DARE TO THINK : November 2015

Saturday, November 28, 2015

A Memory of Paradise

Post of 5 yrs ago found in "Drafts" yikes!
I've been sick.
So so incredibly ill - but I'm finally able to sit up and type. There's so much to tell you, my long-neglected Constant Reader!

Back a few weeks ago, 2 of my wonderfully insane sisters and I went to the Dominican Republic for a week. Keep in mind I've never flown before (except when 3, and I don't remember it) nor have I been out of the country (except Canada when 14 and I definitely don't remember that lol) so this was a first in many ways. The rest of our sibs agreed that we'd kill each other 5 minutes into the trip. Suffice to say we survived, and even flourished. Ah miracles!

What surprised me was the lack of any sign of Haiti's earthquake. Yes, a natural occurrence but people were still in dire need, and I saw NO one, NO organizations, absolutely NO mention of what was happening only a few hundred miles from us. People just wouldn't discuss the "H" word.

I understand when it concerns the tourist industry but even the tourists themselves wouldn't discuss it, as if by mentioning the human suffering across the border would somehow bring it "our" way. It was so entirely SURREAL.

So let me tell you something else: This was my first time trying to swim since neuropathy knocked out my left leg. What a fantastic, non-spacial feeling! I couldn't measure the weight of my legs, nor any pain, nor fear, nor consciousness of where my foot was (since I can't feel it) nor ANYTHING I usually deal with. This was nirvana. This was a dream.

Sand-walking is a really laughable pleasure, knowing if you fall it'll be a soft landing. You might remember my visit to Asbury Park in my old "Thelma and Louise" post where I became accustomed to using my cane in the sand - but I didn't dare go into the ocean then - just the shoreline lapping at my toes. THIS time however, with the Caribe Sea calling out like a siren scream, and with the generous help of one of my sisters, I was able to back-float on the ocean with no feeling below the waist, and man I just can't find the words here...first time in over 15 years I had no "heavy" pain. It's impossible to describe unless you have it: some areas are intensely alive, others completely dead. Makes for an odd-looking sight when walking LOL. But in the water with no gravity, I was in another world. I wanna go baaaack!!!

We bought really inexpensive postcards, then at the door to get stamps were told they were $3 each - ripoff - so we mailed them when we got back LOL kinda took the thrill out of it but what the heck. Gotta get postcards.

Everything was priced for "those ugly rich Americans" and most of the people we encountered were English-speaking - alot of Canadians. Some Germans. Mostly Anglos. In fact we didn't have to exchange our dollars for pesos, they welcomed the old greenbacks. And the hired help couldn't have been more pleasant. Sometimes I wondered what they were "really" feeling but most seemed very sincere and happy, singing, talking, engaging, it just felt very deluxe and friendly. Not one single Dominican was rude, in fact only a few Americans were out of order so to speak. The scenery just didn't lend itself to acting like a jerk. It was too spiritual.

Going through security and customs was a ton of fun - these guys put me in a wheelchair and with my sibs in tow, wheeled me directly to the front of each line we encountered. I could see people staring but what the hey, I didn't ask for such pampering! Happy to get it though.

My sisters have decided they're taking me everywhere so they can get through those lines. I concur.

When I say the ocean was turquoise I mean like-you've-never-experienced-it kind of turquoise. This color has no name. And it changed at different times of the day - so did the sky. Lavender sunrises, golden sunsets, white sand and very few people. We

went deluxe in everything, why not I mean how often do you go away with your loved ones? In our case, never. It was a memory-making week that I'll treasure always, while planning our next adventure before I get too old to appreciate it!!

Did YOU Make That Happen?

Post from years ago I found in "Drafts" lol
Does time pass quicker than our brains can think about it happening?
OR: (and this is exciting) is it the reverse? Can our brain actually determine an event somehow before it happens, giving us what we always think of as just a touch of deja vu, but it's something else? Something more substantial.

Time was born first, because of space, and many billions of years later, we came along. With these brains. And something, some thing - is connected.
There's a "bend" in time. Like a rubber hose bent in the middle so the two ends can connect. Time seems to do that on occasion - connect

present with future. They meet in the same time/space. It's happened to you, yes? Surely. Sometimes it's an hour, week, month, minutes, and it's not called coincidence but I wonder what that really is.
For no reason whatever, I'll think of an old commercial from childhood TV. Two days later I hear someone singing it in the hallway. Things like that. It happens to all of us. What is it? What?
I was thinking about Dante Alighieri and "The Divine Comedy" then forgot it. The next night a program about his life was on TV. A friend was telling me about her uncle dying of cancer in the hospital. Two weeks later I started a new book and early on a character is dying of cancer as his niece mourns. The old Patty Duke Show came into a dream, the next day a biography of Ms. Duke was on TV. I was thinking of making a contribution to my local animal shelter. Not long after I got a snail mail for shelter donations. A song I dreamed about was written a year later and played on the radio constantly. My brother laughed with me about how I should get royalties.

If time can "bend" imagine what space does. We know space is full of warps and wobbles, dark areas of nothingness with "holes" and "worms", maybe forms of transport - of thought maybe? We're taking up a particular space in time right now, perhaps at your computer you're taking up time/space that you're meant to use tomorrow - will this effect what you do and see tomorrow, since you've already done it now? Is there an allotted amount of time/space for each of us and when it's over, we die? Are we meant to keep a kind of schedule, and if so, how did it come about? And why? These thoughts were in the future, are they past now because I released them? Or because of something else.

This isn't about premonitions or "I've been here before" or "this seems familiar" it's more immediate, more incomprehensible. Many ancient cultures like the Maya and Egyptians seemed to understand something very basic and visceral about time. Why would you sing a song for no real reason that you hear an hour later on your friend's car radio? Did you do that?