully beautiful lady, a genuinely encouraging lady; but this can't be an epitaph. Neither she nor i believe that this is the end of her. This is a story about something she was allowed finally to do.

She was married to Steph's grandfather for about 25 years. Then they divorced. i don't know most of the details surrounding that, and don't need to. He remarried relatively shortly afterward, and Bamba did not; i also don't know most of that story. However, i do know that she spent a very large amount of the last thirty or so years wallowing in some very deep viscous resentment. She's a dedicated and fairly skillful painter, and has had for as long as i've known her a large painting hung on her wall of a couple-- a man and a woman sitting side by side, very straight, very somber, the two not touching. The woman is fairly centered in the portrait and the man's head is lopped off by the boundary of the canvas. It's a kind of resentment that i can't entirely know yet (for lack of age, as far as i can tell); the kind that takes a lot of time and passion and very bad experience to breed. But a short time ago-- after she found out that her cancer was probably terminal-- he visited her in the hospital, and they talked. After thirty years of practically hating each other, they talked. And they discovered that they didn't really hate each other after all. Of course, i don't know everything they talked about--that's none of my business-- but i do know that they forgave each other. Somehow all their pet resentments and egoisms and wants and demands were allowed to quit mattering, and they forgave. i have an imagination that just getting to be at that point, just getting to have that talk probably redeemed an ocean of wasted lifetime for them both. i very strongly suspect that it did indeed.

i don't understand-- and won't, i believe, until i'm allowed to know the heart of God better--why it's required that we be facing death to attain that kind of redemption, but it seems to be. There has, it seems, to be no fight left in us, no possible threat left for us to make for even our own selves to know what our real heart is, our genuine will is, our true hope is. But (i say with a lot of fear and trembling) if death is all it costs to get to demonstrate that, to get to know and be known, then the price is not too great; the burden is indeed light, the yoke easy.

i will miss you Bamba, and i very much look forward to seeing you and hugging you on the other side of this. i love you.

--cody

Having Darkened the Doors

[i wrote the bulk of this yesterday, but obviously didn't get to post it. Call me not on the anachronism. --ed.]

This morning Stephanie, my parents (visiting us for the weekend), my children and--strangest of all-- i went to a real live Church-In-A-Building church...service...thing. i stutter; it was one of the funniest sensations i've experienced in a very long while. i had a lump in my stomach the whole time, like i was about to get on a scary ride.

First we got rid of the children. Aeon we dumped on "Almighty's Blessed Children" (which name, i recall, shortened to a witty acronym, but it escapes me at the moment.) Annie got plugged into the "Glory Factory." i'm confident it was neither as sinister nor as funny as it struck me at the moment; it was just the odd mood i was in. Then the remainder of us went to class.

Class i didn't fully get. we were grouped at smallish tables (to facilitate discussion, i'd assume), and i sat at a table with my parents and Steph. Then, on cue, someone at each table simultaneously began praying over the prayer list we'd each constructed. The effect in the close room was a tad like trying to meditate in a washing machine full of coins. Weathering that, we started the lesson. Each table had a list of scriptures with accompanying provocative questions for discussion, and (naturally enough) every table at the same time had someone read those scriptures aloud to the rest of the table. i cleverly masked my confusion by staring at a doughnut. If there was a point to having all those folks doing roughly the same thing in the same place at the same time while vigourously striving to ignore and overcome that fact, it was lost on me. But Jaimie Sanchez was there, which added enormously to both the surreality and my overall enjoyment of the whole shindig.

Next came what i've no choice but to call the Worship Service Proper. Antecedent to this we picked up the kids so that they could commune with us for a minute. (Fear not: we unloaded 'em on the "Factory" again immediately afterward.) we sacramented together. For those of you unfamiliar with my church-going bent (and haven't picked it up from context to this point) i hadn't cast a shadow on an intentional church-building in so long i very honestly couldn't remember the protocols. First we got the cracker portion of the Lord's supper. As usual, the requirements of reality caught up with me just after i'd set an irreversible faux pas in motion. A pewter plate passed before me and i reflexively grabbed up a pre-broken chunk of the unleavened Corpus just as the long-division resolved itself in my muddy noggin: Even though the chunks approximated the size of a 50-cent piece, there were only about 5 of 'em on that plate; and those needed to be distributed among maybe thirty other hungry believers. That means i took probably six times the socially acceptable Matza ration. My ensuing reflex might have been disastrous-- i almost put it back. Instead, i did my dangdest not to make eye-contact with Steph as tears welled up in my eyes. Then came the Sanguis, which i was deeply relieved to see still came in pre-apportioned li'l cups that i'd have a harder time screwing up. The coup de gras of the odd event, though, came at the Offering. As the Collection Plate neared us, i noticed that Annie had magically acquired a dollar bill (modestly folded into a square) and some sundry change. i-- by rote-- took the Plate and held it out to her as though she would somehow know what to do with it. She looked at me like i'd just visibly lost the last vestige of my sanity. But after some desperate hand signals on my part, she finally plunked the dollar in. Suddenly realizing the purpose of her Granny's otherwise-generous donation, she immediately grabbed her purse and stuffed the handful of change inside--like a squirrel who's just realized that winter has arrived a few months early-- with the hope, i guess, of stumping destiny. It worked. i was laughing so violently in forced silence, i nearly cried. i put my head on Steph's shoulder and rocked trying to keep it down.

Finally we came to the Sermon, and the feller was smooth. He spoke on the last sentence of the Lord's Prayer, apparently tying up a series on it. The choreography was tastefully done, his voice even and mellow; ne'er loosed he an unpracticed "Uh." He doled out the barbed gibes for levity (not too many, not too many) and then immediately softened 'em with an ingratiating smile. He took off his jacket to a fitting scripture ("If someone takes your cloak..."). we came, at the end, back to the first sentence of the Prayer to find it folded back 'round on itself to form a continuous tube, whereafter we beseeched one another "On Bended Knee" to respond to the invitation. our release came after a moving quotation of Jim McGuiggin, and we shuffled off to "India Palace" for a Hindi lunch buffett. On the whole, it was one of the oddest Sundays i'd gone through in quite some while. It was--quirkiness notwithstanding--awfully good to be in the presence of other believers. It struck me that it didn't matter so much whether we fellowshipped as deeply as we might have under different circumstances in the light of not really having fellowshipped at all for so long. i guess it's become a little clearer to me the long, hard, battering road to unwilling passivity; and from passivity, the very short step to religious nuttiness. i'm sure i could get used to a wanly titrated fellowship over no fellowship at all.

And the Indian food afterwards makes a very nice garnish.

"If you don't have anything nice to say..."

i'll apologize to those among my readers who could still care a bit less whether i blog or not. i guess i've been going through something of a 3/4 life crisis in the last few weeks. (i'm sure i've been going through my mid-lifer since i was twenty.) Several incidents have either occured or failed to occur with such impeccable timing that i've been left reeling-- and speechless. It's a funny phenomenon that just when i'm sure that life can't get any more irritating, that the world can't get any weirder, that people couldn't be any more arbitrary or senseless, they always find a little more energy for just that. i'm afraid i've never been as confused or cynical as i am presently-- and that's saying a lot: i don't remember ever not being confused or cynical.

All that notwithstanding, i'll turn this into a tribute to Steph. She is, as always, a very solid rock in this ridiculous river. And she just blessed me with a second cup of coffee, beautiful woman.

i very much hope soon to be writing about warmer, fuzzier synapses. 'Till then, please forgive the pauses.