It was a really good recipe--beans, tomatoes, zucchini, corn, and spices. We ate it out of black bowls. On the bedroom floor, next to the box spring and mattress we slept on without a frame. A friend, soon to die, had given it to us.
We had a bag of thick salty Bearitos corn chips. I think we drank water. And for our listening pleasure, what other than the classic "War Ensemble" would ever do? "The final swing is not a drill!!"
(Actually that was getting to be the end of the metal road for me. I was due to discover Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett.)
I don't know why I was thinking about that this morning. Maybe because it was a time of beginnings. A particular kind of freedom which was not about autonomy or self-determination but about not having the least idea what came next and not caring. Soon that feeling would be gone.
I had it for a moment, though. Just a moment. That moment.
#
My daughter had a dream last night.
She told me: there was a bomb in the house, and we were all running to get out, but my father (who doesn't actually live with us IRL) realized he wasn't going to make it. "So he went down to the basement," she reported. "And the bomb went off and we thought he died. But then we heard his voice. And he got some splinters, and he got blackened from the explosion, but he was okay."
Just when you think there's no collective unconscious.
In metaphor, that is my father's story.
When the bomb hit, he knew he'd never get away. So he went to ground. And he was scarred, but he lived.
There's a whole silent army of people like that. Those of us who know them live half in their shadows and half in the light. When you're young, that can be odd; you don't understand why the world feels different when you're with them.
You're not in the world anymore. You're in their world.
The final swing is not a drill.
