The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Yearning Has Faded

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Such feelings come and go,
as tides from an unseen sea
touch, spread, then withdraw.

San Francisco, Spring 1982: In the house on Tenth Avenue that I shared with Quinlan the photographer, I had a dream one night, that I saw Carolyn my high-school sweetheart. I’d like to say she came to me and that she cared for me, but she just passed nearby with a glance. And I was filled to overflowing with yearning. I awoke, and the dream left me with the yearning, as if it had been yesterday.

Last night, I had another dream …

As I crossed the street in front of the English building, I saw the Beatles in a large open Cadillac convertible parked across the street, along with three other musicians in tuxedos whom they had added for the concert. The new musicians had orchestra instruments, but they were singing along with the Beatles, a complex, multipart harmony. It was quite lovely

By the time I’d crossed the street, the car had become a bus. Good thing, as there were so many of them in the vehicle. The bus door was open, so I climbed in and sat in the first seat. Paul waved. And then I realized that the driver, in uniform, was actually Arnold Schwartznegger, the governor of California. Apparently he was showing the Beatles around. Politics.

“Hello, Arnold,” I said, as I struggled to take off my hat, but the hat’s chin cord was caught and I had to fight with it, and then realized Arnold was scowling at me. Maybe I’d been too familiar. “I mean, hello, Mr. Schwartzenegger,” I said, “Is that better?”

His expression told me it was better. Apparently, despite his behavior when he was Conan the Barbarian, Arnold is a guy who really appreciates proper manners.

And then as I mused on this, I found myself sitting at a table in a dim cafe, almost deserted. A cup of coffee sat cooling, I had the funny papers from the newspaper, and the late-afternoon light slanted in through the window across the room. I glanced up to see that at the next table, the Beatles, and everybody who had been sitting there, were all gone.

The light from the window had faded, it was hard to see clearly, and the comics were not very interesting.

A Tiny Miracle on Napa Street

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Lacunae — blind spots —
like black cats prowling midnight,
but just out of sight.

Napa Street, Berkeley, Summer 1977: In Christine’s room, Richard W. and I were yakking about nothing in the late morning. The windows were open; the day would be warm. A fat fly buzzed lazily around Richard where he lounged on the floor beneath the window.

Our talk turned to magic and miracles. He’d seen some; I’d seen some. I was relating a strange experience in England. How magic can happen in an instant, with no sense of effort, and as though something else is acting through you. I’d felt it before. It feels natural, more natural than most days’ living; it’s hard to describe.

“It was as if, suddenly, there’s a kind of a wave, and you’re being carried along. You’re caught up,” I said, trying to capture it.

He looked dubious.

Suppose I said, to the fly …

A Fat Fly Buzzed Around.

“It’s like this,” I said. I pointed to the fly. “Suppose I said to that fly, ‘Come here.’”

The fly flew across the room, and landed on my finger.

“And then suppose I said, ‘Fly out the window.’”

The fly took off, flew past Richard and out the window.

And it was so …

Richard gaped. I nodded. It had come; it had gone. I felt no sense of triumph, or strength; it wasn’t exactly me that did it. It felt … right. At the time, it seemed inevitable.

Is this something that’s always in us, waiting to emerge? Or does it pass through humanity like a wind through the boughs? Why does it appear seemingly only at great need, or, like today, in no need at all? Is it a matter of attention, or, like conscious dreaming, a matter of exactly the right amount of inattention? What is it?

These things — miracles, epiphanies, synchronicities — surround us, like nebulae of faeries, visable and hiding in plain sight. Magic breathes into and out of our world, transient lacunae, trailing thin and smoky tracks like cosmic rays in this cloud chamber we call Earth.

A blink of the mind; they are gone.

 

 
 

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