April 05-C, 2023

In my dream,
I am sitting at a table
in a restaurant
with a black man,
about to order breakfast,
and looking forward to our conversation
about a movie we are thinking about making,
when a white man walks up to our table,
making a scene
because we are ruining his breakfast
by eating together in his range of vision.

I invite him to join us for breakfast,
and tell him if he doesn't
by the time I count to three
he will forget how to breathe.
I say, "One,"
and wake up.

It is a great dream.
On all levels.
With new levels to be explored
every time I think about it.

For instance, everything depends
upon what the overtly racist white man does.
The "movie" we are making together
will unfold in ways none of us can predict
or control

The angels in heaven bend low, 
watching,
waiting,
themselves not breathing,
to see what transpires,
with who doing what where when and how
all yet to be seen.

We are--
all of us, here/now, in real time--
living an impromptu,
improvisational,
unscripted and unrehearsed,
scene-after-scene
of a movie/play 
that is our life
every moment of every day.

We make it all up as we go.

We do it all the time.

We are great at it.

And we screw it up by
having ideas of how things ought to be,
and who ought to say and do what
in order to produce
the life we have in mind
for ourselves and each other.

While what needs to happen
in maintaining and serving
the balance and harmony
of the scene that is here/now
waits patiently for us to get out of the way
with our ideas of ought/should/must/mustn't/etc.
so that what the flow of the moment requires
can have a chance
to produce the miracles
it is capable of producing
on its own
with only the tuned-in awareness/presence
of the players required for the dance
that is here/now
in every moment
of each situation as it arises.

Missed in all of the here/now's that come along
by those who know best and must be pleased
all of the time.

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