"The hero is always blind"

Charles Seliger, Don Quixote, 1944

In the dream I was in a house cluttered with lamps and tables, trinkets stacked in dim rooms and passageways. My bed seemed to be in a living room reminiscent of my childhood home. I can feel the direction it was facing in, the sense of being out in the open, unprotected despite the vague sense of people present in other rooms in the house; and the lack of privacy. I was trying to sleep, but some invisible beings were tormenting me. Poltergeist. What lingers are images of being pelted with rocks, hiding under the covers and the weight of something or someone sitting down next to me, trapping me in. I kept trying to yell, scream, call out, but my mouth emitted only the lamest of grunts. And then I was sitting on a man's lap (an energy similar to Gerard Depardieu's character in Maitresse); he was faintly paternal but also shadowy--I wasn't certain I could trust him, and on some level I knew that he could not protect me. I was telling him about the ghostly assaults, which he didn't seem to take very seriously. Speaking was hugely laborious--my breath wouldn't come, each word was an effort, and it felt terribly important to get him to understand--to convey the magnitude of my anger or shock or terror. I was under siege, plagued by the threat of a battle I had no chance of winning.



I woke up at 2am with the feeling of being unable to breathe. A situation of grave and untenable import came to mind, and I saw very clearly that behind every seemingly solid human is an intangible energy, symbolically significant but no more "real" than a ghost. And depending on my level of clarity, a particular energy can appear as compelling and alluring as Bathsheba bathing on the roof...and lead to a letter in my hand, ordering my own death. I am every character, playing every role at once. And the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, or the sleep state and awakening, is being able to discern between what is Truth and what is mirage. Thoughts are not to be trusted--they are justifiers, seducers, sellers of snake oil. And feelings, while greater barometers of what is true, can be deceiving as well. A hit of heroin feels like heaven to the heroin addict.

And then more connections began coming. Last night before bed I had finished a French movie called Claire's Knee. The only character I found redeemable and compelling was Laura, a precociously wise 16-year-old schoolgirl who is both vulnerable and unabashed. There is a moment early in the film when the two adult characters regard a fresco of Don Quixote, blindfolded and riding on the back of his wooden horse. The windmills are blowing wind in his face. And the female character, a writer who acts as a sort of amoral pupeteer observing the actions of the other characters, remarks, "The hero is always blind."

I have never read Don Quixote, but my teacher once accused me of "tilting at windmills"-- an expression derived from an episode in the novel. The idiom means "attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting unwinnable or futile battles" and is "sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications." (Wikipedia) Because dreams are messages from the unconscious, and because waking life is the equivalent of daydreaming, the symbols of movies, nightmares, novels and "real-life" events coincide in perfectly meaningful ways. My version of romance has been a neverending battle, rife with manipulations, power plays, betrayals and emotional intensities (represented perfectly in another film I watched recently: The Lion in Winter, about the murdurously scheming royal family in 12th century Europe). I have been addicted to my imaginary dramas, my invisible lovers and enemies--projections, all, of my own mind. There is no me. Asleep, I am the blindfolded leading the blind, tilting at windmills with my double-edged sword. And then the fear takes over and I am huddled under the covers, ambushed my invisible violators, my voice stifled, breath locked in my chest.

Freedom is calling, and I have no idea what it looks like. But I cannot keep hiding here, pummeling myself with stones. I must face my ghosts, my phantoms, and be willing to set them free.