Life 4.0

All about my strange new life, and the art of making it up as I go

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Dreams We Share

It's appropriate that it should rain today, on what would have been my Roxanne's 61st birthday. It is perfect backdrop for a tale of a wistful visit from another reality. Rain, dark skies, they give a strange comfort. And comfort, in moderation, is what I need today. As fate would have it, that's what I find... the comfort of dreams.

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Exchanging dreams. At the start, it's one of the wonderful things about falling in love. Where do you want your life to lead? What will will do to reach the sky? There's a certain awe in realizing that you have found someone who touches you so deeply that you eagerly share your dreams. Roxanne was the person who touched me like no other.

So we told each other our dreams, wept and prayed over them. We made them our own, and fueled them with our determination and our combined strength. All couples who are really in love mold their dreams. As life goes on, the dreams may change, or even disappear. When they do, you form new dreams to replace the old ones. The cycle endures, maybe even beyond death.


So, on to the tale of the the wistful visit.

One of the casualties of this miserable year is that so many of the people I depend on are no longer as close as I'd like. It's the fluid nature of life. Circumstances change, events come and go. Maybe next year, things will be better. So my vision of Roxanne came at at time when I needed it most.

It was as though she was right beside me. I saw her face; I heard her voice.

It was several weeks ago, around the time of my birthday. I was about to begin my move into the news department. Thata's when, one evening, she came to me. Roxanne said she knew I needed my radio wife. And I do.

I've often written about how demanding it can be to married to someone in radio. It's tough to deal with the endless hours, and the parade of swollen egos you encounter in broadcasting. And you learn early that your spouse has one of those inflated, sensitive egos. So you learn what to say, and what not to say, and all the many ways you can be of support and help.

And you learn how to coax the things you need, as does any equal person in a marriage. It's a wonderful partnership, which makes for a wonderful life. Your wonderful life together. Me, I could not ask for a better companion than Roxanne on life's journey.

And to those dreams we never achieved, well, that's as it should be. Some things must remain beyond our reach. Were we to grasp them all, they would cease to be dreams. they would lose their magic, and they would count for nothing more than signposts along the well-marked roadway.

Today's Lesson: The logical life, the predictable life, is not the life of a romantic man, nor a determined woman. The life which is most blessed, is found on the trail Roxanne and I walked, with rocks and mud, celebration and sunshine, joy today, sorrow tomorrow; and always the promise that Heaven will bring forth all things in due time, so that by the end, we would still have reason and laugh, and to cry. As I note her birthday, I celebrate the years of sharing, the gift Roxanne gave me on my birthday, and the life that continues across the chasm. As I wander into new areas of my career, it's a great comfort to know that the things she would say to me are embedded in my mind so firmly that I can call upon them without fail.

Happy birthday, my darling. It seems every year I tell you that I rely on you more than ever, and this year, my need -- and my love -- has never been deeper. You have been my comfort, even as are you are still, in those half-waking moments, and in my visions. You took my dreams, made them our dreams, and helped me live out so many of them.

For the dreams, for the sacrifice, for the anger, for the kind touch that comes from years spent living and dreaming, my most devoted thanks. I love you, pila moya.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats
"He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven"

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