Straddling the Rubicon

About twice a year, I have dreams in which I'm able to sing, and to sing wonderfully well. My voice is rich and nimble, and can hit any note in any octave. Plus, the songs are my very own, ones that I have never heard before, neither in my dreams nor in real life.

It's a fabulous feeling: free, unteathered, fully in tune and at ease with the entire world. If I were to compare it to the world of food, the best parallel would be rich, dark, chocolate brownies with nuts. The voice and the songs are simply there, like a plate of brownies, allowing me to savor them at my own leisure. The closest comparable real-world voices that I can think of are Andrea Bocelli and Aretha Franklin, perhaps even a combination of the two.

But then I wake up...and the voice is gone. It stays in that other world. And I find myself lying there with absolutely no musical voice, and even more depressing, no musical talent at all. But I know it was there in my dream world. It was my voice, my capability, my songs--not songs or talent that I was merely imitating. The songs were new, complex, and my music.

Yet, I just can't seem to bring them into this world. They stay in that other world, and they quickly slide back behind all the scenery there, no longer at my disposal, no longer at my reach, gone, gone and fully unretrievable. All I am left with is a set of dry, scratchy vocal cords that have no ability, no memory, no trace of that other world. I ask myself "Where did my voice go?," "Why did it leave me?, "Why is it being denied to me?," "Why has this world hidden the key to it?," "Why can't I bring it over with me?"

OK, now I have done my complaining and wallowed in my own soupy mud of self-pity. And I am left with one clear reality: Most people are like me.

But there are a few who are not. They can carry the ability with them as they step back and forth across that divide. They don't have to leave the key on the other side. They have it squarely in hand both here and there.

Sigh. There's nothing left to do but admire them. And be glad that at least a few of us can bring the two world's together. So hats off to Aretha, Alicia, Jennifer, Andrea, Marvin, Stevie, to name just a few.