Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 12:30 PM
In my dream...
Back when I was sure the only instrument these hands would hold would be a scalpel, I had a recurring dream. A goofy dream that I never dared share because it had nothing to do with medicine or biomedical engineering or mathematics or any of the stuff I was surely meant to be forever involved with in my life. It was a dream I visited whenever I was overwhelmed, or anxious, or simply bored with the task at hand.
In my dream I sit on a three-legged stool with the heel of my boot hooked over the highest rung and the fray at the bottom of my jeans just skimming the snake skin leather. The sound of pool balls smacking drifts in from the next room and mingles with the quiet conversation between two old friends across the bar. In my dream I sit in the smoky room but it doesn’t sting my eyes. I feel it mix with the sweat on my bare arms and rest in the back of my throat.
In my dream I lift a cold beer to my lips with my right hand and hold tight to the neck of my guitar with the left. After a long refreshing pull, I set the bottle down and slide a pick off the sticky table beside me. In my dream I begin to play in the back of this lonesome, smoky bar. My fingers move confidently on worn wood and my pick strums an unhurried rhythm. And I begin to sing.
In my dream I sing for no one. Simply for the sake of sound. And sorrow. And release. And a hope of healing. In my dream there is a need for this and it is fulfilled. The fulfillment washes over me. In my dream.
Often it would end here and that would be enough. But sometimes the rest would come. The connection, the completion of the circuit that is how music flows. The conversation ceases between bartender and buddy. The pool cues hold steady for a moment as players register the music. One heart opens to the bending tones and others fall like dominoes into the blanket of sound and sorrow. And for one moment we are all completely present, completely entwined. In that moment I have a sense that I am where I belong.
This dream found it’s way into my mind long before Matthew’s Martin found it’s way into my arms. Long before I sat in a broken down house in the mountains to write “new shoes”. I retreated into this dream back when I was still certain I would heal people with medicine. I wonder how far I might’ve traveled from my truth…dreaming it, longing for it but never knowing it was mine…if the universe hadn’t sent a big old freight train crashing into my living room forcing me out onto the uncharted and ever so real world where I could realize if just for a moment that tomorrow is not a guarantee and I could turn finally and face the Truth and in that one moment leap into the abyss.
I leapt. I landed on a three-legged stool in the back of a dusty bar and I have seen no need to look back.