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| NC Museum of Natural Sciences |
Hinduism's version of reincarnation -- you know, karma as my only gift of inheritance, my sole happy-birthday-to-you present -- is definitely the view of existence that will be applied to my miserable excuse of a life; That is, to my next one.
Um, as far as I know.
Which is exactly the point!
This morning, first thing, I opened a cheery, breezy, e-mailed invitation to a Memorial Service for two people (one an acquaintance, one a friend) I did not know had died, and quite some time ago, apparently.
It's wrong on so many levels.
So I hurried on over to the Reincarnation Station, took the test, held my breath, and was told I'll be coming back around as a bear, and that:
Almost 32% of people will be reincarnated as a higher form of life than [me].
[I'm] not perfect, but [I]'ve lead a better life than most. With a few changes now, [my] next life could be even better.
Oh, good, look: Crime and Punishment is on! Glover, Hurt, Redgrave, Kingsley, Kidder. That one.
Raskolnikov: what a rookie to believe in his capacity to give karma a helping hand! Surely something vegetal awaits my presumptuous, fictive kin -- a kumquat, a rutabaga.
In vegetable vein, I broke in my new refurbished Kitchen Aid Food Processor with remainders of cabbage, carrot, onion (more juiced than chopped) and broccoli stems, and with a frothy, weird, creamy vinaigrette. Cole slaw. It took me 40 minutes to clean up after the 5-minute process. I was so tired, and before noon!
I fell back into bed.
In my dream, in my 55 minutes of nap, I relived an old nightmare.
This really happened: I had pneumonia, and was being put on a ventilator. Apparently, I was bucking the process. On my end of things, the rushing noises of the breathing machine became a mechanical voice that said, over and over, in the rhythm of expiratory bellows, everywhere:
THIS IS WHERE
YOU HAVE ALWAYS
WANTED TO BE
Today's mourning dream changed The Machine's line, ruined its perfect syncopation, syllabication, so that it said:
IT IS NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU.
Cole slaw in the fridge, done. Check.
RSVPs to make, for Ed K. and Michael P.
