why do you believe?

How this all fits into what I'm trying to figure out right now I dunno. But here it is...

Breaking my own rule, so I’m gonna go whole hog and eliminate caps:

a million footsteps
this left foot drags behind my right
and i keep walking
from daybreak to the falling light
as days turn into weeks and years
and years turn into lifetimes
i just keep walking
like i’ve been walking for a thousand years--Sting

and later....

driving through the desert i met a man
who told me of his crazy plan
he'd been walking there for twenty days
he was going to walk on for twenty more
said, how about a drink or a bite to eat
he said, no, my faith is all i need
so then save me
save me mister walking man
if you can-- Dave


The funny thing about that rule is that all my books, actually each section of each of my books, starts with a song quote. I hate that shit. I hate reading it in other’s books, because it’s virtually nothing without the music behind it. But, I do it more as a reminder to myself and my characters as to where we’re headed. The publisher can cut it; I won’t mind. Too much. I do make the effort now to read quotes in books. If they’re not too long.

A good friend of mine is going to Hypnosis school. I’m sure there’s a technical term, like “studying hypnotography” or something, but I don’t know what it is. I find this fascinating. (And you know what else is fascinating? Why I misspell fascinating every time on the first try. I know how to spell the goddamn word, but my fingers don’t. I just misspelled it three times in a row.)

Apparently you have to be intelligent and possess the ability to focus to be hypnotized. And it’s not all woo-woo voodoo shit either (though I so can’t wait to go to the voodoo shop Lunatic recommended. Elephant hair. Fascinating). (Four.) I’ve been in a trance before; actually a few times. The most memorable was Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board. I think I was twelve or thirteen. Two girls lifted me up until my nose hit the tent and I came out of it and they dropped me because I suddenly got heavy, according to them. No shit.

And have you ever done bio-feedback? You can make limbs get measurably warmer or colder, and it’s not even that hard. It’s one of the ways I entertain myself before going to sleep.

I was in a trance the other night (ok, well, PHF would say it was an alcohol induced stupor) when we were making love. It was sort of a caressing time and he finally “woke” me up. But I was awake; I hadn’t lost time. I was just completely absorbed in his touch. By the way, I might catch shit for saying all that, but it’s on the subject, so what the hell.

People use hypnosis for all sorts of things. Like pain relief at accident scenes. My friend said it’s proven that you can actually lower the temperature of a burn just by telling someone that the burn is better and getting cooler. You can literally save someone’s life by telling them that they are going to be ok. Chics have babies under hypnosis and report little to no pain, only utter detachment. I believe it. The potential for greatness and power and control is within our grasp; right inside our heads. We spend so much of our time (as a human race, I mean) focusing on electronic intelligence that we’ve basically blown off the potential for our own.

What about the concept of not needing computers? Perhaps they’re a crutch – an easy way to find out what we, ourselves, are capable of without putting out the real effort of trying it for ourselves. What if our brains could process information like a computer can; as fast, as accurate, as perfectly? I think I believe that they can, but I think that we are slowed by our own laziness and by time. Computers have no concept of time weighing them down. Every day I wake up and think of all the shit I gotta do that day, and so going out of the damn gate I know that it’s not going to happen. A computer has that removed from the equation. Of course, it doesn’t sleep either, so there is that. I think we’ll perhaps get to a point where we don’t need to sleep. Our bodies crave that subconscious time (for lack of a better time). More about that in a moment.

That song up there is about finding faith, I think, and belief. I know that I believe in a few unlikely things. I believe science and faith will come together in a way we’ve never dreamed. (Like Rambaldi on Alias, you know.)

I believe that God speaks to us in all ways; and all we have to do is listen. We don’t spend nearly enough time listening; and right now that’s science’s fault. (And the religious right; can’t forget them.)

I believe there is a whole other world out there that we’ve not discovered, and probably won’t until we’re forced to find a new home for our heavily abused psyches.

I believe that for some reason Greg and I have the potential to be great, close friends in 3D; and that there might even be a reason that we found each other. (Hopefully that gives you a warm feeling, babe, instead of an "uh oh, sex is goin' stalker-freak on me now". You know I’m not big on fate, but there it is just the same.) I don’t, however, think it’s all that important that we meet in order to stay friends.

I think PHF and I share something that will transcend our lives and those of our descendents, and that’s why we can barely ever get through an argument without giggling over the inanity of it all.

What’s my real proof, though? Well, unlikely beliefs must be backed up by unlikely events. I talked about the whole light as a feather thing. That’s real. I also talked to someone named Damon on a Ouigi Board and it was freakin’ real. But that’s kid stuff. This one is bigger, and more recent.

PHF travels some. He’s been gone enough that I’m over the rather significant fear I had about sleeping alone in my house. (Facing my demons, right?) But of course the nightmare is that I wake up to someone in my bedroom doorway – just a big, menacing, eerie shadow because I’m blind at night and especially without contacts.

Well, six months ago I woke to that shadow in my doorway. Do you ever awaken to find you can’t move; like you’re between sleep cycles or something? I couldn’t twitch my big toe, and I tried. That’s how paralyzed I was.

And that shadow was there, in my bedroom doorway.

Funny thing was, I wasn’t the least scared. It felt oddly familiar. It felt like... like him. My husband. The shadow stood in the doorway and looked at me for a moment and then walked on into the bathroom/closet area of the bedroom. Just like PHF would do if he came home late and didn’t want to wake me. (I’m in the habit of playing possum, so I know what he does when he thinks I’m asleep.) I was awake. I know I was awake. But anyway, it made enough of an impression that I told my friend (and I never talk about my dreams) and she said, “Oh, well, I’m sure he was just checking on you.”

I got chills. (Rather like just now.)

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like dream walking. The subconscious, freed of our bodies, take little strolls around sometimes.”

Strolls? Halfway across the country?

But then I realized why I got chills. What she said made perfect sense. It was him, of course, and I knew it right when it was happening. I know when messages on the phone are going to be from him. I know when the phone rings that it’s him calling – I always have. I've often anticipated his emails. I usually know when he’s moving around the house, even if I don’t hear him. He is as familiar to me as my own body. It makes sense that I would wake up when he entered our bedroom; even if it was just his aura or whatever.

PHF doesn’t believe it, of course. He doesn’t remember it.

But I do. It’s a memory, not a dream. And it’s a fond memory too. My husband was away and came to check on me in the night to make sure I was ok. How sweet is that?