Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Passageways

Less than 24 hours after waking from a dream with the word nacimiento in my mind, I get an email from Big Sur.

The coastal community has been dealing with two landslides, which have cut off access to the north and south.  At least one slide is expected to take a month to clear.  Essentially cut off from the rest of the state, the people of Big Sur are supported with escorted convoys and helicopter drops.

The email update sent to me was to announce that there was one road besides the blocked Highway 1 that offered access to and from the coast.   A notoriously rough and dangerous route, Nacimiento-Fergusson Road is the only alternate available. 

For readers of the Archives, it may be known that part of my heart lives in the stone and sea of Big Sur.  And though I love that land, I never knew about this road.  Not until the 2am, post-dream scribble of nacimiento in my journal and a Google search, did I learn this road existed.

The email update came that same day.  Subject:  Nacimiento-Fergusson Road.  A rugged passage offering the only way in or out.  Travel with care.

Not sure how this thruway factors in.  (Who’s Fergusson?)  And I certainly don’t know the source of all our dreams.

Maybe the flitting words and symbols that seep and slip from sleep are signposts.  Filaments from the web that connects us all.

For now, I’m sending good wishes to the sweet people of Big Sur.  Wishing them smooth and easy connections, with each other and the outer world.  They’ve been at the mercy of Mother Nature’s hand before.  Those coastal dwellers are a solid bunch with lots of heart.  I’m with them in my own way.  Across an ocean and in my dreams.

courtesy of Stan Russell
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Dreaming the Foreign Familiar

I wake at 2am to a word burning through the layers of dream time.  It is a foreign word, not of my native language, yet as I sift between sleeping and waking, I know its meaning without thinking.

I’m aware enough to realize I’ve been bestowed a jewel from the depths of dreamland.  I hold it precious and repeat the word, keep it close until I’m conscious enough to move across the room and write it down.

Nacimiento.

I studied Spanish in high school and college but have found virtually no place to use it in the last twenty years of my life, living in New England, Canada and Hawaii.  I have often fantasized of residing long enough in a land of foreign tongue that I would begin to dream its language.

Nacimiento.

A good friend was recently visiting the island.  She’s teaching herself Portuguese.  With Spring in the air and newness budding, our conversations often turned to dreams and visions.

“If you want to make real change, Jess – to really have something different happen in your life – you need to learn a new language.”

In the beginning was the word, and the word was good.

Nacimiento.

Matter is made manifest through vibration.  A microscopic world of atoms dancing.

Our thoughts and feelings resonate through the channels of our throats.  Minuscule movements reverberate and sound the curving lines of alphabet and release them to the air beyond our bodies.

Habitual thoughts bring tired words falling through our mouths and re-creating the familiar.

New language brings fresh undulations.
New matter.
A new world.

Nacimiento.

masculine noun
1. birth (de niño, animal) ; sprouting (de planta) ; hatching (de ave, reptil)
•    de nacimiento -> from birth
2. source (de río)
3. origin, beginning (origen)
4. Nativity scene (belén)

A mere reporter, I consider this foreign-yet-familiar word and how it has threaded to my dreams.  Woken me from sleep at 2am in all its Source and birth and newness.

24 hours of nacimiento life threads lay before me with no specific form. No answer.  Just a collage of curious details.

Nacimiento, the name of a road in Big Sur.
Nativity.  The birth of my son.  How I had my own kind of angel tell me of his coming, long before his conception.
The man on the sandy road yesterday.  Passing by with the 12 inch cross tattooed across his heart.
The Shroud of Turin depicted on the book cover beside me, “Love Without Conditions.”
Nativism.  The philosophy proposing that our minds are born with certain innate knowing.
Yesterday’s walk along the tide line of the Source.  Where I found the simple reminder etched into the sand:  FLOAT.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Grumbling Lack Through the Horn of Plenty

Friends return from the high altitudes of South America, breathless and vowing to kiss every weed that’s grown in their garden since they’ve been gone.  They came home early, tired of being tourists. They missed good friends, their cozy island kitchen and homegrown food.  Back on home soil, they prostrate to paradise.

In early March, I’m in the swaying palm oasis.  Bare legs, a thin dress and no socks.  I chop fresh ginger and squeeze lemon from the tree.  Prep beets from Mary’s garden that I’ll pair with one of the four softball-sized avocados left on my front door step.  I eat a banana from the grove outside my door.  The spread of fresh food before me is a tropical cornucopia, my everyday fare.

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved

Then why so grumpy?  I’ve been laying in bed for a week in a fevered state wondering what on earth I’m doing on this island out in the middle of no where.  It’s been fourteen years and counting. Is this where I’ll end my days?  A picturesque backdrop to some honeymooner’s photo album?

Am I ungratefully peering down the throat of the fruitful gift horse? Why does it feel like there’s a price to eat in paradise?  Because no one eats for free and my ticket to ride is the cost of isolation.  Living in this remote locale sometimes feels as though Jeb and I are islands unto ourselves, floating out in a vast sea.  Because we are.

Maybe I’m just edgy because it’s been four days without coffee and small things are getting on my nerves.  I’m in one of those moods where it’s actually annoying to hear someone exclaim, “This island is so beautiful!”  It’s no fun to be bummed in paradise.

I know the grass is greener syndrome.  I’ve seen the cattle lean through barb wire to flap their lips towards what they must think are longer, more luscious stems. Friends whisk away on an exotic trip to the Andes only to make a U-turn back home.  Their appreciative comments on the drive back from the airport reverberate from the cornucopia bullhorn.

“Ah, the air is so warm!”

“I can’t wait to eat from the garden again!”

“I love our road!”

Which end of the horn am I looking through?  The small and narrow opening or the gushing wide mouth full of plenty?  Is it possible to see all of the abundance and still honor the fact that island life can be hard?

As I sip my vanilla tea this morning, I hear my grumbles.  I guess I’ll follow the grumpy thread, peel a banana, and maybe more will be revealed.