Dreaming Awake

On June 24, I went into a hospital in Oaxaca for prostate surgery and the removal of two bladder stones. The surgery appears to have been successful. The prostate problems that had caused so much pain and discomfort have been greatly relieved. The stones (which I had no idea were rattling around inside of me) are gone, though my bladder has been through a lot.
I am grateful for improvements in my quality of life.

But sixty-seven days later, I am still in a strange place. The incision below my navel that was made to remove the stones continues to weep fluid, and there is pain. I need to change bandages three times a day. There have been various explanations, but no clear answer. Next week, in Santa Fe, I will seek a second opinion.

So I find myself in what feels like a kind of no-man’s land: no longer truly ill, but not yet well.

And strangely, this has brought me back to something I experienced while traveling around the world in 2008.

Somewhere along that journey, I came to a perception that felt profoundly true:

I am dreaming awake.

Not that the world isn’t real. It is completely real while we are here. Love is real. Pain is real. Beauty is real. Loss is real.

And yet this life is only a blink of the eye. The soul is eternal.

Everything matters.

And nothing matters.

That realization gave me a remarkable calm. I could let the dream unfold without constantly demanding that it be different. My task was simply to live fully and observe as if I was a witness. When we are dreaming, events have a life of their own. We surf the “big wave,” and it is best to enjoy every moment.

It is easy to observe the dream when it is beautiful.

It is harder when the dream hurts.

My body has become mysterious to me. Something was removed. Something was released. Yet a wound remains open.

I don’t believe my psychological history caused my prostate problems or bladder stones. But I do wonder what meaning I might find in the experience. The prostate, bladder, sexuality, release, the wound that will not close—touch places in the psyche that I have been exploring for years, especially as I write my autobiography.

Perhaps the question isn’t Why did this happen to me?

Perhaps it is:

Can I remain wide awake inside the dream when the dream has become difficult?

We will be in Santa Fe soon, for three weeks. First off, I will be seeing my urologist for a second opinion, and I have an appointment with my longtime psychologist as well. I want to approach this from every level: physical, psychological, spiritual.

Jim Morrison wrote:

“Strange days have found us

And through their strange hours

We linger alone

Bodies confused…”

Yes.

Bodies confused.

And perhaps this is simply another chapter in the dream.

The Wanderer has traveled far.

Now he has been asked to stop.

To wait.

To heal.

To remain awake.

A Circle

Street photo, Madrid, spain

The longer I live, the more often experiences come that make a circle in my life. For instance, I happened to be on YouTube the other day, and arrived at a video of Jim Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) and The Doors. Somebody had commented that Morrison had taken inspiration from the poet Arthur Rimbaud (French, 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891). I have always liked Rimbaud, who remarkably made his work before the age of 21 and then quit writing. I did a Google search and found a movie about him called “Total Eclipse” a 1995 film directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I watched the whole film, and this brought me to my memories from twenty years ago, when I read a biography of Rimbaud. So, a circle was created from my interest in The Doors, the influence upon Jim Morrison of the French poet, back to my original reading of poems by Rimbaud and his biography, and then the closure of watching the movie depicting Rimbaud's meteoric rise and tragic end.

In the film, Rimbaud says to his fellow poet Paul Verlaine, “I understood that I was to experience everything in my body—it was no longer enough for me to be one person. I decided to be everyone . . . I decided to be a genius . . . I decided to originate the future.”

Street photo, Florence, Italy

I relate to the notion of finding oneself by losing oneself and becoming “everyone”. This is something that happens when I go into the “zone” and lose my self in the streets of the world photographing people. The photos become my poems.

SENSATION
In the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,
And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:
Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.
I will let the wind bathe my bare head.
I will not speak, I will have no thoughts:
But infinite love will mount in my soul;
And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,
Through the country side-joyous as if I were with a woman.
-A. Rimbaud

Street photo, Barcelona, Spain

To see more photos: Artistic Photography by Steven Boone