And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
- Walt Whitman
I had a dream this summer:
I am the audience/narrator and see a man literally falling through the gaping hole of his life- his memories, his experiences, his seasons, his time. He smacked and thumped and ricocheted off these experiences as if they were tree branches on his way from the heavens. He was a victim, falling through without control. He came to a splat at the end of his vertical, gaping timeline and suddenly his consciousness joined mine, the narrator, the audience. The vision paned into a long shot and suddenly the audience/narrator could see all lives, all timelines, not just of people but the universe as a whole. We, the collective, were the powerful and all knowing.
This vision influenced the duration of my summer. I went to Nantucket with Kevin, Mel, Claire, and Jason. It was truly an amazing time. Not only was it a beautiful, want-for-nothing experience, but we also were all on the same wavelength and were very much a unified family. Knowing that I can have this unification with people, with the collective, is now something I try to seek out as much as possible. I have new thoughts on being in love and what it is to be married to someone (to be tapped into the same wavelength, to become the same person.)
It’s an interesting new outlook, and I feel it palpably in the air. Change, the 1960s the 1860s, Walt Whitman, Hair in the Park- it’s here as it always has been.
The Public Theater's "Hair"-playing this summer in Central Park.
In other related news, I will be in a (gasp) nude reading of Walt Whitman's “Songs of Myself” this coming weekend. I was inspired; I'm in grad school. It all goes.
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