Sunday, March 18, 2018
I had made no connection to that crazy dream about owning a restaurant and what I’d been reading the night before until my housemate and Muse, Kornelia, came along and we began to discuss it. First of all, Raymond Carver’s short story, A Small, Good Thing, is poignant as stories most always are that involved the death of a child. In this case the young child, “Scotty”, died in the hospital, the order the mother had placed for Scotty’s birthday cake completely forgotten in her anguish. The baker, however, had not forgotten, and upset, leaves cryptic messages on the telephone never once identifying himself which only upset the parents even more. Finally, they figure out who the caller is and, in anger, go to the bakery to confront him. Very quickly, the baker understands what had happened and reconciliation takes place, the three of them at a table talking through the night, sipping coffee and eating warm cinnamon rolls.
The more we discussed it, the more I saw the relevance to the dream, particularly the unconscious connection I made with the baker, since I, too, do a lot of baking and had once actually worked professionally in a bakery. Thus, seeing myself as a restaurant owner was not that far-fetched since at the bakery I often served customers at table, pouring coffee and bringing fresh pastries. Kornelia, nodding her pretty head in acknowledgement, leaped over my idea entirely. She saw my ‘restaurant ownership’ in the dream as a way of describing the nurturing qualities I bring to relationships.” I am THE restaurant”, she says. I have been her “restaurant”, nurturing her over our years together, helping her to ‘soar’ as I did the pilot in the dream. I’m much moved by her view of my dream and of my affect on her. Most often it’s the other way around. Kornelia, always my Muse, is the one who makes me look at myself, and nurtures and inspires me.
I haven’t had any dreams since last Wednesday night. It’s just as well. That one dream was enough, is enough, to keep my mind working, the one question arising from it, always relevant. Am I really nurturing others in any significant way? Is it my calling? Does it matter? Ever since I committed myself to the notion of unconditional love after my wife’s death in 2012, I’ve been working at the question. How do I, at 91 years of age now, best express my unconditional love for others? The first part of that answer comes from something my dear Muse taught me which is that love begins with loving myself unconditionally. I’m still working on it, probably always will be, as I relate to others in my small world. The other thought that is emerging is that the best way to love others is to offer the gift of listening. Listening is an art and a way of honoring the other. In listening you acknowledge the other’s importance and if listening carefully, might discover a new truth. I remind myself here that I’m on a wonderful journey with all kinds of twists and turns, an adventure of high order and I’m relishing it. And a large part of what makes the journey so interesting is what I’m going to discover around the next curve or in my next conversation.
