Heaven or Purgatory

Everyone should get a chance like this. Everyone should have a week to experience their unrequited life, with dreams come true. Here it is for me.

I’ve been softened by the realization that fantasies are not very good company. I have my ritual here, just like I’d dreamed. I live in a cottage on the bluff. The beloved ocean is within view. The good people are in the village nearby. I have the comfort of silent rituals, like the tea pot rocking back and forth with steam. Right on cue. The writing table is waiting like a needy lover, just as it was left last night. Everything is in order. I even have a new book of poetry opened for another divination of my day. It’s my dream life.

Now that I am here it feels as if my family life, the work on the farm, my job and my community on the hill were the life of another person. Like I’m very old and the memories are as dreams. Like death is near (as it is for every poet). Everyone should get their chance at living their “What ifs”. I find that this experience is a way of manifesting a dream. Then I find that heaven is basically like earth. Maybe not so painful here But it is not so succulent either.

I don’t have the heart to complain. But my heaven is not complete. I need a family and friends that can see me. I feel like I’m part of the ancient myth of the fairy. When I’m not recognized and seen I begin to fade into the other world.

My heaven is a sort of creative purgatory. It’s a beauty not directly shared. It’s a stack of tattered story books left on the piano by people who no longer live here. Purgatory is safe. It’s a ghostly comfort to live in that in-between place where I am a witness to every memory and act of nature but not connected with anyone physically.

Here’s another cue: The sun pushes through my window, between the lace of cloud banks. It is my time to walk on the beach. It is my daily time to gather the shiny stones the waves have ground to pieces. To walk and walk and walk. At the end of the peninsula I’ll turn around, like I did yesterday. Then I’ll return to the cottage, to my paper and my ink. If I’m lucky, I'll discover a message from earth in my inbox. The flashing screen saying that some living being is thinking of me. Like a prayer, someone is wishing that my stay here is beautiful and productive. Someone is missing me. But they knew it was my time to go.

I am grateful that I was given the chance to circle back into a life I’d wanted for so long. It’s a temporary landing. But it is enough to know how much I appreciate my current life and love back in the ordinary world. How much I miss Heather. I appreciate the life here too. I have a pocket full of wave polished agate and granite to bring home. And perhaps a story or a memory or a simple dream.

What is your fantasy life like? What is your dream of the perfect home, or town or even mate? What real joy would they bring that you cannot claim right now?

For most of my life I felt like a ghost. I was not quite part of the real world. Committing to someone at home that loves me and sees me was the best decision for LIFE I ever made. If that’s the only realization I find on the beach here, then it is enough.

Rick