flying from one dream to another.

pyramid of the moon at first light
spirit dog

the church during fiesta
first light on pyramid of the sun.  

 

Last night i returned from a ten day trip to mexico.   

in mexico i was on a journey inside a journey, led by my friend lee and staying at his vision of a  of perfection which he has brought to life,  called the dreaming house.  

the dreaming house sits at the foot of the pyramids, teotihuacan, in the village of san sebastian.  the dreaming house is beyond a dream come true and the village is small and the pyramids, remind you of the dream of heaven on earth.   spending ten days there on a journey is perfection in every way possible and  flying back home can be startling.  it actually has a name,  this disorientation.  it's called re- entry.   because  sometimes the bumping back to your reality can be hard.   but this time that wasn't so.   a total stranger cushioned my landing.  

here is the story.   a lot of words,  but i hope you can get the image.   

i arrived at night and jerry picked me up in newark, new jersey.   we stopped for food at a rest stop on highway 87  before driving back up to the farm.   the rest stop was packed with people.   and somehow the burger king and the dunkin' donuts and s'baro's pizza had all run out of food. this was a new experience  but i was floating and still in my teo dream and so all these throngs of people flowed under the fluorescent lights,  with no expression on their faces or looking grumpy about the long lines and scant amount of food.    a land of the zombies kind of thing.   i stood in wonder with my mouth forming a little O and watched and marveled as if i was in  a 3d movie and the world of people flowed past like a river.  jerry stood close beside me as if i might actually begin to float away or something.    

   

we  settled on a slice of pizza and got into the line.  i  began to giggle and kind of dance around.  well sort of a cringing dancing laughing kind of thing about how the food was inedible anyway but i was hungry and there wasn't very much food and  i didn't really care.  i was watching my little zombie  movie.  all glowy and laughing and detached.  

"my god,  we are in america,  and no where has it's usual abundance of inedible food, on the day i have decided to eat what ever i can get.  hee hee.  this is funny.  " 

 

i laughed.  jerry laughed.  

and a stout little man,  with a balding head and glasses piped up from behind us in the line. 

"i'm watching the music of your conversation."  

i turned to him in wonder.   

how amazing!  one of the extra's in my movie was engaging me in conversation! 

"what do you mean?"

"i watch people and their body language and how they speak is like music."

"oh i love that.  how we move and speak is music." i said and probably did some dorky thing like clap my hands together as i responded.  

 well he wasn't done with us,  and the pizza wasn't ready and so we began to chat.   he was a charming man,  funny ideas about this and that and inside i was thinking what a brilliant character to begin speaking in my 3 d movie of the rest stop on 87 north.  and so to keep the conversation going,  i asked him what he did.   he said he was an opera singer.  

"my teacher was pavaroti's understudy.  i'm just an amateur,  but i know what i'm doing."

"wow that's cool. that's why you see music everywhere!" 

he smiled.   and then he stepped in closer so his face was right in mine and he opened his mouth and began to sing!!   big!!   he sang big!!  in a beautiful opera voice just for me, in the line for sbaro's pizza in the rest stop on highway 87,  in new jersey!!  this is true!!  i swear swear swear!!  

 a rotund  little opera singer began singing an aria just for me.  .  singing me back into to the dream of america.  

i think the world may have stopped.  i'm not sure.  but  his song gathered gusto.   he began moving his arms,  gesturing towards jerry as he sang, 

"she is  the woman of your  dreams...."   and jerry,  because he returned from teo less than a week ago,  replied "that's true."   my movie was rocking now.  

the opera singers  voice gathered strength again and rose above the crowds and hovered around the awful lighting and fell down on the throngs of  sad looking faces.  a fat little man doling out pure joy.  

jerry and i stood riveted ,  hardly daring to breathe,  in case he turned out to be an apparition and vanished.   but he was in the flesh and when he finished the song he told me to kiss jerry and so that is what i did.  

now that for sure is love.  for the opera singer and my husband.   

the te amo kind.  

perhaps the rest of my life can rest in that utterly divine scene in front of the glass counter of the s'baro's booth.   

we oohed and ahhed and told him how wonderful he was and  gathered our cheese pizza slices and floated back to the car.  

i didn't ask his name and so for the opera man in the rest stop in new jersey,  this is for you,  where ever you are.  

te amo.   te amo.  

 thank you so much for flying me from one dream of heaven on earth back to america and showing me that even a grimy rest stop can be  a little piece of heaven if you look at it that way.   I have laughed all day.  i am still laughing with wonder and joy. 

 

thank you my opera singing stranger!!!!  and thank you lee and emily and sage and all of you who were in teo with me,  thank you  for everything,  all beyond words!!

xxx