Contemplative. The state that has captured my being this summer wrapping me in a reflective and pensive mindset. Though I walk among the trees in a park on a magnificent, early morning San Francisco day with the sun rising up among the trees and the air a perfect 57-degrees, I can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding that will not go away. I look up at birds flying in a deep blue sky with the ocean 25 blocks away. As I gaze at the beauty of the earth around me, the cerebration in the characters Dom Cobb and Arthur in Chris Nolan’s film, Inception, extract my subconscious; captivating my mind by asking me: “Dana, would you be surprised if suddenly all of this simply turned upside-down and inside-out?”
What the hell? Why can’t I merely enjoy a peaceful jog/walk on a serene morning anymore? Is this fallback from watching the 3rd and 4th episode of Hulu’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” last night? Is it from my from my quotidian contact with the news media as told by The Financial Times, The Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post? Is it the constant hate-spewed-commentary from the destroyer-in-chief and his thugs?
I shake my head abruptly like an etch-a-sketch in an attempt to erase these thoughts. I enter the soul of the bird chirping above me on a utility wire. Ah, to be free from the exhaustion of a human cerebrum and bipedal locomotion with an ability float and fly. I remember a distinct flying dream a few nights back. It was the first in 40 years! In my youth, I would fly in my sleep from time to time and it was such an extraordinary experience to feel so free. In the dream the other night, I was running one minute and then gliding in air as I continued to run with my legs pumping and then I went higher and higher. I was frightened at one point when I found myself floating above the tree line wondering how I was going to return to earth. My angst-ridden heart beat rapidly as I attempted to slow my speed to no avail. I thought, “What am I going to do now? How do I land without breaking my bones?”
I must have woken up at that point or perhaps my hypothalamus shifted gears into another dream because the experience ended fine. I awoke with the exhilarating memory of having flown and the location where I was running in the air. It made me smile as I had not had such a dream in decades.
Why can’t I continue to be the happy-go-lucky Dana I’ve been my entire life? Why have I become the Baron Von Uh-Oh to myself? I am grateful and thankful for my life as it is, but in these past many months, I have ingested the fear of everything changing in the spur of the moment as if it will all suddenly fold into a vortex. It’s an odd disruption that perhaps will only heal when this nation, currently overrun by a small group of loud haters and greedy monsters, finds its way back to the values of progress that keep us alive by working FOR clean air and water, protecting the earth and all her species, embracing the notion that all humans belong here no matter their culture, human race, nor religion. Respect. Peace.
I feel this: 
But, I want this feeling back:
(2 images above borrowed from Rust En Geluk–translation: Rest & Happiness)
danajae33 