Something else was in the air yesterday. Because of the extreme cold and snow, I stayed in the office rather than going out and about as usual. A feeling happened that was like a cabin-fever, but instead of a cooped-up, let me out-of-here craziness, it was an expansion that pushed against the walls and made everything feel bigger and looser, right where they were. Mostly looser. It had the effect of softening restraints, loosening tongues, mine and everyone else's. I ended up giving rein, and uncharacteristically divulged some information that I normally wouldn't. A little coloring outside the lines. A little revving-up inside the idle.
Fast forward, later in the day. Husband came to exchange cars with me so he could assess what was going on with the bizarre acceleration. A few blocks away the same thing happened to him--idle, rev, lurch, and there's your run-away car. Under the hood, a hose was busted and stuff was leaking all over. Then it wouldn't start. Triple A on the way. Can I come and pick him up?
It occurred to me, in the telling of this to my co-worker (while putting on layers of down and wool before going out the door), how it wasn't me stuck on the freeway with a busted car, holding up traffic or causing accidents, and how it wasn't my husband in the same situation, but pulled over and waiting nicely inside for a tow truck, and how it wasn't either one of us on our way to an emergency room or, god forbid, entering a tunnel filled with dazzling light. How both of us would still get to work on our projects, fill up our days, become grandparents. All of this joined with the loose pathways of the day, and I felt a bit giddy; then for some reason giddy spilled over unchecked, like Jupiter without restraints. WE WERE ALIVE, GOL DANG IT, (just think what could have happened in that car on the freeway...), and I would insist we go out for dinner, to celebrate being alive, to celebrate a first grandchild, to celebrate expansion and daring, to celebrate the harmoniousness of our car falling apart. All of this I announced on my way out the door as I left work early. "Yes," my boss said, "Do it!"
The restaurant was packed and noisy. Very yuppie-like, with high prices, original art of long- necked women with bare breasts, waiters sipping something that looked like brandy, a tall, lanky black musician drinking white wine in between songs. He reminded me of the 70's. And his songs did, too: Dylan, Beatles, Hendrix. We ordered a Monte Volpe Italian Blend red wine with a nice appetizer--scallops with navy beans and pork confit shoulder. Halfway through my first glass of wine I expansively instructed the waiter to deliver another white wine to the musician. The crooner was nostalgically reaching my inner recesses of long-ago places filed under cast your spell on me baby, johnnie be good, and imagine there's no heaven. When dinner came it was chicken breast with root vegetables, spinach and maple sausage. A decision weighed in the balance, but the grandness of the day won out and, like an engine revving without brakes or cares, I ordered another glass of Monte Volpe. We dined, drank, got silly, savored. We toasted to our broken car, and lavished praise on everything we could think of. On the way out, past the musician, Oh my, look at my life, I'm a lot like you are.... And then, a blast of cold air.
Granted, it was only two glasses of wine, but as a sensitive Piscean fish who started out with an empty stomach and usually swims carefully, I felt a little....affected. When I finally lay with head on pillow, mirth was curiously vanquished. The day went spinning; I was too loose at work, I drank too much wine, I spent too much money, this car thing is major, I shouldn't be celebrating, ...And this all accompanied me, troubled, as I fell asleep.
The dream: I was a hosting a large social gathering and was also the nurse in charge there. I realized with a sinking feeling that I had given the wrong med to the wrong patient. It was a cucumber supplement. I started to berate myself, and got that black, awful feeling in the pit of my stomach of having done something wrong. But then I realized how ludicrous it was to get freaked out by having given someone a cucumber supplement by mistake--(unless they are allergic to cucumbers) (but it's a cucumber for god's sake)--and how if I called the doc to report the error he would think I was crazy for calling. I started to look up 'cucumber supplement' in the PDR just to make sure it was harmless. Then I saw the tray of meds and realized they were all scheduled to be given at 1:00 and I was RIGHT ON TIME. Not only was I right on time, but I realized the mature thing to do was to let go of this small, insignificant incident of the cucumber supplement. So not only was I RIGHT ON TIME but I was also RIGHT ON TRACK. Scrupulosity: Busted! What a rocking dream!
Then I woke up with a headache (the wine). I looked at my Ask And It Is Given flip calendar and it said: "There is nothing that you cannot be, do, or have; and we want to assist you in achieving that. But we love where you are right now, even if you do not, because we understand how joyful the journey to where you want to go will be." I thought about my dream. The car. The night before. And I got it. (Or, more accurately, got more of it.)
It is not the divulging of too much or too little, or being too happy or too sad, or feeling too loose or too tight, or coloring outside the lines, or never even taking the crayons out of the box, or drinking too much wine, or having no wine at all. It is not those things. Rather, it is that one conditioned, unconscious, tiny little thought that begins to build the CASE AGAINST whatever it is. Too little, too much, too this, too that. Before you know it, a whole complex is built.
Stop! It is what it is. Let. It. Be.
Quite an interesting and unusual ride....yesterday. It took awhile for things to come full circle in my head--the car trouble, the loose connections, the filled-up-full excesses, the dream. I decided my run-away car engine was a metaphor for certain kinds of thought processes--you know, the Judge Judy ones, the ones that are just....too something, too this, too that. Anyway, that's how I'm looking at it.
It's always good to take something away, so I'm taking this away from yesterday: Do not judge an engine revving without brakes or cares. And do not judge anything else either.
