(January 18, 2012)
I am in the middle of a large, open field, like the one behind the house where I grew up. It’s that encompassing darkness of my dreams: Sheldrake’s Field, Jung’s Collective Unconscious?
Jorge Juarez (former coworker) is at my left. He is small in stature, a dark-skinned Central American Indian from Acapulco. His eyes are large and brown and merry; one is lazy and never meets your gaze.
He takes my hand and we walk eastward, towards the edge of the field to a stand of metal bleachers. I step down each row of the bleachers as if walking down a staircase.
I am not sure if Jorge remains on the ground or if he levitates beside me, holding my hand.
We continue to walk together and reach a set of row houses where he lives with his Russian wife Nina. The door is a portal that Nina has decorated with one of her beautiful sculptures. She constructs her art with smooth, blond wood—maybe pine or ash or birch, forming simple, furniture-like shapes and then applying black and white photo collages. The photos are hers: serene and perfectly lit, imaginatively composed. The collages are surreal, in the style of Man Ray, but tranquil. Not eery or dramatic.
We enter the house. Nina is entertaining in the small living room. A low coffee table, with a row of books tucked into a shelf beneath the tabletop, is at the room’s center. A few people sit on low chairs and a comfortable low couch around the table, near the door and the outer south wall of the room.
They chat while I peruse the space, softly lit by a single white table lamp and graced by more of Nina’s exquisite artwork. In a corner near the lamp I examine a striking collage of a woman with wide-open mouth and doe eyes. An image of a small butterfly or moth or bit of lace has been carefully cut out and placed at the back of her throat.
Nina is a master with wood, paper and the camera lens. She may have built the elegant coffee table/bookcase. I look at her book collection. The volumes are bound in jackets of satiny, sensuous paper. She owns a trilogy about aliens; each spine is printed with a photo of an alien face. I am drawn to those books: they have information I need.