Strange Days, Stranger Nights

Taking a moment to have a drink and catch up with this blog. We were hit with what would last week have been a serious storm - tonight it's only the precursor to a really, REALLY big storm.

I'm glad to say that I've finished my first new piece since Eckart died. It's a bit of a mash up - but it works well and I rather like it. The orchestration is in the works - but it's fun.

Tomorrow - or later tonight - the REAL storm will hit and we're going to decide if we open late or not. Either way we're going to do it. I love it.

Another reminder of the loss of my friend - besides talking through my fears I would be constantly pestered about my dreams. He was a strong proponent of dream theory; his training as a logotherapist gave him all sorts of interpretive tools to help people use their dreams to delve further into the center of their selves.

So here is the dream from two nights ago.

I remember being invited to Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at the New England saltbox of a family that were friends of mine. Several musician friends were adult children of the family, the parents were my mentors in theatre and publishing music.

The "kids" had an old boat on the grounds to play in - I remember looking out the window at sunset - and at everyone having fun playing "boat". I helped set the table, opened the wine, made myself useful instead of joining my friends outside. The music from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", the Bricusse/Newley version, which is the reason I decided to commit to being a composer, was playing in the background.

I remember being polite and totally detached from the family feeling. Very typical. The Wizard of Oz was playing as well - I remember walking through Woodford's Parks back home and pretending to be in the movies as I walked through the woods and gardens, desperate to keep the magic I was feeling in my head intact so I could leave the park and deal with my life.

My guitarist friend has asked me to help him unload his truck into a downstairs entrance of a building near the old fire station (Station 5) on Boston Ave., where I learned to play pool when I was in First grade.

There was a long electric keyboard being unloaded into the back room space of a school, run by an evangelical church - my guitarist friend was part of the worship band but was something of a "four corner", hired to anchor the band. I set the piano up and crept to listen at the doors of the classrooms, at how disorganized and thoughtless their music lessons were. The rooms were dusty, barely lit.

I exited through the office, the secretaries mortified that I was there - apparently I was a known quantity - or at least my theology was.

It was a sunny Summer day, and I looked up to see all my friends, the accordion player, her sister, the bass player, the violinist, the guitarist, the mentors, all of them in a Sikorski helicopter, turning arabesques in the sky over my head.

They all clearly smiled and cheered at me, waving like they really cared.

And I remember thinking that I had to decide that either they were making fun of me or just being kind and loving. That answering that question was the most important thing in the universe - and that just knowing that decision faced me was enough to make me smile.

And THAT, my dear readers, is why I miss Eckart so much - he would be able to help me figure it out for myself. I suppose I'll have to.

How strange.