Selfhood is not complete without special “others” who listen, accept, guide, support, or hurt us. If these relationships do not exist, the mind will imagine their existence, attaching them to whomever seems to fit the illusions – good or bad. We create the relations and dramas that confirm our current self-image.
© 2021 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
The dreaming writer and his muse enter the garden, leaving their fig leaves at the gate. Now alone and denuded of all manner of covering, they are happier beyond belief, for there are no longer the obstacles of shame and separation, nor the judgments of others. There is only the writer with his imagined muse, dwelling and playing within God’s heavenly garden, where every tangible need is provided for.
Early spring is a GIRL
with leafy green dresses
and yellow haired willows.
Her delicate, woody limbs
stretching in the wind,
plucking WILD BLUE ROSES.
The happy girl restored to us!
Earthy smells adorn her:
herbal washed hair,
blue cotton candy and
private musty spaces.
The wind soaked with HER –
carried to wide open nostrils.
Our happy girl inhaled!
Breathe deeply!
© 2020 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
Have faith my friends. We will breathe deeply again! The happy girl will return.
This was the last leg of our father & son trip, to cross the Canadian border and explore the innards of another country, a first for both of us. But Dad always ran his tires into the ground, until they were bald and ready to bust open, and so there was always a 50/50 chance of losing a tire on a long trip. And this time we were on the wrong end of 50/50.
I began hearing the sound earlier, but said nothing, hoping the road was just old and noisy, keeping my eye on Dad’s involuntary expressions. Dad turned towards the driver’s side window several times, looked into the rear view mirror, wrinkling his forehead a bit, and then refocusing on the road. Once or twice he looked at me for a second and said nothing, wondering if I’d been hearing it too, but I said nothing. We did this kind of silent inquisition often, keeping elephants in the room as long as possible before acknowledging them, hoping they’d run off. But this beast was staying and getting bigger, Dad and I finally looking all over, window to window, mirror to mirror, getting more nervous.
The teachers were concerned, leaving notes for Mom and Dad regarding my “staring out the window” during class. Daydreaming they called it, the politically correct term for something more sinister, such as bad parenting or inferior character, their “go-to” conclusions in those days. Social anxiety, depression, the autism spectrum, and other so called mental health conditions were not yet common terminology. This was the seventies.
“He should visit with the school shrink,” they suggested.
“Let’s find out what he daydreams about while staring out the window, so we can address the situation.”
Notes from David 