My Path

(Saturday, February 15, 2014)  I’m a widow, perhaps. Single, at any rate.

I’m with a crowd of people haphazardly running around a square athletic track. Or maybe it’s the street surrounding a village square or plaza. I see one of my coworkers, Jorge Juarez, and a few others. There is at least one gentleman who interests me, but I can’t get his attention. Not even my coworkers notice me. I feel invisible.

Dejected, I walk through a thin line of trees to a second, adjacent field. It mirrors the size and shape of the first square, but the street around it is completely empty. I seem to be the only one who knows about it.

I start to run. I am extremely surprised: running is effortless. I have the easy, rhythmic stride of an Olympian. I make several passes around the square without becoming even slightly winded. Being in such a fit and well-trained body is wonderful.

I head to the locker room at the nearby gym to change out of my running clothes. The room is brightly lit, made of concrete block coated with shiny white paint that amplifies the light. Again I am alone. But I hear my friend Jeanne Cowan’s disembodied voice directly behind me. I’m startled and don’t catch what she first says to me.

“Jeanne, is that you?” I cry out.

“Yes!” she says with her characteristic cackle. I turn in a complete circle but she is nowhere to be seen. Her voice seems to come from the other side of the concrete wall.

“You won’t find a man until you go to the southwest,” she says.

I’m baffled. Where in the southwest? Southwest of what? Do I move there or just visit? What kind of man: mentor, friend. lover, shadow? When does this meeting take place?

Jeanne is silent. These questions seem to come as I transition from dream to waking reality.

Thoughts:

I am on a different track than my coworkers. It’s a thin border between their world and mine. I’m moving onto my natural path. I am fit and ready. The road less traveled. My true field.

The square is a recent theme in my dreams. Ceramic tiles and now the village square, which was a feature in my puma dream.

There is an article in Ceramics Monthly about a sculptor who works very large (he has to climb ladders to finish the top of his pieces) in stoneware paper clay (as do I). His work is inspiring. The last two issues of the magazine included interviews with two artists whose sensibility feels kindred to mine. I find that very motivating. Ceramic sculpture helps me move up the ladder? My New Mexico magazine that arrived Friday featured the Coronado Kiva State Monument.

The second dream in as many days with a disembodied guide.

 Two dreams of widowhood.

I had a dream over a year ago that included a grassy, green athletic field and Jorge Juarez (from Mexico). I called that dream “Nina the Artist.” Green square, like the green tiles in my recent ladder dream.