Samain and the Summer’s End Moon
Out to the 280 Cafe for breakfast. A not so hot omelette and a wonderful pancake. Delivered by attentive Monique. The usual mix of rancher types with the big hats, tourists in hiking wear, and a few folks in camo.
As I came in the restaurant, I saw a small boy with a big cowboy hat. I was going to say I liked it, but he saw me and said, “I’m a cowboy!” You sure are. “And I have cowboy boots.” He lifted his right leg, pulled up his jeans. Sure enough. “They’re for when I ride a horse.”
After I’d finished my breakfast, Monique came by and said I could stay as long I wanted and read. I’ll take care of you.
A bit after that I stopped reading, took a sip of good coffee, and looked outside. A big white pickup gleamed showing its chrome. In that moment I experienced a bit of double vision, seeing the truck and seeing beyond the truck. Surprised me since pick up trucks are not many-pointed Elk bulls looking at me from the rain.
What if? My mind goes there. What if this is the Other World? What if this realm between the two gateways: birth and death is the dreamed of realm, the realm of legend and story. The Mexica imply this when they say life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep. What really got challenged for me was my sense of reality, of the thisness of this world I wander through each day. The pickup truck a fever dream of some wannabe cowboy, maybe the kid grown up, then dead. A Truman show moment of seeing into this realm from above or from the side.
May have been occasioned by my wonderings about myeloma, about what comes next. If anything. I found it oddly comforting that this place I hold so dear might be only a way station, an ancientrail between being chosen for birth and finding our next path after leaving here.
Final note: a company’s motto, seen on a truck: Secure destruction you can trust.
boy, destruction, other world