RED VELVET PILLOW
Part 2
My heart is pounding as I round the corner. This time there isn’t a bus, each person jumps through on their own. Brutha Ibram is standing waiting for the last person to jump. He’s the gatekeeper. He will jump last and the portal will close behind him. The last person is jumping through.
I run up panting just as Brutha Ibram’s long lean body starts to pass through the portal. His long locs lift through the air trailing his body as he gracefully glides through the opening. He moves like a spirit with no bones or joints, fluid like a liquid or gas or light.
 |
graphic by Paulo Canabarro (pvpcanabarro@gmail.com) |
I scream out his name to stop him. How can I go through? Every time before he has been there during the jump! The portal begins to close.
“Brutha Ibrammmmmmm,” I scream. …
“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me. Please, please, don’t leave me.”
I close my eyes and I jump with all my might determined to grab hold of his energy path, not knowing if I would get caught between here and the other side.
The next thing I know I’m in class with everyone else from the bus. There is a tall thin lady with a short Afro standing in front of the room. She resembles Selm’s third grade teacher, Miss Hatchett. She looks like one of the characters from the old TV show, Little House on the Prairie. She’s telling the rest of the class to look at me.
“I had my doubts,” she says, “but look at her. You can clearly see the difference. She’s come back three times and with each trip she looks better and better.”
I respond, “Yes, I am laughing more. I’m happier.”
Mark, my brother-in-law, is there too. He comments, agreeing, “She does looks more youthful!”
I am either packing or unpacking. Which is it? I think unpacking. We are all near an altar.
Brutha Ibram talks about the value of this place.
He talks about how it’s good for a person’s life. How it’s good for my life.
********
Slowly I drift out of sleep. Realizing what I have just dreamed my eyes begin to tear. I can feel the heaviness envelop my heart. It was as if the dream birthed something that had been buried from view.
How long have I been oblivious, carrying this sorrow blindly, perhaps choosing to be blind? What was my dream telling me? Is there help somewhere? Do I need to physically go some place or is it a spiritual journey? Do I have to go three times or have I been two times already. Is this my third and final chance. Am I spending this life eating in a restaurant somewhere? Dreams are always so ambiguous.
But this dream is clearly a message to me, a very important message. The altar was there a lot so faith must be important.
Where’s my journal? Dreams are like dew, they evaporate quickly as soon as you open your eyes. Let me write this down before I loose the details.
Where is my dictionary, that red velvet pillow, I want to look it up.
Velvet: a spiritual blessing as well as what lies beneath the surface.
Red: energy drives; sex, ambition, anger, as well as physical healing.
Pillow: support and hope.
I have to find this healing place physical, spiritual, wherever or whatever it is. This pain and sadness has to go. My heart, my soul fees weary. I won’t live like this, not for one more lifetime, not for one more moment. I am changing my life but first I have to find it. Who am I, why am I here, what do I really want?
