Tag: the doors

The Broken Mirror Dream

Dreamed I was outside with lots of people. I could see myself among them. I was wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt. All the people were my age, and I was younger than I am in real life, with longer hair, maybe twenty years old. I seemed to vaguely know a few of the other people. The area appeared to be a college or business campus. Sidewalks connected plazas with fountains, gardens, and buildings, bisecting swatches of cut green grass. Forest lined the edges. I don’t know why I was there. An air of excitement almost shimmered, giving me — and others — goosebumps. A few of us talked about it.

My vantage kept changing. Sometimes, I was outside, looking at myself with other people from ten feet away or so, or coming in for a close-up, but other times, the point of view was from inhabiting myself.

I’d been laughing and talking with others but ended up walking alone, and decided to check out the woods. After passing a line of mature trees, I discovered a stream and began following it. After some distance, I saw a clearing ahead on the right. Climbing the bank, I drifted that way. As I did, a flash of light caught my attention.

I headed there to investigate and discovered a shard of mirror on the ground. The clearing was all dirt. Wondering how the mirror had gotten there, I picked it up, careful not to cut myself, and glanced around for clues about its origins. When I did, I spotted broken mirror pieces littering the ground not far away.

More puzzled then ever, I tried putting some context around the pieces of broken mirrors in what was a clearing in the woods. I guessed there were more than a hundred pieces, thought about counting them, but then shrugged that off as irrelevant. I thought, someone would have needed to bring the mirror here and break it. Part of me guessed that children could’ve stolen the mirror somewhere, brought it here and broke it, but that seemed like a lot of trouble to go through, and an odd location to do that. There weren’t any clear paths into the clearing that I saw.

Going toward the pieces, I glanced at larger sizes. None of the pieces seemed to match to the other pieces, like they’d been separated after the mirror was broken. Dirt smudged some surfaces, making me think that they’d been somewhere else, and then brought here. Bending over pieces, I realized that they didn’t mirror the area. On the ground, they should’ve been displaying reflections of sky, trees, or something. Instead, each looked like an opening into another place, a weirdness that made me shiver.

None of them reflected me, either. I leaned down lower for a closer look at one, trying to see the place in the mirror. Seeing gray behind bushes, I thought it could be part of an old castle.

A noise like a large tree cracking and splintering came behind me. Standing, I turned to see what it was.

The dream ended. Or, that’s all that I remember. Remembering this dream feels creepy. I feel like I’m being watched.

Before, when I began recalling this dream, the song, “Touch Me” by The Doors, began playing. I wondered if my mind had created some connection to the The Doors and the pieces of mirror – the doors of perception.

It’s another dream mystery.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Dream residue leaves me with “Touch Me” this morning, a song by The Doors from 1968. I was twelve when it came out.

Don’t know why it came up after the dream. Mind works in bizarro manners. Could be the name of my mind: Welcome to Bizarro Manor. Fits. I’m always being accused of having an unusual sense of humor and thinking differently than others. Alas, guilty, but it does bring a sense of isolation.

Hmm, maybe that’s where this song comes in. “Come on, touch me, babe. Can’t you see that I am not afraid? What was that promise that you made?”

This was an interesting video from that era.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Some days I wonder and worry about it all. Then comes a day when I decide, screw it; let it roll.

From 1970, The Doors with “Roadhouse Blues”. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I frequently think that there is a thin veil of existence that keeps me from successfully achieving goals. Sometimes, the stillest moments, I think I can see it, just barely shading my thoughts and being. It often comes when I’ve built energy toward a direction and I’m closing on the finish, but see the quantity of work that still remains.

Then I urge myself, break on through. So the Doors’ song, “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” became one of my rallying songs. Almost there – break on through. Press on. Go, go, go.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near

And with that, today’s song goes into its final minute.

I always liked singing “Roundhouse Blues” at work. A rousing, rowdy song, it was a great defiant response when bosses would say, “Let it roll.” Well, alright, let it roll.

I’d also sometimes sing, “The future’s uncertain, and the end is always clear.” I was divided about what Morrison was singing. Wasn’t till the net came about and I could look it up that I was satisfied. But my misheard word fits as well. The future for us all ends the same way, so it’s always clear. It’s all those damn little steps in between now and then that cause us problems.

Here are the Doors, from way back in 1970. That was a pretty good year to be a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, until they ran into the Big Red Machine, and the year turned sour.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Awoke with these words nibbling my ears. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow.”

Ah, yes, that’s a song from my youth. “L.A. Woman,” nineteen seventy-one, The Doors. I was unfettered by fears and worries in those days, except rioting, the Vietnam War, air and water pollution, nuclear or chemical attack, equal rights, and civil rights.

Ah, the good old days. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

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Today’s Music

So many songs call me today. My spirits are high, but we’re bracing ourselves for a storm. The remnants of typhoon Songda is heading our way up in the Pacific NW, so thoughts drift that way as we prepare for high winds, power outages, and possible flooding. We appear to be on the fringe as we’re inland, but we’ve gone through storms elsewhere, so we prepare.

As always, though, I’m looking forward and back, riding the wave of the day. Some John Cougar Mellencamp creeps through my mind, as does Boston, Pit Bull and Farrell. But then comes a memory from 1971.

‘Riders on the Storm’ was the last song The Doors recorded before Jim Morrison’s death. I vividly remember the first time I heard it in Pittsburgh. I was fourteen, on the verge of fifteen, on the verge of moving out of my mother’s house to join my father. The day was overcast, with a slight drizzle, and this song played. It seemed perfect for my mood and the moment. After hearing it, I sat in a small shed I’d made out of found construction plywood and huddled as the rain finally opened up to full throttle.

1971 seemed like a continuation of harsh years and fast change for me. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had died the year before, and now Jim Morrison was dead. Listening to rock, drawing, and reading were my escapes, and one leg of that tripod was breaking down. It may sound depressing. I don’t consider it depressing but enriching, and the beginning of my growth as a more introspective person. Of course, I also became more withdrawn then, and socially awkward, trends I still continue. It probably didn’t help that I was reading books like ‘Catch 22’, ‘Catcher in the Rye’, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Cancer Ward’, and ‘Crime and Punishment’ in that period.

Stop and listen to the storm as we brace. Stay safe, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

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