Friday 4 September 2015

Red Boots On


Everywhere I could see was blue and grey. The grey above was pale like cement and dark as coal in the moments marking tears gathering, moving through the sky, swelling up and emptying through hours of the day. The blue surrounding was the deep and affected waters of the spinel gemstone sea. I was as tiny as the head of a pin in the vast blue body, being pulled up and pulled down with the rise and fall of tower block waves. I was far out. There was no land to look for but blue waters as far as the eye could see. The waves did not crash but carried me up and up and up and down down down down down and up and up and down down down again. In a sliver of wake life as the chord whipped and brushed me against my pillow I realised i was dreaming. I felt sick from the motion. In some parallel thread in my mind, I acknowledged that this dream was making my physical body sick. I could not clasp my pillow for balance… for earth… for I… was in the sea and far from my bed. I surrendered to the rise and fall.  As the waves carried me up and back down I caught view of a spec in the far off distance. Something unusual. Something that did not belong. I could only see it when the waters fell. It might be worth noting as well that the ocean that I was in was up on a hill.  How this works I do not know but whenever the water would fall, I would find myself looking down the watery hill to spot what I came to see as a small square wooden house…. appearing, disappearing and reappearing with the rolling waves. It came to me then, suddenly, that I was surrounded by a small group of friends.  We were all out to sea. We knew somehow that there was a young woman inside the house who would surely need rescue. In an instant and without awareness, I was transported from the water to a seated position on a wood floor of some bedroom struggling to pull on my red cowboy boots. I walked a cement road lined with succulents and palm trees (very Laurel Canyon) toward the house out to sea and the girl trapped inside. From the top of the hill looking down the rocky desert soil, over the thorny tips of the century plants and down to the water,  I could see that the little square house was miles from the shore. I could see that the water had calmed down and laid placid. I could also see that there was a long and trusty dock stretching its spine from the rocky shore to the very heart of the small wooden house. The storm had passed. The vision of the long dock, sure and standing above the waters brought me a sense of peace, a sense of resolve and I knew in my mind that the girl inside that house was safe. I took a deep breath. I stopped my walking. I surrendered my pursuit. My stomach settled and I felt well again. 

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