“Down the way, the road’s divided
Paint me the places you’ve seen
Those who know what I don’t know
Refer to the yellow, red and green
Maybe he’s caught in the legend
Maybe he’s caught in the mood
Maybe these maps and legends
Have been misunderstood ....”
— song lyrics to ‘Maps and Legends’ by R.E.M.
“What fosters hope?” Jörn asks me
His question at first baffles me
it is when I find him staring out the window into the blackness of the night
having only just now entered the room
I had bad dreams
it was a marathon of dreams, as it were;
like several at once ....overlapping each other and mixing .... as if my mind was split in several sections
then images spliced.... then as if they were copied and pasted
a jumble of angst ridden images
and parts repeating .... during it I knew why. They made sense. But I became aware it was too much to let my conscious self keep that door open wide. There were parts from childhood... and parts from .... those other memories .... as I write of them here and share and I guess I take for granted .... woven through these scenes ..... Those dreams —the ones that make me wonder about the immortal soul; those emotional images that I can’t reconcile but have imposed themself for so long now in my life most especially during troubled times and through very deep sleep. This time they all wove together with these other ones about what I’ve been writing lately about as —they have lately reared into my thoughts from events; my current regrets that haunt me .... now so much .... things like the unavoidable.... inevitable .... entangling sorrow
“Love,” Jörn says academically answering his own question
and his one word holds me there
as if I never heard the word before; indeed it sounds foreign .... coming from him
is it because I never heard him say the word before?
Or is it how .... he says it
He holds the sheers by one finger as he stands by the window thoughtfully .... he’s been lost in thought. So now as he says it....
....well, I see the artist that he is; the musician .... and I see his introspective mood; the same look of mood as I have seen whenever I watch him at his piano doing his composing. Working through a puzzle ....it is like; how he goes over and over a sequence ....the short brackets of movement in threes. And then he goes back over them to play them all in sequences ....together; repeating themes, what seems has become the soundtrack of us
and as I am caught there looking at him my own thoughts are still tangled in the chaotic place I woke from
“You were dreaming,” he says this now, “I heard you.”
But my mind is incoherent of the meanings behind what he’s saying
as if I need to translate —caught between the worlds
and any or all of what to deduct from his topic of conversation
“I’m sorry —what?” I say suddenly overwhelmed as I fear I must have missed something rather important and have to go to sit down on the couch, “what time is it?” I say this even as I wear a watch and realize it is still the middle of the night. But I didn’t hear music. No that is not what woke me this time. He was not playing his piano
I had spoken to Gerald earlier
as I have been troubled
some by these dreams —but it occurs to me now that instead of ‘those’ dreams being the cause of the disturbance I have been feeling.... instead, they seem to intervene and recall me back to safety these last several times. And in fact, I realize, they always did.... they present themselves during troubled times, I have said.... but they are not the cause of what troubles, no—but they are more like a raft over troubled waters that act to pull me out as ....I feel I’m drowning
they may be sad but only for the way it ends up but .... not the other parts .... instead they are —
“Love,” he says again and lets go of the curtain sheer and as he turns to look at me
I look at him now. Without my usual masks of defense shields because at this moment I don’t feel afraid to search his face for answers. And his gaze back at me is open and direct. But he says nothing more. It is just his eyes.
Then he moves over to look at the pages of his sheet music with all his scribbled notes of writing and as he does this he says to me,
“you know, the reason I rework the opera—duva.... is because I am trying to —recreate ....the memory.... the dove,” he sighs pausing just a moment —then, with a quick, heavy impatience as he taps a stack of sheet paper to make them neatly line up together; it is one of his odd habits, and again, hastily, without pausing he continues, “I’ve been having them too, you know that, I’ve told you this before—it is what prompts the musical scores, my inspiration I guess, you could say, and I realized, you see— it is love; that is what has been —that nagging —that haunting—I mean why —?— but then, I realize! isn’t that really the basis of —well ....all masterpieces.... why they stand out in our memory; their brilliance.... All the great works....” and he draws his brows and shakes his head then picks up a sheet of his music to correct one of his notes and says to me with the need of driving his point, “what fosters hope.... this is what has been the missing element —no, not missing, I just did not really think about it as I’ve been so frustrated trying to get it all right....”his face lights now because by saying this now he seems to understand it. Now
And here he stops
Oh. Yes. I do get it. I get what he means
But then....
Oh.... I think....
oh.... and let out a breath .... suddenly .... maybe disappointed
I shake my head and go back to my own troubled thoughts; the dreams and my earlier conversation —
“I spoke to Gerald earlier today,” I blurt out suddenly
“I know,” he says
“You know?” and look at him behind my hands as I press into the tension in my forehead
He walks over,
“yes,” he says and smiles as looks at me
I make a gesture; getting annoyed so he smiles again,
“I called him too....” he waits to watch my expression, “that’s when he told me he’d spoken to you earlier.”
“Oh.... so why didn’t you say anything about it before?”
He shrugs,
“we were both busy talking about other things. Remember? You. Me. About that shipment you know about now.... For you the photographer about the penthouse and the budget cuts you have to do because of —“
“Oh—Ilya, yes....” I realize he’s right and mumble, “the pandemic has taken over everything.... well....” I start to focus now as the fogginess of my mind clears a little. Maybe that is what caused the dreams, I start to realize.... feeling trapped and impotent, caught in such limbo
I think again about what he said when I walked into the room
What fosters hope.... ?
And I think again now .... of what he is saying
I look up at him .... it was something that Gerald said to me on the phone .... how —being at— well what he called ‘ground zero’ .... seeing things first hand, not read as some words across media sources. The front lines
He said,
“after people have faced death some people choose to pretend it didn’t happen, they need the security of some safe return to their version of reality.”
I remember reading somewhere once that often as a reaction to being through something violent and life changing event some people become excessively extravagant and spend excess amounts of money —Louise Bryant, I think it was, who spent lots of money on clothes and shoes after her life had been dramatically endangered during her experiences in the Russian revolution
Because now I think I do understand what maybe I had not before
“Sometimes, you know, when you meet again— ‘unfinished business’ does not have to mean disaster,” Gerald said to me before, “sometimes it is to heal.”
So I remember this now as I look over at Jörn as he is still busy tapping his papers in that absently nervous way he does
“Is that what it was he felt when he first saw her, Jörn—after the dove flew away?” I ask him
He looks quizzically at me not getting my meaning
But instead I ask,
“what did you talk about with Gerald?”
But he is still thinking about what I first asked
he blinks in a way that seems to pull him back to the present,
“I asked him if he’d known of people who meet again in order to —fix a mistake.”
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