Someone Else's Dream

(Image "Masquerade" by Thomas Barbey)

Last night I had the strangest dream. I woke up from it sobbing in grief, but it wasn't my dream.

Of course, it was a bubble from my own subconscious, but it's just flotsam, or empathy, for an old acquaintance I spoke with last night on the phone.

Should I tell you my dream, or should I tell you the horrible Job-like story of my acquaintance's life? Let's start with the dream.

The Dream
I was in a hardware store talking with a friendly old man wearing little, round, thick-lensed glasses. He and I traded glasses and I realized I could see through his. We were laughing about that, but I was thinking, "Wow, my eyesight is as bad as an 85-year-old man's!"


Then his wife came up to me then, peered at me closely and said, "What are you, about 50?" All I could say was "No!" but instead of volunteering my true age, I walked away, into the back room and burst into tears.

That's when I woke up crying.

I have always looked younger than my true age. The paradigm I am used to in such encounters is that I volunteer my age and people don't believe me, they think I am much younger.

My mother was the same way, so young-looking she could  get away with lying about her age by 10 years or more. Which she did until the time came when she was prouder of her good health than of her beauty.

Whose Dream It Really Was
This acquaintance of mine is someone I knew in junior high and young adulthood. I lost touch with her or a decade or two and then found her again about three years ago.

I know it's not possible for someone to be cursed, but this woman's life is a string of such terrible stories that it seems almost supernatural.

I do know that we bring many things upon ourselves through the choices we make. And that our attitude dictates how these experiences will be processed into our identity.

Many of the things that have happened to her over the years were her own fault, but the consequences now are so tremendous it seems like overkill, like the Biblical story of the boils and griefs that God and the devil afflicted Job with to test his faith.

Now she lives a quiet life and isn't harming anyone, but her health problems are overwhelming. The latest chapter in her saga is, all at the same time, congestive heart failure, an unsightly skin condition, an antibiotic-resistant staff infection and now, allopecia. Her hair is falling out.

A Wake of Tragedies
Her life history consists of a trail of sudden deaths and suicides in her wake. I could tell 10 tragic stories here, but this post would be too long.

She visits someone, she begins talking to them, she gets involved in their lives and starts giving them her twisted point of view, overriding their own opinions, giving them books to read, generalizing about men, society, politics, religion.

Her views are encased in wry humor, she seems simply edgy, but she is twisting the knife, digging out insecurities, finding evidence to support her view.

If the person she is talking to is vulnerable or wounded (they always are), their hope begins to dwindle.

If they don't get away from her as fast as possible, they soon die, either in an accident or by their own hand. In one case, someone murdered someone else before they committed suicide.

I'm not making this up and I am not exaggerating.I have seen it with my own eyes, over and over. She leaves a trail of death in her wake.

Beauty as a Weapon
Once she was rather pretty, not overly so, but.attractive enough that she made extra money as a prostitute for a few years.

Maybe that is how she managed to do so much damage. Maybe it was hard for people to believe that evil could reside in a pleasant-looking young woman.

Maybe she used her beauty as a weapon so much that destiny saw fit to divest her of it. Life has not been kind to her. What beauty she may have possessed has been stripped away. She looks 20 years older than she really is, her health is failing and her hope is fading.

Left Alone
She has been left all alone with no family, no friends, no lover.She lives alone in a house in the mountains, with no companions, only 3 dogs and a TV.

She has swindled her way into a life without work, but that has left her also without purpose, and her false disability has now become a true disability; now she is not healthy or strong enough to work.

Does evil know it's evil? Because she truly doesn't know. Is she a sociopath? Maybe so. She thinks all these things have happened to her, through no fault of her own.

She is in despair, asking Why? But not listening to the answer.

Seeds of Discontent, Web of Sympathy
Part of me fears connecting with her. My instincts tell me she is dangerous. Last time I went to visit her, my son's terrible accident happened while I was away. Every time I talk to her, seeds of discontent are planted in me.

Yet I can't bring myself to stop talking to her. I feel like I am the last thread that tethers her to humanity. I try to offer gentle advice about doing things differently, changing her attitude, but I see that is not possible.

My suggestions-- move into town to be around people, get involved in activities to make friends, stop smoking, change your diet, take up yoga, get a counselor-- only make her angry.

If I stop taking her calls or if I break our connection, what if she does herself in? Then there would be a suicide in my own wake.

Playing with Fire

Someone firedancing at a party I attended last week.

At the insistence of my landlord, I had to buy renter's insurance this week. Insurance agents are so friendly, talkative and forthcoming, because they are trying to sell you something, of course.

I could add two cents here about reciprocity theory, but I know how you feel when I lapse into academic discourse. So instead I will marvel that of all the people with good stories collected up in their heads, insurance agents top the list.

Frankly, I'm surprised more of them do not become novelists. I am a writer, but I don't have any stories. What I need is an insurance agent!

Fires, floods and accidents--accidents as a result of horrendous negligence or as the result of an ordinary thoughtless moment like the ones you and I have every day. Never mind acts of God.

But it's all covered under renter's insurance: falling asleep with candles burning, adolescents hiding burning incense under the bed, using paper bags to carry out the ashes from your woodstove, tossing a bunch of solvent-soaked rags into the corner of your garage.

When I got home, I gave my son a bunch of warnings, and he asked, "Mom, don't you trust me? It's like you trust me less now that I'm older." I said, "Part of growing up is to look into the future and see possible outcomes so you can take precautions."

Not that I was very good at that myself until the awesome, overwhelming responsibility of motherhood entered my life. In fact, I lived the riskiest of young adulthoods: I was a gypsy vagabond.
On the subject of stories and outcomes, I was looking at a group on Facebook called "Grateful Dead Tour: 1980s." I was wondering whatever happened to some people I knew from my vagabond days.

Of course, people went by nicknames in those days, and we are all middle-aged now, so looking through the list of 1,500 people and their little thumbnail photos didn't help much.

There was a spot for people to post photos from back in the day, but unfortunately, a good 30 percent of the pics were of tie-dyes, ticket stubs. concert posters and acid hits. Who the hell cares about such things?

I want to see people, movement, dancing, colors, clothes, children, puppies, rosy cheeks, tents and vans.
There was also a discussion board called "Where are they now?" I read it, but it didn't bring back any good memories, quite the opposite: it reminded me how dangerous our lifestyle was.

There were so many drugs so, of course, people became junkies, sold out their friends, lost everything, died. Numerous, numerous people are dead since then, people younger than I am.

In those days, some people also sold drugs, so there is considerable lingering paranoia in those discussion threads. I learned that one of my former boyfriends just got out of prison after serving 17 years. Seventeen years --his entire blossoming prime -- behind bars!

This was a very sweet, kind guy. But last time I saw him was in summer of 1988, when he had already begun "jonesing"-- had already begun the descent into drug addiction.

As always, the difficulty lies in the fact that "drugs" is such a catch-all term. There is quite a continuum of seriousness, addictiveness, deadliness, with marijuana & magic mushrooms one one end and heroin & crack cocaine on the other. Sadly, many people don't have the critical thinking skills to do some drugs, avoid others. I thank my lucky stars I was cautious even then.

My kids like to ask me why I changed, why I am no longer a hippy, no longer "sav" (savage) as they call it. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I will always be different, a misfit. A dilettante perhaps, but I know when something is dangerous and destructive, and it's time to move on. So I move on, a lot.