Was up very early this morning.  Got the dishes washed, the woodstove cleaned out, the garbage and recycling headed out the door.  All before breakfast and all before writing to you.  I was like the White Tornado or a squirrel on steroids which I was.

I had a load of steriods yesterday at my treatment.  I keep requesting that they cut them back a little but they keep sneaking them in.  I am getting the picture that the steriods are largely related to my sleeplessness during the early part of my chemo cycle.  But really some great realizations have come out of that sleeplessness.  I was able to put it to good use at times, remembering the sessions where I talked with my tumors for instance.

So I think that the steriods are influencing my dream life also.  Had a doozy this morning.  Maybe that is why I jumped up early as I didn’t want to forget it, you know how that is.  And we all know how dreams work in that so much of the message is transmitted between the lines and we just absorb it without much action or words being spoken.  Least that how it seems to me, a lot can happen in a very short time.

This dream is on par with my dream of the beautiful woman with the disfigured face that I had at the retreat in February.  If you want to look that up in the archives it is February 13th of this year.  OK, Felipe let’s have it dude, you have 250 words racked up already and you haven’t even started.

Yup.  So, I am playing this prisoner at a penitentiary, sort of a Jack Nicholson character that is a little too smart for his own good sometimes.  So he is out in the sunshine next to a little porch hung on a old brick building.  He is soaking up some rays being outside on his own which is probably rare and highly against regulations.   He has a phone and the warden’s phone directory and he is busy making calls to a sorts of places on the list.  He is scamming different things to better the situation for himself and his buddies.  So maybe he is trying to get pizza delivered every Thursday night or trying to influence the outcome of a jail baseball game.  It all little rinkydink stuff, sort of innocent.

So right in the middle of this the warden comes out on the porch for a smoke.  I gulp, saying, “busted”to myself.  Only he just says in this casual way, “I see you are trying to find out where the Big Band sound went to.”  It was seemly a totally off the wall comment that had nothing to do with anything especially the rules and regs that you would expect.  There was no “you’re busted.”. The conversation continued although I don’t remember it but it was just two guys talking.  And they BOTH appreciated it, like it was a relief from the usual, the expected.  There was no warden and prisoner anymore.

That’s it but it sort of fits in so well to my situation is the beauty.  Before going to bed I was reading a big book of bios about the saints that Padre Tomas gave me.  It is leaving a big impression on me especially the ones who I can relate to.  Some had such gruesome ends to their lives; it’s all very moving as you know.  And I remember praying as I fell asleep about how badly I was doing on all fronts, like my religious life is sophomoric.  But I see the parallel between this and my dream.  The phone calls are prayers to different saints me trying to better my situation or that of my friends or my world the penitentiary.  Not that praying to saints is bad but it is more about the quality of my hopes and wishes.  This is largely the quality of my prayer life and right in the middle of that the Warden or God saunders out for a smoke.  And what does he start talking about,  not the rules and regs that are a large part of the norm of my/our existence but the Big Band sound and where did it go.  The Big Band (Big Bang perhaps) sound I take as his dream.  “Where did My Dream go? “, right?

What a reminder that prayer is a conversation simply put.   Just two guys on the porch.  No rules and regs, no positions are needed or wanted.  How beautiful, how simple really.  It speaks to me, I’m weeping.

Take care in these turbulent times.  There is solid ground to stand on but we have to find it.  With you always, love, Felipe.