Somewhere I Have Never Been

A short true peace by Lea Mathieu

©2006

I am walking down a dusty deserted road. It is hot, and I am tired. Ahead I see a sign: Yard Sale: Something for Everyone. A lover of bargains, I stop.

The only thing for sale is a pair of hand-tooled leather suitcases.

“How much?” I ask.

“My retarded daughter made them,” she says.

I look closely: It is my mother.

“How much?” I repeat.

“They aren’t worth much.”

I am silent.

“$15 for both,” she finally says.

I pay the money and pick them up. I continue walking down the road, swinging the beautiful empty bags. It is still hot and dusty, but I am no longer tired.

†

I am taking a nap in the back of the car. I wake up frightened: we are going much too fast.

“Hey! Slow down!” I yell to the front. No one answers.

I sit up. There is no one in the driver’s seat. The car drives wild over curves, past stop signs, through town. My heart races.

We speed into open country. I roll down the window. The rushing wind is delicious. It is night and the stars are bright, clear, and close.

I lay down again to sleep. The car is still speeding out of control, but I am no longer afraid.

‡

I am the only guest in a luxury hotel on the edge of a pristine lake in mighty mountains. It is peaceful beyond words. Someone is in the room with me: a beloved. I walk out to the balcony and filmy white curtains sway about me in a cool breeze. “Let’s have a picnic,” I say.

In a little boat my beloved rows while I breathe in the green and blue beauty enveloping us. On a tiny island we have a picnic of wine and roast chicken. Delicious. Then I rest in the arms of my beloved.

I awake from the nap and see, for the first time, the loved and loving being that is with me everywhere I go.

She is a ghostly image of myself.

I awake from the dream, and still feel arms about me.

§

I used to dream that I walked, or rather floated, about a foot off the ground, until someone told me that’s how angels walk. Then the dreams stopped.

Until the day Mike died. That night I dreamed I walked again just above the ground. Then I went higher. And higher. And soon I could see my apartment building, and then New York City, and then the seacoast, and clouds below me.

And I wanted to say, “Stop!” but I didn’t. I kept going up, up.

That’s when I understood everything.

And just before I rose out of sight to myself, I said, “Yes.”

Amen.

Guided Question: Choose one for a 15-20 minute response:

1) Which dream do you most closely connect with?

What truth in it did you already know, and why?

2) What dream of your own has influenced how you look at life?

Dreams, by the way, don’t always happen when we’re asleep.

3) What do you wish you knew, but you don’t?

Where does the question or confusion come from?

What would clarity look like?