Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Steeping in an Essence

This morning I look for a thread, some simple, single thing to share.  But all are snippets.

Fresh sheets on the bed.
Jeb’s first sunflower bloom at sunrise.
Anais Nin and Henry Miller.
Archival storage boxes.
The Paris Writer’s Workshop.
Fresh-cut canvases and thick, white oil paint.
Art’s essence and time travel.
Is the time machine our heart?

The grainy picture of that distant, remote island.  Ten years before my digital camera.

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved

I lived in that place.  Among swans that floated on ice blue waters.  A street called Morningside along a waterfall to the sea.  Purple starfish clung to ocean bottoms while Bald Eagles’ mated,  free falling from the sky.  Thick green moss on ancient tree trunks were velvet thrones in a seaside forest.  And then there was the love.

Full French in rolling sweetness. Je t’aime in loving arms.

In the fairy land we weren’t afraid to take our hearts and just pull them from our bodies.  Hold them in our hands beneath the stars.  Gaze into each other’s eyes and seek there freely.  Fumble through discovery.  Lay down in the leaves.  Wonder at connection.  Trust in the magic all around.

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Night Walk with the Poet 1996

Words from past journals seem to be the transport through which I am moving through time.  I skim pages through a time-space continuum.  As I craft a piece (known hereto as “The Submission“) from an era when I was 23, I find new insights, discover little gems.

In 1996 life’s proverbial road gave me one of those sharp arrowed signs, so abrupt I almost missed the turn.  My trajectory was swiftly skewed with an unexpected surgery that removed an ovary from my womb and deeply scared my heart.

Until that detour, I’d been gearing for flight to Hawaii.  In a sudden shift, I was shuffling at a snail’s pace in suburbia.

Healing stitches at my childhood home, I sorted old boxes.  Took slow walks at the doctor’s suggestion.  Wrote letters to the Poet in Massachusetts.  Full of sweetness and incredible artistry, the Poet was the kind of guy that would send me typewriter pages of exquisite verse enclosed in a hand-painted envelope he’d crafted himself.  Sometimes wildflowers or butterfly wings would fall out of the folds.

Having just left a year of living in the woods of Vermont, I was out of my element on old turf.  I was adjusting to both neighborhood living and my body’s molasses pace.  I took solace in the presence of the Poet, even when he was 3000 miles away.

October 24, 1996

leaving cardboard boxes
taped and labeled
hefty black trash bags
strings drawn and taut

I stepped into the night air
black and blue and California cool
the sky had her jewels
(though lots were moving men)
and I searched to find the crescent

instantly I thought of you
so we walked together
you and I

through manicured lawns of suburbia
my pace was slow
we took our time
and the breeze rustled the tree leaves
cul de sacs led to no where
they rounded out our time
but we were in no hurry
watching headlights speeding by
(and above)

alone in my old neighborhood
surrounded in cemented sidewalks
with love
and love
and love

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Submission

I wake this morning to a voice like a wagging index finger.  It harkens from some hazy dream space but is crystal clear in her critique:

“You had all day to work on it, but you didn’t, and now it’s a whole ‘nother problem today.”

Well good morning sub-conscious!

I understand the ‘it’ she’s referring to.  It is a work-related task that had to be tabled yesterday by no fault of my own.  It’s a minor issue and her criticism stems from misunderstanding.

So, this morning I wake to being wrongly accused of negligence by some dream-time hall monitor.  Hmmm….

Strangely woven between this dictator’s words are images of red hibiscus flowers.

Ok, I realize retelling your dreams to others can be yawn city.  Interpreting them ourselves can be dicey.  I’ll summarize here with a simple attempt:  go easy, cool your jets and stop to smell the hibiscus (or at least look, there’s no scent).

I’m 11 days from the deadline for my submission and I’m in the phase of having read the piece so many times the letters begin to blur.  I am gaining new appreciation for the economy of words by the sentence.

I’m thinking poetry…