Saturday, December 3, 2011

Canyon crevices, gangrene and the music

Last night I dreamt that my husband and I were running along the top of a canyon, in a hurry to get to a festival where we were to meet some important industry people.  We reached the place where we needed to descend into the canyon.  There were two routes: one with large, craggy boulders and deep, wide crevices, the other a steep, dry run-off river bed layered with rocks.  My husband took the first route, leaping from boulder to boulder.  I knew if I followed him that I would miss my footing and end up falling into one of the abysmal crevices, so I ran down the steep, rocky river bed.  We both reached the bottom of the canyon together, held hands, and ran to the festival where we were surrounded by people wanting to talk to us.

My feet hurt, so I removed my shoes.  The second toe - the "pointer" toe - on my right foot was red and swollen.  It continued to swell and turn a bruised purple and black.  I knew it was broken.  I looked in my shoe and saw that it was full of soil.  I said, "I could plant something in that."  Then I noticed the soil was filled with clear crystal quartz points.  When I looked again at my toe, it was twice the size of my big toe, green and gangrenous.

My husband held my hand and we hurried together into the festival.  Some people came up to me and told me - very emphatically - that they had received a package for me that was very important.  It was from my old high school boyfriend from sophomore year.  It was a CD with a bright orange and yellow label on both sides that read, "How to Maintain a Healthy Weight."  I wanted to cry at how fat I've become.

Then I was surrounded by industry professionals all talking about promoting my band and me as a singer.  They were all very excited by the possibilities ahead.

I sat at a table and looked around at the canyon walls surrounding me when I felt someone take hold of my hair.  Then I felt the pressure of the firm hand and scissors against my neck. Before I knew what had happened, my hair had been cut at the nape by a "ninja barber" in a cowboy hat.  He announced, with all the emotion of a physician dictating into a voice recorder, "seventeen inches, gone."  Then he walked away leaving my hair simultaneously on the ground behind me, in my lap and in my hand.  I was dazed, shocked and unbelieving at what had just happened.

When I awoke, a klezmer cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" and the refrain of "My baby loves me, yes, yes, she does" from Neil Diamond's "Cherry Cherry" were playing in my head.