Here we are again. Sleeping. Dreaming. Getting ready for who knows what. Nobody is saying, but here we are. Mary, my long dead mother is central to whatever is underway. Not as if she is calling shots or knows the strategy involved, but she is determined to be there, and do it there in my dream. Water is a player. It does what water always does, buoys, supports, lubricates, terrifies. Then it provides a common denominator that cannot be denied. It is the obverse of salt.
Suddenly I am in the water, sinking, fearing lack of breath. Mary is already there, abandoned to the depths. I must save her. I find a fruited kelp on the seabed and put it to her lips. She tastes of the salt, and that makes the difference. With that sentient taste of truth, she knows that she can breathe the water. All that is needed is to inhale and have faith.
With that knowledge in tow I dive, pluck my own salty fruit, bite it with loving abandon and breathe. Then I understand that I too have died. That’s all that was needed—to know that death was the salt that answered my prayer and gave permission to draw a different kind of breath. My mother is helping me to make that frightening transition, and this repeating dream is rehearsal for what is sure to come and soon.
But then I woke to another day—a real day—showered off the sleep, and pointed my 2009 Equinox to the rising sun. My wheels and I set off to stage a visit with my eldest son, the rural mail carrier in “Almost Heaven” West Virginia. State Route 32 didn’t disappoint. The eighteen-wheelers who have finally discovered its quiet charms mostly behaved, and the drive was pleasant, even shared with the roaring behemoths and their necessary loads. Dale seemed pleased to greet my safe arrival, and the Memorial Day weekend began apace.
His big surprise was his new toy, a monster he called a “side-by-side.” I later found out that it had a proper name, being Kawasaki TERYX 1000. Google hacked it up, and there it was, mimicking the real thing. The mechanism seemed almost totally given over to suspension, with each wheel totally isolated and on its own to sort out gravity. No matter how uneven the terrain, all four wheels maintain ground contact and traction. He backed it out of its garage and didn’t ask if I was up to a ride. He just said, “Climb in.”
I did. There was even a seatbelt. Country folk don’t believe in helmets, so I committed to the necessary reality of wind sorting hair. Dale translated into the skeletal velocipede, and the savvy suspension dealt with the startling differential between our body weights. No problem. Then my head snapped back to impact the high seat-back, and it was full speed ahead—up, down, and around wherever pointed and gassed. We were a noisy blur of Kawasaki green and black that went by fast—like come and gone. It was fun and more than exhilarating, but then he said, “I want to show you something.” We clamber-rolled straight at a near vertical eight foot embankment and crunched to a stop with the beast’s nose poking right at the grassy wall.
“So? Now what?” I croaked.
“Watch!” he said and flashed me a Dale grin. A change of gear and it was straight up the bank. No grinding, hesitating, or slipping. Just up, up, up, over, and away. Then he charged into the woods at speed, whipping in and out between trees, scaling forested hills with no concession to the vagaries of terrain, skirting the edges of cliffs as we assaulted the pristine beauty of the Appalachian woodland. That was when I caught a passing enlightenment. I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“Be careful!” I squalled. “I’m too young to die!” I had thought that I had had enough of this getting old stuff, and any morning I didn’t wake up would be just fine. But now I know better. When rocking along the edge of a cliff-side aerie and facing the possibility of immanent extinction, I’m not ready. There’s too much on my do-list. A trip to Dale’s mountain hideaway is always good for putting things into perspective. Breathing salt water with my sainted mother’s ghost will have to wait. I’ve got a lot more living to do.