I Want To Live Like I Know What I'm Leaving

I’ve never experienced more often than in San Diego, that sudden, surreal sense of complete wonderment like you get when you’re having a lucid dream and you are unexpectedly aware that you’re dreaming even as you do it. You’re just existing along in an other-dimensionly state, then it’s like, “Wait… what? I’m where? Oh wow!” It’s a very weird feeling – like you’re not sure what to believe is real or part of your imagination. Of course, really, it’s ALL part of your imagination, but that abrupt insight that perhaps NONE of this is real – awake or asleep, no matter which direction you look - will shake your psyche up, sometimes gently and sometimes not. I’ll bet it’s similar to waking up from a coma (not that I have any wish to have a personal point of comparison on that one!).

The thing I’m talking about happens when I’m entirely awake – well, in as much as life is “an awake dream.” It sneaks up on me and pounces… I’m just doing something mundane (usually driving) and suddenly I’m all “OMG, I LIVE in California. [Like this is news to me.] I LIVE here. Like EVERY DAY. And I’m HAPPY.” I don’t know how else to describe it besides some kind of spiritual awakening. Maybe it’s the happy part that shocks me the most. I don’t think I’ve ever been so consistently happy, but then I’ve also never had so much time to do whatever the hell I want either. I’m a little afraid that will change when I have to go back to work, but I’m not considering that right now at any length.

Making it doubly odd (to me at least) is that these thoughts sometimes come in the middle of a day where I feel I’ve accomplished nothing, and I’m getting a bit depressed over some trivial matters. I’m headed down an ugly spiral when all Thought pauses on a step, then an updraft like this hits me and deposits me with a rude thunk at the top of the staircase. I sit there rubbing my third eye like I’ve just been poked awake by the Gods. Hmmm. What was it I was busy getting upset about? Oh, nevermind.

It’s not the fact of my geographical location that puts me in awe (well, a little, because energies are different in different places and this just happens to be a place I jive with), it’s that I’m actually DOING something that once seemed almost impossible – certainly I had no plan and no assured funding when I set out on this path, but here I am and I’m still surviving. (And ever, ever so slowly chipping away at the debt I made getting here.)

Moving here started as a radical idea (so was New Jersey so apparently radical ideas work for me) and I’ve brought it to reality and I’m doing it. I’m still not quite sure how, but it's happening. I’m still here. No one has knocked down my door and said YOU MUST STOP THIS RIGHT NOW. Kind of like when you first move out of your parents’ house and suddenly realize if you want to eat ice cream for breakfast, no one is going to invade the kitchen and say, “No you can’t.” Or even “No you shouldn’t.” (And hell yeah – that’s why I still eat ice cream or brownies or cake or pancakes [oh wait...] for breakfast sometimes!)

I know I’m successful like this in plenty of smaller ways – often even – but moving somewhere and LIVING there and not needing anyone else’s help (at age 40 you’d think this would be normal, but I suppose I never got over that) is still sometimes a shock. Like hey, I actually CAN do this and I’m not going to die! Awesome!

I’m not sure how long living in California has been a dream even – certainly it’s not one of those life-long things because I only really started thinking about it a couple years ago. Or maybe I’m wrong; when my mother and I traveled to San Francisco when I was in 6th grade, I knew there was something special about this state even back then because it’s one of those memories I recall often and clearly. But I don’t remember craving living here (or at least knowing if I moved again, California would be the goal) until a few years back.

The smallest things usually set off the feeling. Noticing how many cars have surf-related stickers on the back. Or driving along The 5 (local lingo for Interstate 5) and seeing the vast expanse of ocean off to the side. Sitting in a coffee shop I’ve read about in a blog or hearing of something happening in LA and knowing I'm close enough that if I wanted to attend, it's an option. Weird!

I’ve often thought of these feelings as being like living in a movie. Maybe that’s why they have such an impact on me. I mean don’t we all really want to live a Hollywood life 24 hours a day deep down? Hollywood makes everything so flawless and the story almost always has a happy ending, right? Who doesn’t want that?

Well I haven’t reached some of the happy endings I’ve had normal “conscious” dreams about yet, but I’m working on them. Trouble with those is that when they don’t come to fruition in the timeline I plan, it causes stress or worry unless I can convince myself enough that stress and worry are futile and if I’m not getting what I expected, then the timing just isn’t right yet. (It’s one thing to know this in your head, quite another to convince your heart.)

But these unconscious dream-goals – are they really dreams or are they a sudden awareness, that hey – you are right where you are meant to be in that moment? But aren’t we always right where we’re meant to be in any given moment? I mean the Universe works perfectly, so why wouldn’t we be? What makes SOME of those most seemingly insignificant moments so powerful while the events that you’ve consciously worked for don’t elicit the same reaction?

Whatever it is, I’m glad they happen.

I’m actually sitting in the car outside the grocery store typing this in a very cramped, uncomfortable position because for once I have the computer with me when good blog material crystalized in my head. Ironically, I spent four hours prior to now in two different coffee shops trying to get inspired to write something. All I got was severely caffeinated. What a thing. Maybe I should haul the Mac around with me more often cuz I never lack for thoughts to share, it’s just that the ideas seem to evaporate when I’m within easy reach of the keyboard. The car, the shower, the toilet (oh yes) are when I get inspired. Imagine. But there’s nowhere to record the thoughts when you’re stuck in such places and they slip back into the ether like so many drops of rain in the Pacific.

Fortunately this time I was prepared so I’m glad to be sharing this, however, I’d better go get my groceries before the store closes or before they send the cops over to check out what the chick in a parking lot is doing on the computer. Surely it’s porn! Or witchcraft! Or worse! People are so suspicious of anything outside “the norm.” Pity. That’s usually where all the good stuff happens.

Soundtrack: Awakening by Switchfoot

Dog Karma

I was in Hoboken the other night with my friend Jessica to pick up a coffee table she bought for her new apartment. Jess told me Karma Cafe was a good place to eat when we passed it. I'm in that "must explore everything in this area before I leave" mode so I took Katy and her friend Amy back Saturday night to check it out. I thought "cafe" meant it would be like a coffeehouse with light fare, but turns out it's an Indian restaurant. Fortunately, Katy and I like Indian food. It was a new experience for Amy, but she seemed okay with it.

Quick restaurant review: Love the name of the place, but thought it much better for a coffeehouse than Indian. That's just me tho. Food wasn't bad (all three of us had Tikka Masala Chicken), but even though I was really hungry, it wasn't as good as Mela in Ridgewood. The chai was mediocre. Naan was a little too much like Native American fry bread. Atmosphere was only a 5 outta 10 because they had a bar with a TV over it. I'm all for alcohol served in restaurants, but it just doesn't jive with Indian fare for me. Also, if we hadn't been sitting in the window seat, my eyes would've strayed to the TV too often and I've never found that to make for a good dining experience. The waiter was really nice though, and the service was okay. If you're looking for Indian food in Hoboken though, I'd recommend Bombay West over Karma Cafe.

Now back to our previous tale...

As we were finishing, a guy walked up with an elderly dog that looked very much like Jazz, except the air about this dog was totally dejected. It looked miserable and slumped on the ground while waiting. The guy had come by once before while we ate, presumably to order food, and I guess this time he was there to retrieve it. He tied the leash to the railing before he came in.

We paid our bill and walked out, stopping to see if the dog was friendly enough to pet. It cowered in front of us, and that made me really sad. I wanted to give the dog some Reiki and good energy, but suddenly it was like my attention was ripped away and I couldn't focus because I was having a freaky deja vu.

It covered the time from walking out of the restaurant to walking away, but my awareness of it started when I bent to pet the dog. It came in this surreal rush, like two realities playing out at the same time in my brain - one in the present moment at normal speed, the other recorded earlier playing in fast forward. Everything seemed to happen twice but at the same time, and for a couple seconds I didn't feel quite like I was physically present in either space, just suspended between worlds - A Wrinkle in Time, if you will.

I could clearly remember dreaming the whole scenario (after some thought, it was probably around Thanksgiving in 2006), and I also remembered that in the dream I knew we were moving to California with certainty. That detail was clear because I woke up thinking it was strange that I would dream of moving there since Santa Fe was the first choice of place to move at the time. Mark and I had even discussed it. I brushed it off tho as just part of a dream.

On the sidewalk, my mind raced ahead trying to remember other nuances of the dream, as if I wanted to predict the future. In the dream, I'm pretty sure there was a stranger who said something to me about California, which is what made me aware that I knew we were moving there, but that didn't happen in the real life moment. It may have if I'd stuck around a few more minutes - maybe the dog owner would have said something to that effect - but I felt oddly panicky like I was stuck in this weird space and the only way to break the illusion was to walk away, so I told the girls to come on and we left. That ended the deja vu.

This kind of thing has happened to me before, but it never freaked me out quite like this. Most people experience a normal deja vu and it's just a cool phenomenon to them. I used to have those, but in high school I started remembering dreaming the scenes I was having the deja vu about. When it would happen, I was pissed that I couldn't prove (to myself or others) that I'd dreamt the very same thing, so for a long time I wrote down every dream I had. After awhile I gave up recording my Dreaming unless it was something truly out of the ordinary. Not being able to prove anything was probably the Universe saying, "Oh yeah? How's that working for you? Are you done yet?"

Thinking about this makes me wonder if the experience of deja vu is like jumping from one life path to another. Forgive me if I've written this before, but the best analogy of Life I've ever read was in Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (of course I can't find the page to cite now - maybe it was Celestine Prophecy?), where he describes life as being like a video game on a CD. All the possibilities of where you can go and what actions you can take already exist on the CD. As the player, you are only choosing which path to take through the game.

I think we all have free will, but I also believe there are some milestones in life that we set up before we enter this reality, and we will reach them no matter which road we choose. (Have I said that too? I repeat myself a lot.) Your daily decisions probably make subtle changes to your path that go mostly unnoticed, but you'd think a major shift would be marked with some magnificent crescendo moment in life. I would not consider petting a dog a spiritual left turn at Albuquerque, but maybe that's where my path realigned for California. Who knows. Certainly felt like an etheric earthquake at the time.

Oddly (or not), while searching Google to find if I was attributing the CD analogy to the correct book, I came across this page:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/articles004.html

This is a fantastic summation of elementary physics and how it relates to out of body experiences. I don't believe I had anything like a near death experience, but I found it interesting and relevant all the same. I like his idea that death is just losing your notion of time and space. I've always said time is only a human agreement anyway, and that's why I have such trouble abiding by the clock.

Green Day

In honor of St. Party's Day, do yourself a favor and go buy some decent music to drink to:

http://www.tartanic.net

These guys are more fun than Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan's panties have seen in a half a decade. Book them for your next party. Trust me on this. You have no idea until you've experienced it.

God save the Queen!

~*~

Last night we watched the first part (and half of the second part) of the TV mini-series John Adams. It’s pretty good but I’ve had to stop and explain some things to Katy. We’re kind of funny watching this together because despite my interest in Renaissance Faires and Colonial Williamsburg I’ve always been historically-challenged (meaning I can’t remember shit about dates and people in history). Katy remembers the facts better than I do having been in school more recently, and I can explain the psychology behind the plot points and the subtle innuendos of the dialog, so between the two of us we’re able to figure out what’s going on if we stop it every so often and explain things to each other. It’s like the blind leading the blind. Good thing neither one of us is blonde or we’d be a couch cliché.

This mini-series caused a weird dream last night though. I guess it was actually this morning between the time when the alarm first went off and when I suddenly fully remembered that it was Monday and I had to go to work, causing me to bolt out of bed like a ball shot from one of their old-fashioned cannons. I hate when that happens.

Most of my dreams are experienced from a combination of first and third person. I see the scene as if I was watching a movie, but I feel the emotions and experience the action as if it was happening to me in real time, and I know things intrinsically. If only I could figure out how to do this in waking reality, I could claim my deification. (That word looks like defecation – probably because it’s all bullshit. Hahaha)

The scene was obviously inspired by the show we were watching – it was like looking at a colonial village of cookie-cutter houses all lined up at a distance, except there were wispy pirate ships hovering above each house with billowing sails illuminated by a golden color moonlight. Each ship was anchored to a chimney by rising smoke and they all looked pretty much the same, just like the houses did. I presumed at first the smoke came from a fire below, however, upon closer inspection (by flying in? teleporting? just knowing? I have no clue) I saw that the smoke was actually coming from the people sleeping in the houses, and I understood that it was dreams which were creating the hovering luminescent vessels. I thought it was weird that everyone would have the same dream.

Somehow my thoughts connected the ships to Peter Pan and I was back outside examining them a little closer. They seemed to be covered in a flowing, dark green chiffon material, which I observed should’ve been Hollywood-creepy, but wasn’t. I thought it was some kind of seaweed. I remember thinking in the dream that it was weird of me to think of Peter Pan because it’s not often that particular Disney movie comes to mind. As soon as I focused my thoughts on Peter Pan, he appeared, swooping around the top masts of the ships, trailing light like a comet, and that’s when I woke up like I’d been hit with lightning.

:shrug:

Weirder than the dream is this afternoon when I went to post the link to Tartanic above, and I saw that someone new had commented on my blog (thanks Diana!). I go to check out her blog and her last entry mentions Peter Pan.

:cue Twilight Zone music:

More iROny

Isn't it funny that we need something this big:

Large Hadron Collider at CERN

to find subatomic particles so small that we haven't been able to prove they exist yet? (Did you see the GUY standing in the middle of that thing? Look toward the middle bottom.)

Another question came to me last night when I couldn't stop my Monkey Mind from flinging poo long enough to get any sleep: If there are such strict rules about the disposal of bio-medical waste (picture those little red containers with the hazard symbol on them), why is it okay to give cremated human remains back to the family in an unsealed urn?

And how gross is it when people spread those ashes over some outside place and the wind catches them? The next time you leave your house, you could literally be breathing someone in, and not in a romantic, hot-breath-on-the-nape-of-your-neck kind of way. Ech.

~*~

Speaking of the smog of humanity, I finally updated my blog about our recent trip to LA/Hollywood to include pictures. Yay!

~*~

Oh yes, I promised a recounting of my weird dream.

In my dream I was in Tempe, Arizona driving along the Salt River (it was to my right). I was in a black sports car and I was going kind of fast because sports cars do that to me. (I totally blame Speed Racer, my favorite cartoon as a kid. I'm sure my name is Trixie in another lifetime.)

I took a sharp right turn onto what I thought was a bridge because it arched over the river, however, once I was speeding up the "bridge" I saw that it was actually a piece of art. It was a sandstone-colored, tube-like arch, and I was traveling along the outside of the tube. The car was kind of wobbling because the tube was not as wide as the car, but the tire edges were catching just enough traction to keep me careening along the edge. I knew I couldn't hit the brakes or I'd fall into the river.

As I crested the arch I saw in the middle there was a big black sphere connecting the two sides. I knew the tires would lose grip as I passed over the sphere so I gunned it and took off through the air, like any good Mach 5 would've done (because Newtonian physics don't apply in the Dreamtime; pity it didn't make the cool noise).

I had that feeling in my stomach you get on roller coasters as you head down the big hill and I couldn't tell if I would make it across the river or not, but I knew if I hit the water instead of the land on the other side, I would die so I was trying to concentrate really hard on making the car go far enough to hit land.

And then I woke up.

TWICE.

It's like I tried to finish the dream the second time and the Universe said, "Oh no you don't - no peeking! Wake up!"

The symbology is pretty obvious with my recent stress, and I've had dreams before where it felt so much like I was there I woke up in a panic, but this one really freaked me out because both times I felt like waking up was causing me to die in the dream. Like if I had only stayed asleep another few seconds I would've been able to will the car across far enough to hit land and survive, but because I woke up, I lost concentration and I knew I would die in the dream even though I didn't see it happen.

It makes me wonder if the reason I'm worried about the coastal decision is because this is one of those major etheric crossroads where realities branch out in different directions, never to meet on this conscious plane again. I know that even if I chose to stay on the East coast for another year, it's not like I couldn't go to California later, but I think if I wait I'll be following an entirely different path, if that makes any sense.

I absolutely believe we create our own realities, but I also believe there are certain inevitable, unavoidable milestones our higher selves set up for us along the way. These are things that are unaffected by our decisions - we may choose how we reach them, but reach them we will. Then we can choose again how to move on from there. Trouble is, I feel nothing less than Happiness itself is hanging in the balance.

What? Too dramatic? At least I'm learning to listen to my intuition instead of blowing it off.

Tied Up In Nots

I dunno what the universe is trying to tell me but this is freaking me out a bit. Yesterday afternoon a friend and I are walking through the kitchen section of Kohl’s department store, and she says there’s all this kitchen stuff she wants that she can’t afford. I jokingly suggest she marry her boyfriend then, because the only reason I see to get married is for the great kitchen stuff you receive as gifts.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. Another friend is dropping off his guinea pigs for us to babysit because he’ll be on a trip for the next five days. His girlfriend is moving in with him and he starts talking about looking for A Ring. I was concerned because he hasn’t known the girl that long so I gently offered my opinion that he should take one step at a time and see how things go living together before moving forward. I think his biological clock is just ticking too loud.

Fast forward again to 5am this morning. I’m having a dream that Mark and I are discussing what to do that evening for fun when we both remember ‘oh my gosh, we’re supposed to get married tonight!’ Because that’s something people often forget they made plans for. :rolls eyes at self: The same rules of life don’t apply in dreams though, as we all know.

So he goes to do whatever men do before their weddings, and I go to get my dress from another room. While I’m alone in the room I’m thinking I really don’t want to do this and I’m regretting that I agreed to it, but I feel I have to go through with it because the ball is already rolling. People will be showing up any time and canceling a wedding at the last minute is BAD, and I can’t leave Mark standing at the altar like that. I’ve always been very good at making sure other people are happy (even in my dreams), but really bad at making sure I’m happy too.

So I have the same argument with myself in my head in the dream that I’ve had in my head in real life. It’s not that I don’t love him, it’s that I feel marriage is like living in a cage. When you’re married, if the marriage is not working, people feel more obligated to beat a dead horse instead of just calling a spade a spade and going your separate ways. Plus there’s all this extra untangling of physical property and legal issues. Untangling your emotions is hard enough. I believe if you really love someone you’ll stay together because you love Being with each other, not because you have some binding legal agreement, so I really don’t understand what the point of a wedding is anyway. You can plan a party to celebrate your love and even dress up if you want anytime. If you're rich enough, you'll only be called "eccentric" instead of crazy. And who cares if people think you're crazy anyway? If you're having a good time, that's what counts. In a relationship, the spiritual bond means far more to me than any physical piece of paper. You weave it together from love and emotion; you don't write it down and sign in ink like a contract.

So back to the dream: I call my mother on the phone to cry on her shoulder and ask her advice. As happens in dreams, I already know that she’s not coming to the wedding (not because she doesn’t want to), and this is also upsetting me because of old issues about her working so much when I was a kid and only ever being available on the phone (at least that part of the dream was easy to figure out!), but I’m not addressing that issue with her.

I had started whining to her how I hate to be tied down when I actually woke up in a cold sweat. The sheets were damp, my tshirt was soaked, and my arm was completely asleep. I was still feeling all the emotion of the dream too, the anxiety and crying and dread. It was awful. I hate when dream emotions follow you back into reality.

I tried to calm down and go back to sleep after changing my shirt. I’m not sure if I was more disturbed by the dream itself or the message of the dream. I figure I probably had the dream because I had mentioned weddings twice that day. Mark and I haven’t been discussing getting married at all, and have no intention to. Maybe I’m worried about letting go enough that I can move to California. I really do want to live out west again. Like I said, I’m great at making everyone else happy, not so great at making sure I’m happy.

Anyway, just to tie the knot at the end of this experience string, I come into work this morning and make myself a mug o’ chai. In the kitchen there is a notice tacked to the bulletin board that a store in Fairview, NJ is having a clearance sale on ALL WEDDING GOWNS.

At this point I just feel like yelling into the cosmos, “WHAT AND THE FUCK IS YOUR POINT?”