Clear Lake, Muddy Waters

My violin at the bottom of a lake. Clear water. The violin in its case. Somehow the water didn't get in. I'm dismayed that i fished my identity—bag with wallet, etc—out first, but then i'm surprised the violin was there at all in the dream.

I feel incomprehensibly sad now writing this. It's not the dream and yet maybe it is. I feel tired of the ongoing struggle of my life. But the lake was clear. Still i feel submerged even though i rescued everything—dog, children, women, we were even going back for the car.

Then why does life feel like the insurmountable skyscraper or the scaling up its sleek, terrifying side?

I would like to give up all trying, all effort, and it seems to me it should be possible to live this way, and yet i don't find it. I feel a vast disappointment. Perhaps it is a precursor to something better—like acceptance, surrender. I certainly don't want to have to earn anything anymore—praise, approval, friendship. What else is at the bottom of the lake?

I believe in the magical process of writing. Isn't it enough? I could walk out of my life now and just keep walking, but that's not it. I wish i could find the closet that contains whatever it is supposed to contain. I'd rather not begin again.

What does the lake symbolize? Clear lake in which we might have drowned but didn't. I am ready to crawl under the comforting mountain, burrow in the dark. We are not free and i long to be. I need a moment to re-collect, remember, myself. But i lost that moment somewhere in some lint-filled pocket with the old ticket stubs and gum wrappers. If there were a backdoor, i'd put the hate out into the dirt yard with the chickens. Sometimes we need our rage to keep going. It's like fuel. I'm angry about the years, the lies, and the obscene price of gasoline that has only to do with disgusting profits for the few while the rest of us suffer. But i'm tired of that too. When i was little i liked games with elaborate stories of people's lives.

I would like to feel what's running through my veins. I wish someone would come and clean up all the mess. I am tired. I can't do it anymore. It feels like a long way out. I wish i knew what the wind has to say about it all. I'd like to stay up all night just to listen. Erase me, i keep saying, without knowing exactly what it means. I don't have to know. Erase me, enfold me—those two.