Soon I Will Be Done

My wife, Nirmala, was asleep beside me.  I was still reading.  I had put down one book and took up another, one somewhat less heavy (subject-wise) in the hope I could read myself to sleep.  It worked.  After reading the first chapter of Per Pettersen's award-winning novel, Out Stealing Horses, I put out the light. The blurb of the book had informed me that I was about to read a story of an old man who isolates himself in a cabin in a remote part of Norway, and reminisces about his long life.  The old man, it turns out, is sixty-seven.  Younger than me, I thought; it's later than you think...

The dream I had that night was very vivid.  I was walking up a mountain path; the countryside was beautiful.  Each side of the path was flanked by tall oaks and stately maples.  Their leaves were in various shades of yellow, red, and gold; although it was autumn, the weather was still very gentle.  I was alone.  As I walked up the path, I noticed a lovely woman ahead of me, standing uphill  next to a huge oak, the trunk of which had been bent and gnarled by many years of difficult weather.  As I approached her, she said  these exact words: "You think you're still young,  but you already have one foot in the grave."  She smiled and concluded with, "Don't be afraid!"

I looked down and watched a tree sloth inch across the road.  If you ever saw a tree sloth  moving on the ground, you know how very difficult it is for one to get from A to B.  They have to extend one of their very long arms, then use the muscles of that arm to drag their body along.  It's a very slow process; it looks ridiculous.   Absurd, I suppose, as an old man moving six feet a minute with the aid of a walker.

After the sloth had passed, I looked up; the woman had gone.  I suspected that the apparition was none other than Nature Herself. Leaves began to fall; I didn't feel the wind, but it was driving autumn leaves along the path.  It was now dusk.  I felt very peaceful, albeit somewhat sad.  Winter was coming, no doubt about that.

I think Nature "spoke" to me telepathically; the dream was silent until the very end, when, from somewhere and everywhere, music quietly filled my being.  It seemed as if the very trees were singing--a very chromatic arrangement of a spiritual, as beautiful as it was sad.  Paradoxically, though, I felt happy---or, at least, serene.  Something was assuring me that the really good times were about to begin. I only heard the first few notes, before everything disappeared.

The next morning I was able to recall  the one or two measures I had heard in the dream--(perhaps there had been more, I don't really know.)   I spent much of the next day finishing the arrangement which my dream had begun.  I didn''t want to forget it, so I had my son record it.  You're invited to listen. (Wish I were a better pianist; hope something still comes across.)

Soon I Will Be Done