I’m in a music venue listening to a tribute band in Queen persona. The place is full and buzzing.
Everybody but my husband and I seem to be dancing. I’m on my third glass of wine and taking it all in.

A young woman approaches my non-young, non-dancing husband and demands that he join her in dance.
I could tell how uncomfortable he was, but she wouldn’t let him go. Was it just fun or was it mocking?

Then the magic happened. Our daughter, seeing the situation, cut in. She and her dad, with much tenderness and forgotten baggage, danced under the lights.  I took a mental picture of the glow between them,  love tested and won.

Through the haze of wine and smoke, I saw love and redemption. I don’t need anything else now.  I am home.

I thought I wanted to see your soul, your being, your thoughts and impulses.

So I ordered MagLens from the infomercial on Channel 666 for $21.95 plus postage.

I returned it. Turns out I’d much rather live with with the light of lies than the dark of truth.

I so clearly recall the ice cream truck’s music because it meant the icey joy, the freedom of summer .

I always asked for the Big Stick in swirls of enchanting colors or a Fudgesicle when feeling daring.

My ahead-of-her-time mother had to be cajoled into allowing such frivolity in food choices.

One indeterminate day the music stopped. No more sweetness and light.  No more play. Lost joy.

Now when I hear the ice cream truck’s jarring jingle, I’m chilled by its menacing message of decay.

Once I established my territory, I was able to take care of business. No one would be allowed to stop me or shame me.
The boundaries were set in stone with the help of those curious creatures who now had to strain to remember the before.
I have given them this duty in order to make them understand that this is my world now. They are but players in my mind.

Think of me as the chess master, always in control of the board. I don’t overload these agents with facts but with spurious thoughts.
Embroil them them in fear and anger so they will look to me for their salvation. Facts are beautifully malleable, aren’t they?
Am I evil? Will my day of reckoning come? Is karma real? Ah, but I have a great and wonderful back-up plan. Just you wait and see.

A Darwinian set-up enforced from the top. Who’s on first? The WINNERS as determined by their fellows.
You need sharp nails and a malevolent spirit each step of the way. No sway toward the blossoming lilies. Pulling up your own bootstraps is the American way. It’s a beautiful fairy tale that keeps the WINNERS smugly fat.

And the bottom-dwellers sink further and further away from all the bases. Hell, they aren’t even allowed in the stadium.
Unless of course it’s to answer the the blood call from those whose future depends upon their no-nothing fealty.
You say want a revolution. Well, you know. It always end up the same. It’s a musical pantomime for the WINNERS.

The answer was always there. It was writ large to prevent any confusion. Could be my eyes see only what my heart wants.
No one escapes it. No one wins the non-existing lottery. There are no exclusions in the contract. Death will find us sooner or later.

From the beginning I have never been able to grasp the indelible future, rather define my live on my own terms. Then I got old.
That youthful vision I had has gradually contracted. How did I miss that? What day was it when I started counting backwards?

If there’s an artful, graceful dance toward this new reality, I don’t know the steps. I’m out of tune and and just spinning my wheels.
Now I understand the aged rantings about those **** youngsters on the lawn. Nothing will ever be as grand as my generation.

Yes, the rose-colored glasses help ease the way forward and make the inevitable more palatable.
                        How in the world did I miss that?

Was Dorothy right or a victim of ginned-up memory? She was so pleased to be deposited right back at her beginning.
But the colors weren’t there. Where was the action? The danger that infused her journey and spiked her nerve endings?

I guess that she eventually acclimated to her old routine. Gradually the colors and tingly tension subsided into a memory.
She helped with the chores, later married a farmer from a nearby town, and put on her apron to raise corn and a few kids.

Maybe one snowy night, though, when Dorothy was in her twilight years, all alone in front of the fireplace nursing a dram,
She took solace in the fact that once upon a time she was the star of her own technicolor journey. Close your eyes, Dorothy.
                                                                                              
                         And dream a little dream for me.