insomnia

in which I am not expending enough energy during the day, happily sitting on my butt tending to the (very few) needs of my Pop who has just had a rather large but benign tumor removed from his neck. It was getting in the way of his arm mobility, and having wedged itself between the major arteries aiming for his brain-muscle was now conquering the uncharted territory of his spinal cord. we're at the Mayo Clinic in MN. yesterday the surgeon was peering at the filligree of nerves and the wet membranes of spinal fluid. today Pop, having previously fortified himself with kayaking and broccolli, is still, as always, walking faster than me through the hallways.

otherworldly. the hospital bed ate him for a day, with its teeth of dials and switches, it's vacuum attachments, it's rails of buttons, the sheets that blended to his gown and the crease of semi-recline that sucked the trunk of his body into a voluminous white nothing, just his toes at one end and his brown speckled hawk nose at the other. How he substantiated so quickly is a mystery to me, but here he is again, eating fish, peering at me over coffee, just like in Thailand when we rambled around in the opposite climate. In the six am morning of, he sips at his cup and says well, of course there's practically no risk of death with this operation, but all the same, I've lived a very full life, done everything I want to do and much more, and if I were to die, it wouldn't be my choice, but I wouldn't be afraid...

i've been reading a collection of native american prose and poetry. often a life is just and meaningful when it is lived in accord with the messages of dreams. dreams and vision are compulsive. directive. I was reading and article about insight, the neurochemistry of it, and how it occurs usually after a prolonged impass. the surge of beta waves that register on the cat scan within a space of alpha (often associated with an unclenched state of mind). How the region behind the forehead is like the conductor, but the regions that register activity at the moment of insight are all over the place and particularly in the right brain. where do dreams come from? I was at the "Bodies" exhibit in Seattle- I asked one the the docents where was the seat of the soul. He said, to my immense astonishment, the pineal gland. (since it has no other known function, apparently) . On the body diagrams of the nervous system at the hospital, the pineal gland is missing. (so was the clit from the bodies exhibit). Why is my soul not located in my appendix?is that reserved for soul food? that's where the hungry ghost is.

all I know is that the fucked-upnest thrill seeker I've ever met in person wore a pfd when he jumped off the bridge. I know that I still dream of him. and he is not the only one I dream of. I know that the one I dreamed I was marrying has forgotten me. I used to dream that I could fly. I have dreamed that I led the revolution. I dreamed that ropes let me float below the wide blue sky. My father had a moment of intense insight at an est training session when he was about my age: he had voluntered to get more involved and so the trainer was insulting him and berating him for his density in answering this simple question: where am I? there. where are you? here. nononono, let's try again- where am I? there. where are you? here. we're not getting through, are we? where are you? ... . . . . there. he says he could feel the synapses in his brain all firing at once. ... where am I? here. you are here and I am you.

it is 2:20 in the morning, and he, over there, is blowing feathers into the air- exhale, inhale. pho, whistle, pho. and I, over here, feel no closer to the next dream, but I will try again, all the same. oh, to sleep like an old man jest a tich worn out from surgery. He rustles, what is he dreaming?

good night, you over here.