The Winter of the Dreamers

"Previously, during the occupation by the Marines, he would shut himself up in his office with the commandant of the landing force to decide the destiny of the nation and sign all manner of laws and decrees with his thumbprint, for in those days he did not know how to read or write, hut when they left him alone with his nation and his power again he did not poison his blood with the sluggishness of written law but governed orally and physically, present at every moment and everywhere with a flinty parsimony but also with a diligence inconceivable at his age, besieged by mobs of lepers, blind people, and cripples who begged for the salt of health from his hands, and lettered politicians and dauntless adulators who proclaimed him the corrector of earthquakes, eclipses, leap years, and other errors of God, dragging his great feet of an elephant walking in the snow all through the house as he resolved problems of state and household matters with the same simplicity with which he gave the order take that door away from here and put it over there for me—they took it away—put it back again for me—they put it back—the clock in the tower should not strike twelve at twelve o’clock but twice during the daytime so that life would seem longer—the order was carried out, without an instant of hesitation, without a pause—except for the mortal hour of siesta time, when he would take refuge in the shade of the concubines."

― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

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Dear Kate,

A few nights ago, probably right before Christmas, I had a nightmare bred out of pedestrian fear, like the humming noise of a furnace in winter, forever on for the eternal present, threatening a riot of going silent.  (My house is old and so is my furnace; I understand the simile might not work for you and many.)

In the dream someone protested to me: "It is not fair!"

A perennial human question that is a statement that disputes and accuses everything and everyone.  It's really saying: The world is not right and it is not right to me, about me, for me.  And someone needs to fix that.

The language of politicians, the best moment for a demagogue to milk desires and prejudices.  Someone is looking for an advocate to push the statement to the forefront of human consciousness, a fear to which we can all relate, like death itself.  "It's not right!" a person once told me, twice, thrice, after her father's passing; as if death is an aberration and God has made a mistake and should have killed off someone else.

The answer then, must be to answer to the fear, which, pursuant to our Marxist default, is to have a better distribution of resources--and attention, spotlight and airtime, that is.

Alas, in this case, the one protesting, as it often is, is someone having more than a fair share of whatever someone needs a share of to flourish in this so-called life.  So how do you answer to that?

You see, if I have eight houses, I should probably and properly expect if not to live eight times as long, at least eight times as exuberantly.  It's only fair.  I worked for it.  I am making life happen as we all should and something, someone is on my way.  The clock in the tower should not strike twelve at twelve o’clock but eight times during the daytime so that life would seem longer.

I realized in my dream as in the dream that is my reality that it's a question in this life I've been asked most and was never able to answer to anyone's satisfaction.  Even if what one wants is a candy and candy is exactly what I give, the person would still come back and protest its sweetness is off in a bitter way.  Hope is never conceivable by even the best of human imagination, aspiration, and, hell, protestation.

A new year is dawning.  Another new chance for our unpeaceable hearts to dream an old dream.

Yours, Alex