I HAVE THE GIFT . . .
. . . which is to say, for reasons that remain a mystery to even me, I seem to possess an uncanny ability to predict when my own postcards will arrive in someone else’s mailbox, sometimes mere minutes before . . . and fairly often, I’ll dream about a person whom I have not spoken to in a while who will soon reenter my life. Or perhaps it is beyond mere prediction . . . perhaps my missing them, or my sentimentality for them, is powerful enough to fully manifest their reemergence. Who’s to say! But last year alone, my unconscious mind heralded the return of Emel-Elizabeth the Estonian Girl and Nicole the Polish Girl, among others.
Frequently I’ll simply think about someone and tell them so, and then they’ll say things like this:
Do I truly possess low-level ESP / clairvoyance? I don’t know, man . . . it’s starting to look like it!
As I place my detective hat upon my head, I add another piece of evidence to the whiteboard, which is this: six months ago I was texting Anastasia the Russian Girl from the Umaya-bashi Bridge in Tokyo. I was crossing the Sumida River on my way to a nearby laundromat.
Said I back then:
Yeah . . . oops! For those who came in late: I almost accidentally killed myself. I’m OK now though. I told Anastasia as much back then. She asked a few questions and I gave her a few answers. Then I got on a train and went to Kyoto. If I’m being honest, I had a bad time . . . but it wasn’t Kyoto’s fault. I came back to Tokyo a day early. I turned 38 and spent my birthday alone beneath a bridge in Yokohama. I cried beneath that bridge. Ain’t that sad?
Anastasia, perhaps not realizing it was my birthday, but sensing it vaguely, texted me asking how my health was. She was checking in on me. I was distracted by my own despair and forgot to reply to her. And then nearly five months passed. I experienced a lot of life during that time, nearly all of which I could have done without. But then what else is new?
AND THEN . . .
I awoke one morning in mid-June. It was 7:50 a.m., a time in which I would never realistically wake up. And yet I had . . . I sat upright in bed beneath my blackout curtains and recalled the vivid dream from which I had just left. For once it had not been a nightmare about someone whose memory I was attempting to escape, but rather a peaceful dream about someone from my past. This time it was about Anastasia. I lay back down and wondered at it. Why her? What was my brain trying to tell me? And then my phone lit up in my hand. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw who was reaching out to me from the great beyond, from across the world in Los Angeles, but there she was: it was Anastasia!
WOW:
She’s referencing this post . . . and by her own admission, had not visited my site in some time. So she had thought to check my website that very night, probably at the same time I was dreaming about her, and then I awoke at a strange hour to recall that dream, and within seconds heard from her again for the first time in nearly half a year. I mean, come on! I’m not necessarily saying it means something, but I don’t think it means nothing either!
I met Anastasia in the Old Oakland Days. We were penpals for at least a year before she rode her motorcycle up from Los Angeles to stay with me over Christmas break . . . that was about 11 years ago now. Whoa . . .
Anyway, all this is to say that Anastasia is once again staying with me, this time in Berlin . . . and in no small part because I had seen her in my dream. Something spoke to me in my deepest loneliness and I happened to be listening. And so saying, I feel I have a sort of cosmic obligation to fulfill. I have told her the “cost” of staying here is that she may have to watch a few movies with me, to which she replied . . .
Can one hope for a better response?? If one exists, then I’m sure I don’t know it . . .
продолжение следует . . .
