it's probably a good thing that it all got lost last night because today, thinking about it i realize how far back it all goes. Farther than i thought, yesterday.
When i was a child, maybe 8 or 9 years old i had the dream for the first time. It is a recurrent dream. Every few or so many years. And i see that the ones i have now have morphed from it, are extravagant hybrids.
i am being instructed, by someone i don't see, but which is behind me and instructing me, and really All of Us close enough to hear. There is a line of human beings, i do not see them clearly, but the instruction is to begin with the one infront of me and then continue and continue
and continue.
One by one. I am to stand in front of the person, they are silent, though we have face to face contact. I am to tell that person .....How I live.....that's the best i can say of it. I am to tell them how i live in "fact", and also in that telling, what has meaning to me. So...maybe i can say, maybe i describe my life. How i live it. Just plain. I am then to move on to the next. Same thing. and the next and on and there is a line of human beings, shoulder to shoulder but a little more space in between, that seems to circle the earth. And i think it does.....the line is beyond the horizons, always. While i am going, the first person that i Stand to begins and so the line begins to fold onto its self, but going and going and going. I understand that i am standing over and over in front of so many kinds of people, many ages, many cultures and nationalities, of many circumstances. All of It. This is the dream. I do not get to the end of that line, ever, but just continue. Telling.
Why this has to do with the Door is kind of well, convoluted. It was because of a Dream that i left my other life, left Michigan. I've mentioned it here before somewhere, but was one of the Narrator Dreams. The core of which was "your life is a kind and loving nightmare". I knew i needed to go. I knew my life was not "right". I set out. All i had was my 1975 Ford Econoline Van. It was all i wanted. There is a long story now that follows but what happened is that i got the old Airstream. THAT was enough for some years. The moving from place to place was enough. Until it wasn't. There was an urge to stay where i planted. Which led to where i am now. Which at the time was complete luxury. Rooms. Three of them. and it went from there. When the person i was married to died, Daughter and i cut through the wall of the trailer with a sawzall and turned the screened in porch into what has become the ROOM. We had no idea what we were doing. None. We just went. Figuring it would either work or not. No way to know but trying. It was the most basic construction. All pretty ify. But in the ten years, it's been ok. It's been Shelter. I always refer to it as my permanent campsite. Like this. Shelter. It has kept my stuff dry. It has allowed me to live. Last winter it was clear that the ceiling wasn't going to survive...in the Room. So Paul fixed that...creating a grade on the roof, raising the roofing panels at a slant. Fixed. Ceiling good.
But there's always been the
Door.
It was a door that Alz. B's long ago divorced husband, the much loved father of the Bill who remains in my life, built for his home as a screen door. His name was/is Lee. I have all kinds of stuff here that Lee built and Bill's wife Nelia doesn't like. He, Bill, is a sentimental man and loves his father and loves the stuff his father built. Whatever can't stay at their house ends up over here and that door was the screen door on the screened in porch. Ok. When the screened in porch became the ROOM, it needed a door. Granddaughter Alyssia was home on leave from the Navy and the three of us, her, daughter Jenny and I made the screen door into The Door which was the best we could do with what we knew. There were flaws from the beginning. But it worked well enough. As time went on tho it worked less and less well, becoming skewed and having gaps of Plain Aire all around. For the last several years, wool blankets have covered it, tacked each night with push pins all around the frame. But still, Winter Wind would billow the blankets and sometimes by morning all the push pins would be pushed Out and the blanket would be flapping.
I have what may be a blessing and may be not, of kind of being aware of things because i can't avoid it, but also, almost ignoring them. Or rationalizing them some how, of Letting Things Go. This Door is a prime example. Yes, it was hanging on its hinges, two of them, the third pulled loose, and yes, it did provide some comfort. But in Winter, i could burn all the wood in the world and only come out even, never warm. But somehow this also connected to the dream, of how so many human beings have no home at all, let alone an ify door. The ify door was a true Luxury, really.
so for a few years, whenever Paul has been here for other things, like the roof, i mention the Door. He would ignore me. The Door was crazy. What i needed to do is just get a different door. There is a Door Place up the freeway. All kinds of doors. Get a different door. He never said that, he didn't have to. I knew it. But it was Lee's door. and then it became Lee, Me, Jenny and Alyssia's door.
All of a sudden last Friday he called saying he would come look at the door on Sunday.
He arrived at 11am and was here until almost 5pm. I made a run to the lumber yard. Sandwiched between Tay on one side and the Goats on the other, he
mended
the Door. Maybe he is the only person in the world that i know who would have done that. He did not Love it, but he did it. and
here is a Door. A Door that sits free and easy on it's hinges that OPENS and CLOSES with Ease, that has
weather stripping yet.
a GLORIOUS GLORIOUS DOOR.
How Crazy, ?????, yes?????? Yes. it's crazy. But when i woke in the night, i got up and opened and closed the Door. Ecstacy. Open. Close. Smooth as butter. This morning at 4 am or so when i got up it was still warm in here from the day's heat. It was
warm.
So i am working this through now. This Door. When so many have no shelter. How does this
feel?
