The other night I sat and meditated next to the pool, a place I like because when I close my eyes I often feel a cool breeze coming off the glistening water, and when I open them I see the reflections of all that surrounds me dancing in every direction. I fell into a deep state and found myself, as I often do, in my subconscious garden. The attendant, sensitive to the recent trauma I went through with the break-in at our music studio, gave me a big smile and said she had a lot to share with me this time. Then she gave me a broom and a dustpan and some potato sacks. I began sweeping up the fear and anger and revenge and hopelessness that lay on the floor of my mind. I put it all in the sacks. Then she gave me a bucket and a mop. I cleaned the floor of every particle of dust. I put a cover over the bucket and picked it up, then slung the sacks over both my shoulders and carried it all down a trail to the gas dock at the marina just like the one I knew in my childhood over four decades ago. I met the three fishermen that cruise around my mind in an old trawler and pick up useless thoughts put there by others or erroneously fabricated in my attempts to make sense of the world. They were more than happy to take the bucket and sacks off my hands. They headed out to an island where they have a special incinerator for that stuff. As their boat puttered away I turned and walked up the gangway to the marina patio and down the road toward the beach where I sat and let the imaginary waves of this subconscious world I built to find solace in times like these fill my heart with gratitude for just being here. Then I opened my eyes and just as I did a cool breeze met me while all that was around me danced in every direction. I slept well that night.
Chris Plante
August 23, 2019