These Dreams
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day*
We’re back in Los Angeles, since forever ago; the blue, blue ocean and sprawling freeways are all that I see. We landed to blistering heat and tropical torrential downpour which echoed all around us as we opened up the new books of the school year and began the beginning all over again.
Jardin Du Luxembourg, Paris
The night might be dark or the day might be bright and still I dream. Of the Seine with its perfect bridges; of delicate gardens with a Parisian flair for detail amidst the happiness of misting rain; of snatched moments with my husband and a city so steeped in the beauty of its past that my heart aches even when I wake. We drink coffees in the early morning, a family once again and sit in cafes enjoying endless lunches until evening approaches and we while away hours in an unmistakably cool apartment tucked away in the shadows of the Pantheon.
At times I feel circles closing and beginning all at the same time. Two days of magic in the city which has stalked my thoughts from the moment we left her iron embrace, a perpetual presence, and now chose to greet us as old friends. Walking, walking and then walking some more. Down avenues and through cross streets; moments on the subway towards hours with a friend whose face remained as familiar as yesterday amidst the flickering evening. We melted into the majesty of a gilded age creation and then moved steadily through muggy heat and heavy hitting raindrops, on our way into the warm arms of an old, old haunt. Whispers of time past can be heard chuckling with time present if you still your mind for a moment or two.
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage
..
Et puis est retourné, plein d’usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age! **
But amidst these shimmering phantoms of glamour and cityscapes another thread remains, one that has been pulling and tugging, twisting and turning. The will of a hero who has sailed the wine dark seas of our collective cultural dreams for millennia untamed, πολύτροπος (polytropos) they call him. Beloved of the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom herself, the warrior whose cunning brought down the walls of Troy and who returned to Ithaca to exact a merciless vengeance and live in peace. On he sails unconcerned, guile sharp and ever-present, while hapless torchbearers of various modernities try to trap him through a glass, darkly.
And then another vision washes through, a dream vague and half-remembered, of screens, strange scenes and endless beaches.
There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice ***
To be continued……
* Girl From the North Country -Bob Dylan
** Les Regrets, Sonnet 31- Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560)
*** Brownsville Girl-Bob Dylan
