I have a friend or lover who is dark and beautiful with curly, wavy, thick, shoulder-length hair– he’s persian and has the most exquisite features– but I’m not entirely sure where I stand– it’s possible I admire him too much and am dismissable. I get him a gift while I’m out around the little town, and when I’ve given it to him, I’m seized by doubt– I had thought it such a pretty, unusual gift and that it would suit him, but after I’ve already handed it over, my heart quails with embarassment because I’m suddenly certain that it’s entirely wrong– not appropriate for a guy at all, even a beautiful and unusual one. it’s a pair of earrings, and while he does wear a small pair of gold loops in his ears like a gorgeous pirate, these earrings I’ve found and given him are entirely wrong: bright blue metal, fan-shaped, and dangly. really something out of the atrocious ’80s. I’m mortified. and he sees how inappropriate they are and even downright ugly, and I know there’s a judgment of me being made for having chosen and given them. and then he’s walking on with a kind of cursory, insincere thank you tossed back. I even try to pursue it, suggest taking off the bottom dangly fan, can’t leave it alone, trying to amend and explain and recapture some sense from whatever my original inspiration might have been– but it’s gone now, and all I can see is how dreadful what I’ve given him is.
I drop in to visit a friend, or my cousin, and gradually realize that she has plans I’m interrupting and that I’m not entirely welcome– she and her boyfriend or husband are having drinks with the couple next door, and he stops over a little early, and they’re chatting and he asks what she’d like him to make her to drink– I’m standing there like an awkward, unwanted embarassment, so I leave.
I climb aboard my balloon flying contraption and take off over the city– decide I want to fly to the urals, go visit the asian russian mountain cities– so I imagine the direction and eyeball a flight path and set off– but as I’m soaring high over downtown houston, I realize my craft may not make it so far, over oceans and wild mountain reaches– it’s only a humble, makeshift contraption– so I turn it and head for a closer home, where I feel I belong.
partway into the trip I have to crash-land– I lose altitude and am going down fast– but fortunately, as it turns out, there’s a big, soft buddha statue to cushion my fall– I crash into its belly, and all the people, the family, come running to see if I’m okay and to help me out.
I wake up in triangular traction out in their backyard, hanging from my head, the top of my spine– and I feel perfectly fine (although I accept an offered advil)– and in fact the crash has managed to open up my sacral chakra, and now I feel clear and calm and laughing and light. I didn’t realize how closed I’d been before.
when I get down out of the traction, there’s a kind of community fair in progress– possibly even a welcoming celebration for me, which seems perfectly astonishing and unimaginably generous– and the bake-off is just beginning with an apple pie contest, and they call me down to taste and judge. I’m honored and happy and having fun, and I go over and praise both pies for their shapeliness and color, though they’re as different from one another as two apple pies can possibly be: one is classic traditional, and the other is experimental. I try the experimental one first– it has deep fried slices of apple, or maybe even some entirely other fruit or vegetable, inside a spicy crumble crust– and it’s surprising, delicious, quite fascinating really, and I know then and there that I’ll definitely be giving this one a prize, tho I haven’t even tasted the other one yet.