The Dreamer

I have the curse and blessing of lucid dreaming. It happens often. Here was a recent experience:

______________________________________________________________________We were way too young to be there by ourselves. We were underage kids that simply thought we could handle it. 

My friend Tony and I took a small pelican boat to a rocky barren islet called Breaker’s Island near the coast. The island was nestled within a small cove and sat about a quarter mile from land. We had paddled our way across the channel to attend a small concert where college kids were drinking heavily and embarrassing themselves. 

It was dark outside and we could barely see the sharp rocks below our feet. 

As the concert event was nearing its end the wind began to pick up. We realized it was time to start heading back to our boat, back to shore. 

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I remembered I knew this story. Somehow. As the Dreamer I spoke to myself, 

“Something’s wrong. They need to run.”

_____________________________________________________________________

The weather began to turn. A violent high tide rushed in with the wind. You could hear the college kid’s alarm in their voice as their laughter faded away and they began hustling back to their boats. 

Waves were crashing violently onto the island and the tide looked like it would swallow up the land.

“Dude, we need to get out of here.” Tony said.

We doubled back to our pelican. Within a couple minutes we reached the anchorage of our boat only to witness a large, violent wave come crashing down upon it. The force of the wave smashed our little pelican boat into a thousand pieces. 

On the far side of the island a large yacht was picking up the college kids. We could see the lights from the boat and hear the laughter start up again from the young crowd. They were safe. But the boat was already undocking and we were too far to reach it. We were stranded now.

“Shit!” I yelled. What are we gonna do?!” 

“Fuuuck.” Tony moaned.

We stood frozen there for a few moments before we both looked out toward the sea. 

The waves had reached us. 

Within an instant the wind had grown into a violent gale. A giant wave leaped past the breaks and flooded the ravine, sweeping us off our feet. The water was frigid. Holding on to the sharp black rocks below, we waited until the water pulled away just long enough to break free from the current and begin our dash to higher land. 

Tony looked beyond the island at the yacht carrying the college kids. It bobbled violently in the high swells and began to capsize. The boat was sinking. We could hear the screams of the passengers. 

“We’re ALL screwed bro.” Tony said. 

I looked back toward the ravine in the direction of the sea. At first it didn’t register what I saw. I had to climb higher up to get a better vantage point and looked back a second time.

“What the h... A wolf?” I said to myself. 

It seemed to walk on top of the water. It wasn’t phased by the waves. He moved like a spirit coming out from the dark ocean.

I couldn’t process what I saw. We just kept climbing. 

Scrambling up the sharp rocks I finally muttered to my friend.

“Dude, did I just see a wolf walking on water?!”

“Nah, I saw it too” Tony replied. 

Again a giant wave leaped above the breaks and flooded our path. It crashed at our feet and brought us both to our knees. We were going to die there. We were going to drown. My parents were going to be so mad at me.

Holding each other’s arms we brought ourselves back to our feet and looked back toward the wolf and instead saw a man. He was high upon the tallest rock looking out toward the sea, unabated by the peril of crashing waves below him. He was going to be swept away too. The man turned around and saw us. He stood there and stared. It was too dark to see his face.

_____________________________________________________________________

A shiver went up my spine and I awoke in my bed. I was sweating and a little scared.

“Who was that?!” I said to myself. I closed my eyes and willed myself back into the dream. “I need to finish the story. I don't remember how it ends."

As the Dreamer  I remembered that the boys found refuge somewhere. I willed it into the story and spoke aloud - “The boys survived. They found an old shelter.” And I closed my eyes.

______________________________________________________________________

I looked up and saw the outline of an old cement bunker nestled deep into the rock at the far edge of the island. It had a dim yellow light by the door entrance

We hustled up to the entrance and busted our way into the structure. It smelled of dank cold sea moss and possessed a haunting derelict. The lights inside still worked.

We moved to shut the door behind us when Tony remembered what we saw. 

“Wait! The dog!”

We looked back and saw him a far distance away, walking slowly toward us. He seemed untouched by the violent water. He was large and resembled Gmork from the Neverending Story. I could see his glowing eyes but I didn’t feel threatened.

I glanced toward the perch where the man had stood just a moment earlier but saw nothing. 

I thought to myself “Stupid. I hope he survives somehow.”

Just then another wave came leaping over the breaks. It reached all the way to the bunker and forced us to shut the door. We scrambled through the dark corridors of the bunker looking for a radio to call for help. 

On the second floor we found an intercom hanging on the wall. Praying that it still worked I pressed the button in pure panic. “HELLO! HELLO! HELP! HELLO?!”

A voice responded immediately. It sounded angry and discontent. “Marcus! Where have you been?! Are you coming into work today?! Where’s your application?!” 

Confused, I responded “What?! NO! We’re stuck on Breaker Island, our boat was smashed. The ferry capsized. WE ALL NEED HELP!”

There was no response. 

At that moment I looked up and saw the wolf at the other end of the hallway. He darted in the other direction as if to show me something. I chased him. 

Tony yelled at back me, begging me not to follow him. 

“Wait!” He yelled. 

I followed the wolf through the cement corridors. I was just a couple feet behind him. I could almost grab his tail. He dashed to a doorway that led outside of the bunker on the far side of the waves. I turned the corner and followed him outside onto a metal causeway. 

But he was gone. Vanished. 

And at other end of the metal causeway there he was again. The man. Standing. Staring. Too dark to see his face.  

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Again a shiver went up my spine and I awoke. I closed my eyes to will myself back into the dream. “Who the f... WAS that?!” I said to myself.

______________________________________________________________________

We were rescued somehow and were at the hospital. I was warm and sitting on a bed. My parents were at my side. A sheriff was there too. He looked concerned but stoic.

I spoke to them about the wolf. The man. The concert. The capsized yacht. Our escape.

They all looked at me like I was crazy. 

“Breaker’s Island never had a concert on it, Marcus.” They told me. 

There was no yacht. No partygoers. The bunker they found us in hadn’t been in use for decades and never had an intercom. I didn’t speak to anyone. By chance a passerby sailed across the island and saw a light coming from inside the bunker and reported it to the coast guard. All they found was our little Pelican boat, still tied up to the shore. 

Had we imagined the whole thing? 

Confused and exhausted, I stared outside through the hospital window. I looked across the street at a parking lot structure. 

And there he was. Standing there, in the dark. Staring at me. 

He looked familiar. Because he was ME.

And I awoke. 

Running With The Crowd

“First serve’s gotta be perfect!” 

The kid bounced the ball back to me. I was finally in the A square. It took me weeks to learn the game of four-square but soon enough I could hold my own and compete. I could beat them. 

I didn’t know any of these kids at this school. I was 7 years old and my family had just moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles. The whole place was new -- new friends, new  games, new words. (At first I thought “hella” was a stupid-ass word)

On my second serve I looked up and noticed a bunch of kids running. I stopped in mid bounce. 

All of a sudden the entire school yard of kids started running toward something, screaming.

I yelled at some kid, “What is it? What’s going on?!” 

I could see the excitement in his face.

He yelled back, “I dunno! Lets go! Come on!”

We joined this mass of kids swarming together screaming “Yaaaaaaay!” as we all coalesced into a group with a center. 

What could it be?! 

Whatever it was, the excitement captured every student on the yard. I ran toward that crowd with the hope and joy of youth, ready for something amazing. Why else would we be running? 

FREE CANDY. For sure it was free candy. It must be. So I ran faster.

When I got to the main crowd the kids were ecstatic. All of them were jumping up and down with the most precious childhood smiles of excitement. I remember all their faces vividly. 

The crowd was shouting something but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. 

MICHAEL JORDAN?! For sure it was him. Holy shit! I desperately pushed myself through the crowd to get a better view. I shoved a girl named Carla and she fell to the ground. 

I had to see what was going on. What was so cool? Why were we all here? Finally, with all of my strength I struggled my way into the middle. They were chanting something. Two words. Over and over. 

I didn’t understand the words until I saw. 

Gregory and Charles were more crying and scratching than actually fighting. 

The crowd shouted “A FIGHT! A FIGHT!”  as the boys were rolling on the ground trying to pull each other’s hair and exchanging little fisted scratches. This was the first time I had seen anything like this. 

I didn’t understand why people were so happy and I had this look on my face like “what the fuck is wrong with you people?!” 

"Is this why we're here?!" I thought to myself

I walked away from the crowd unimpressed.  I shrugged it off and thought to myself "people in crowds are dumb" 

I went back to playing my game. But when I returned, I realized I had lost my place in the A-square.

REDWINDS

As a youth I yearned to feel connected with my spirituality. 

At 8 years old I sent myself to Catholic Sunday school and initiated my own holy communion, but I still struggled to put faith into the cross. I struggled to believe in the institution of the church.  

And as it happened, one day my older sister invited me on a trip to a Native American Reservation.

I was sixteen years old.

“You have to go with me”. She said. "It'll be good."

We were traveling with a large group of community organizers in the Bay Area. Three large vans shuttled us there.  It was somewhere near a military base and surrounded by dry hills of shrub and manzanita.

The native families living on the land were there waiting to greet us. 

Upon arrival we all got together and formed a large circle.  Longwalker, the elder, burned sage in prayer. A pure-blood Lakota, he spoke with a deep raspy voice. He had a stalky frame and parted his grey hair into long braids. As he spoke, the other men beat large drums to a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. Each loud beat pierced my gut. 

And in the four directions we bowed and prayed and let the drumming seep into our hearts. And amidst our prayers and our drumming came the scratchy, majestic calling from the conch. Held by a man with dark hands and a frowning brow, it sounded almost omnipotent. I instinctively felt like bowing but there was know one to bow to. There was just the call. 

Together they all called out, “Aho! Mitakuye Oyasin!” 

I had no idea what that meant. 

On the morrow the men of the camp were called upon to build a sweat lodge. After our sunrise ceremony, the elder directed us to dig a long trench. And within the trench we built a large fire atop a pile of river rocks.  And as the fire raged we cast tobacco prayers into it, honoring our ancestors, our families, our loved ones. You. 

After a few hours we removed the rocks to reveal red-hot glowing pieces of live earth. Using long tree branches and wool blankets, we built a dome hut with a pit in the middle. And in the pit we placed the red hot glowing rocks. And throughout the hut we lay a bed of wild sage. We did this all with prayer and intention throughout. There was just enough room for six men to huddle in a circle.

As I entered I noticed a pure, potent, earthly smell. It was difficult to describe - a sensation of sweet vapors of molten rock, baked wood and earth, wild sage, and sweet grass. It all smelled familiar somehow. Once in a while, I experience a fleeting sense that I can I smell it again, but in the oddest settings - a ceramics studio perhaps, or backpacking in the mountains, or sometimes even through a beloved woman’s nostrils as we kiss. 

We all said a prayer as we entered the hut. 

“Aho! Mitakuye Oyasin!”

Once inside, we closed the entrance and the hut became dark. The only light emanated from the glowing rock. 

Longwalker told us stories. He talked about the Creator and the beginning of time. He told us parables about honor and manhood and our relations to the Great Spirit. In this world, every action had meaning and we took no worldly pleasure for granted.

He described how no matter where we went, we were never alone. We remained connected to something bigger than ourselves - beyond culture and religion. Our world was full of this ubiquitous bond of life and ancestral spirits.

He explained how certain practices, the beating of a hide drum, or even the trumpeting of a conch during ceremony, can open channels within you, instinctual feelings, that bring you closer to them.

Using a gourd, Longwalker reached into a large bowl of water. In prayer, he doused the glowing rocks and sent billows of steam rolling toward our faces. The heat was excruciating. It burned and I was scared. 

He prayed that we might be lifted from the endless sadness that our world had instilled within us - an emptiness that left us wandering, void of our warrior spirit.

“Like walking dead men”. He said. 

The elder advised us to use the branches of sage as fans to cool ourselves off. He reminded us how the fire within the rocks brought forth the spirit of our ancestors and the pain from the heat cleansed our souls. 

“Embrace it. Breathe in.” He said.

I was dying from the heat.

Again he reached down with his gourd and this time doused each of us, one by one. Finally, it was my turn. And as the water graced me, I gasped as my soul lifted from my body and back in again. I felt alive once more, and stronger. 

After disclaiming that he couldn’t sing it correctly anymore - speaking English had ruined his abilities to howl in his native tongue - the elder then began beating his drum and singing his warrior call from his Lakota tribe. It sounded like a high-pitch whisper. 

Careful not to fall into the glowing, molten rock, we proceeded to exit the hut. The sage was now steaming into our lungs. I lifted my head from the hut and closed my eyes in relief. 

She immediately was there. Her cool windy kisses swept over me, my skin tingled all around. I felt it. And as I opened my eyes and looked around, I knew. It was all true - Everything Longwalker said was real. 

The smoke that arose from our big fire, from our tobacco prayers, never left. Instead it hovered over and circled around us. As if watching us, or protecting us somehow. They were there with us. 

And glowing warm through the smoke, through the trees, and omnipresent throughout, shown the light of the Sun - the Father. Because He was there too. 

I saw and felt it all and gave thanks.

And yelled from my gut,

“Aho! Mitakuye Oyasin!”

Lucid, Not Afraid

I remember the day 9/11 happened - My brother Mario woke me up. He barged into my room and said that a plane had exploded over New York and the U.S was under attack.  I walked over to the T.V. and a few moments later the second plane hit. I saw it live. It was surreal. At the time I couldn’t think of anything else but my girlfriend and my family and making sure they were ok. 

I don’t remember watching the news often but after that day I was glued to the T.V. I remember noticing the crisp and shiny news programs covering the events and how they edited video of the tragedy as seamless as NFL replays.  They were so good at keeping me hooked. I watched the news for months after the attacks. No joke, they would say things like: “Next up! Find out why everyone is... AFRAID!”

And I was afraid.  I was afraid that another attack might hit San Francisco. I was 18 years old and as a fresh adult, I was afraid of getting drafted into a new war. I was afraid of the chaos. I didn’t feel in control. I didn’t feel empowered. I felt caught up. 

Me and my girlfriend walked to up to Bernal Hill that day and watched the city skyline, ready to witness our world fall apart. We held each other and I prayed to God that day - something I rarely did back then.

And then, years later, I became a father. I remember a lingering fear and anxiety (that still hasn’t completely vanished by the way) that no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t control my son’s fate.  Really, anything can happen - an earthquake, a freak accident, a fucking terrorist attack, a car crash. I couldn’t control any of that stuff. I felt helpless and it used to irk my conscience somethin awful. 

Spirituality helped solidify that feeling. God owned our fates. And so I surrendered fate to Him. And it felt better. I know that we will always be safe. At least spiritually. And that matters to me. 

But I still need to buckle my kids seatbelt - because that’s what saved his life. I still need to teach him to look both ways before crossing the street. I still have to earn a living. I still have to provide a home. God will not do these things for me. How I go about it is my choice. My control. It’s what I own. And that matters to me too. 

Becoming a dad has changed how I exist in this world.  I no longer feel afraid or frozen. I no longer feel powerless. I feel responsible. Tragic events are not surreal. I feel ownership of them. I feel outraged. That could be my son washed up upon a beach. 

And with all the tragedy around the world who wouldn’t be outraged? Paris, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Mexico, El Salvador, New Orleans, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Liberia, Sandy Hook, and the list goes on. 

How much of it is fate and how much of it is what we own? 

I know for many, the answer is not always clear. And it doesn’t have to be. But the worst thing we can do for ourselves is to feel fear. To feel helpless. To wait.

As a dad I need tomorrow to come. I need the sun to rise every morning. I have something to lose. Everything. I feel lucid about the world we live in. And while I surrender my fate, my life is mine to give. And I would give it in a heart beat to make sure you can have a tomorrow.

So buckle your seatbelt - because this is the world we live in. And we cannot afford to be afraid.

Abandoned

Our house was perched on the edge of a mountain, overlooking the Southbay.  You had to climb up 76 stairs to get to our front door from the street. The hillside was so steep they needed to build the house on top of a retainer wall 20 feet tall. I used to hang from that retainer wall and scare the shit out of my older sister. Beyond the retainer wall was where the neighbor’s property began. 

Truth is, I didn’t really pay attention to who lived in the next-door neighbor’s house before.  I never remember seeing people go in or out, except that one day an ambulance came to the house during the night and took someone away. Someone old.

The house was three stories tall and old and derelict. It was built 100 years ago and had fallen into disrepair. The surrounding forest of weeds forbade any kid who god forbid might lose a baseball near it. My siblings and I weren’t sure if any one even lived there any more. So naturally, after the storm of 1994, when a bunch of trees fell and school was canceled, nobody noticed that the neighbors hadn’t repaired their broken windows. I guess we just thought they hadn’t gotten around to it. I remember their red-orange curtains blew in the wind for days. Then weeks. 

Periodically I would notice someone’s shadow around in the house but never really saw who it was. Did I really see someone? Were any people still there? Maybe I saw the light inside the house turn on. Did I?

After a few months all of us kids knew something was up. We convened for a sibling council and proposed to my mother that we investigate the dilapidated neighbor’s house. We knew there were a few possibilties. Did the residents pass away? Were they still in the house but needed our help? Did squatters take over? Is this the house that “IT” lives in? (that was my question)

Not knowing what to expect, we geared up with protective gear, weapons, flashlights, (I wore all my hockey pads and face-mask) and us four siblings set out on our Goonie adventure. Even Mikey came. Mikey was my oldest brother -- the leader. He was way too responsible to lead us all into trouble, so I was stoked he was there. 

The property had a weird layout with a dank, mildewy concrete garage cut into the mountainside. The metal bars across the front door barred any front-entry, so we had to bop our way through the forrest of weeds to reach the back of the property.  When we finally breached the weeds we walked into the back yard and noticed a sink. 

The water was running. 

We were sure there must be someone around. But there was no sign of anyone. For a moment I thought of the Twilight Zone episode where the guy finds himself alone in an abandoned town. 

We turned off the faucet and looked around but the house was barred up from the backyard too. We eventually found a giant window that had been smashed in during the storm. We hoisted each other up into the house and into a giant room where we found ourselves surrounded by ceiling-high piles of plastic Safeway bags filled with God knows how many countless and nameless items. There were piles and piles of this stuff everywhere. It was like a bad dream. The entire room, an old dining hall, was filled to the brim with these bags. I was only 10 years old but I understood what kind of mess this was -- the folks who lived here were hoarders. 

We finally made it into the interior of the house, opened the door to the main hallway on the first floor and fifteen stray cats scattered across the house. Our house had been a stomping ground for a pack of stray alley cats and now we knew where they had been shacking up. 

Did we hear footsteps? 

Throughout the old house were dozens of piles of boxes with old antique items. I remember we found a old camera, a pair of really old eye glasses, and then, a box of old family letters. We didn’t read them in detail, but we could tell the letters were old. They were dated from at least 1930’s. The letters were written in a beautiful cursive and written in a distinct Southern dialect. I specifically remember one letter began with “Dearest Mama”. As I looked at the letters part of me felt a haunting sadness. The letters were a collection between family members over multiple generations spanning across multiple states and now they sat in a box, in an abandoned house. Should we stop reading them? Were we invading there private lives? I wondered.

We climbed up a narrow spiral staircase that spun 360 degrees and finally reached the top floor. It had a long hallway that came to a green door at the end. We walked down the hallway and passed by the room with the broken windows and red-orange curtains, still blowing in the wind. At the end of the hall we found a sign posted on the window of the green door. It was written in a messy childlike way.

Don’t Come In, it said

Sissy’s sleeping

The note froze us in our tracks. None of us could take another step forward. 

What was behind the door? Was someone there? 

We didn’t go into that room. We left it just they way it was. 

We went back home and reported what we found to our mother. The house was eventually claimed by distant family members months later and now some yuppy probably owns it. 

And the truth is that it didn’t matter what laid behind that green door nor did it matter the contents of those letters. The neighbor’s memories were for them alone. Their family, their special time and place.

And as for me, I went back to hanging from the concrete wall and now felt comfortable fetching my lost baseball from those forbidding weeds. 

Party Animal

I locked the car, shut the door, and slung my backpack over my shoulder. 

It was a sweet spring morning. The kind of morning where everything smells like wet grass and pine. 

As I walked toward class I heard music in the distance. It sounded faint. Far away but loud enough for me to make it out. Somewhere some party animal was seriously blasting there music at 9:30 in the morning. I thought, hey more power to them. They were listening to Pearl Jam’s "Even Flow". A 90’s classic that I was very familiar with. 

Eventually I reached campus and started climbing a huge staircase toward my classroom.It was an early morning History class. There were a maximum of 10 students at any given lecture and many students felt the class to be boring but I enjoyed myself.

In the distance I could still hear the music. Faint. As if really loud but from somewhere far away. The song had changed now. I couldn’t make it out, but it sounded like some hip-hop; maybe Reggae. 

My teacher had been lecturing about American pre-Civil-War history for so many years that he just spoke off the top of his head. No notes. I appreciated his enthusiasm.He rambled about quirky facts that he found amusing and once in a while he’d crack a good joke. He felt so comfortable in his endless monologues that he easily tuned out the distractions caused from late students or people talking in the hallway. He just kept on lecturing, locked eyes with anyone listening, and never lost a beat. 

For a moment I looked out the window and realized that I could still hear the music. Loud enough for me to hear it but from really far away. 

Damn! I thought. This dude's kinda rude blasting his music all loud like that! 

I still couldn’t make out the song but I knew it must’ve been really loud for me to hear it all the way up in my classroom. After a few more minutes of lecture and still able to hear the music, the rebellious part of me started to envy whoever was out there listening to their music so carefree. 

Well. I thought. I guess that’s kinda awesome. 

...And then I heard it. The next song.

No! I thought. But it was. 

It was the soundtrack to movie “Hook”. 

There's only one stupid ass who would have the soundtrack to the movie Hook on their fucking playlist.
And that’s because it was my playlist. 

From my phone. 

On its lowest volume. 

Choosing a Path

Every time I begin, I wonder why the hell I like doing this. 

I can’t breath. The sun is hot. My pack is heavy.

There’s dust everywhere and horse shit too. 

And most of this misery comes from traveling on a trail. It sucks on a trail. 

Better to travel across granite. To get there, you must leave everything behind. No trail. Just you. 

Commit to your wits and begin your own path. Up, and step, and up, and rest. Heavy steps. Each one bringing you closer to the top. 10,000 feet high. 

Through eons of time the glaciers warped and polished the rock. They formed smooth mountain sides dotted with megalithic boulders. The mountains are layered like thick cake batter and dolloped with granite peaks. 

Continue climbing. 

The dust clears and there’s no more horse caca. You can see the sky again. You’ve reached the boundaries of the Tree Line. 

Enchanted colors painted with the most deep hues thrive in this land. Tiny magenta-violet and orange-pink wildflowers bow with every gust of wind. Turquoise dragonflies and white butterflies with orange faces flutter like magic fairies. 

Look around you. 

Laser-straight veins of pink quarts, giant rocks teetering on their edges, and crystal clear tarns nestled between cliffs host mountain trout. 

All of it unspoiled. All of it right.