The darkened gray street lined by dirty concrete curbs and sidewalks fixed itself into my internal being, like a young man communing with some form of nature’s beauty, except this was urban ugliness, lacking any positive vibe, consisting only of more forthcoming mediocrity — a future devoid of substance. My identity was framed by this neighborhood, this tribe with numerous sub-tribes, within the larger Northeast, Rust-Belt city tribe that I began to loathe more deeply than ever before. This was not my vision for the days ahead. I was in my early twenties. I had a dream that shook me out of a dangerous misery. It was not a very creative dream — but, like most dreams, it felt very real — real enough to make me re-think everything. The dream had me standing in a long line of very dejected-looking people moving slowly and mindlessly toward a big muscular man with a black hood covering his entire head, except for his foreboding eyes peering out. He’s wielding a giant ax, chopping one head after the other on a square concrete block in front of him. I’m moving unthinkingly with the line. It comes my turn. I wake out of my stupor and start furiously running away, the ax man cometh after me. I’m literally running for my life, and I’m using every fiber of energy I have to escape. It all ends abruptly with me waking up, bursting out with huge breath of thankfulness as I realize it was only a dream. Of course, I wanted to live. What was I thinking? How could I have even entertained that thought? Life Worth Living I think it was Hegel who said something to the effect that you had to go deep into your dark side before seeing the more optimistic bright light of life. I won’t go into the details that could explain why I was having such dark thoughts. It’s embarrassingly depressing to this day some 40 years later in my early old age remembrance thinking mindset. To describe it succinctly, I’d call it a turn of events between my 24- year-old self and a physically attractive and sexual woman who was about 10 years my senior. This relationship influenced me so negatively — in hindsight — that I feel I’m better off just burying it — but burying things often resurfaces in our memory banks. So it’s there. My Dad always used to ask “Is Everything under control?” I thought about this while entering the street from the driveway of my apartment on this beautifully sunny and warm June morning when I felt saved from my self-created misery by a dream. How great is life? It finally dawned on me how Dad’s pat icebreaker worked. Once you got it out of the way, with a matter of fact “Yes,” the conversation moved to entertainment and conviviality more than anything else. Took me decades to figure that out about him. He did not want any drama. He had experienced more than enough drama in WWII as a 19-year-old marine who had been wounded in the Battle of Iwo Jima. I have the helmet that saved his life from the blast of shrapnel that hit his upper back and parts of his head, causing lifelong soreness and headaches that he treated daily with Anacin. Fortunately, he did not drink and was stoic when it came to his pain or any life challenge for that matter. The helmet has a torn up covering with visible blood stains still intact 73 years later. Every once and a great while I take a look at it. Amazing how a physical item can bring intense emotion just by holding it in your hands. Yes, life can be good even when things look so bad. About a month had passed since that unhealthy relationship ended and I had that literal wake-up call. It turned into a pretty nasty month, and then the dream saved me. In the grand scheme of life, these sorts of experiences have a pathetic quality. Yet, I do believe I was giving suicide some serious contemplation. I was indeed very stupidly depressed though the loss of a fake love. It happens to desperate men and women all the time. Waking up from that dream was not your ordinary rising. It taught me how to live.

Burying the Past: A Dark/Bright Story and a Saving Dream