Dreaming and Waking

Last night I dreamt of Paris again. This has happened occasionally since I went there for the first extraordinary visit in 2000. She comes to me out of the blue with beckoning or discouraging fingers. I am always interested in what she has to offer. Sometimes I seem to be lost on those now familiar streets, having forgotten to make a reservation or even to pack. Sometimes I'm with family members, and equally lost...following along behind their enthusiastic figures and yearning for the Paris of my solitude. I have been there with former lovers, and I have danced on the L'Opera stage, and wakened deliciously tired. Last night's dream was quite different from anything dreamt in the past.

It started before I went there. I was with a friend, or perhaps a therapist, and was speaking of the urge to leave behind my familiar world for  Paris and to focus on making art. It amounted to leaving behind distractions, however dear, and taking the risk of becoming wholly myself...no more holding back. It also meant allowing my faith to transcend my fears and procrastinations. To place my trust in something greater which would carry and guide me to where I needed to be. Alright... I just have to use the word God. I must finally decide to "let go and let God".

Now I am in Paris, accompanied by a small child. A brave and precocious child who dances ahead of me on the sidewalks, occasionally disappearing and reappearing, but never a worry. Once I find her holding up something she has made while waiting for me. It is made of paper...showing a table with three people sitting around it. The child, a person old enough to be her mother, and an elderly woman. I recognize myself in the elderly woman. As I recognize myself, two people appear who are ready to help us...perhaps from the American Church. They take us to the home of a beautiful black woman who takes in people who need a temporary home while finding their feet in Paris. The point is to dismiss all doubt about where I find myself...to accept the strangeness, and the exotic scent that is filling my nostrils. I seem to be ready to trust completely where God has placed me. All three of me...

I am posting three hibiscus photos; the main one and two others to represent the three in one.