Swooney Tunes

I had a dream last night, a sweet dream that as I lay on my pillow allowing gravity to work its magic on my eyelids, a kind looking man with a guitar serenaded me. The songs all seemed to have been written for me. I was, in turn, Clapton's long-haired blond, Morrison's brown eyed girl, a psychedelic green eyed lady. I was anything and everything the lyrics claimed I could be.

There is something about a song being sung for you. Even if it wasn't written for you, or written by anyone who has a notion of your existence. It says more than an aisle full of Hallmark cards, touches the soul more than the most perfect box of long stemmed red roses. It is -- or was, at least, in my dream -- as if somebody is seeing the best in you, the parts of yourself you don't realize exist. It is a mirror held up before you, a reflection of yourself you have never noticed before.

When I woke, naturally, there was no guitar player serenading me, and my eyelids had once again won the war with gravity. It was three o'clock in the morning and the only loving eyes peering into mine were Manny's -- unseeing ones, no less, the only serenade his gentle congested breathing and an occasional drawn out fart. Piles of laundry still lay stacked, unfolded, on my dresser, the bottom third of the detached bifold closet door in the hallway caught my eye. Reminders of unpleasant tasks to do, of things occasionally falling apart. No guitar player, not even a damn kazoo.

I trudged off to the bathroom, hoping when I looked in the mirror in the dim light I might catch a glimpse of the girl in the songs. Understand why somebody would tell me I looked wonderful tonight. Reality bites. There were no long blond locks, no sultry brown eyes, no passionate green ones. More Eleanor Rigby than Sexy Sadie. I closed my eyes, tried to conjure up the kind looking man with the guitar, tried to see what he saw when he serenaded me into the mirror of his guitar.  I kept my eyes closed as I made my way back to bed so I wouldn't lose the image.

Unfortunately, in my experience anyway, the dreams that recur are the unpleasant ones. The ones where somebody is trying to kill you and you're running and going nowhere and you cannot scream. The ones where your mother is still sneering at you because you're fat. The ones where you're naked and being rescued by a fireman. (Not to be confused with the ones where you are naked in someone else's birthday suit and being rescued by a fireman.) There's certainly no reason to believe the kind looking man with the guitar will return any time soon to sing me to sleep.

I suppose if I want to start seeing the best version of myself, I'll have to take up a little air guitar and start singing my own songs. What the heck, I'm a blogger, maybe I'll even come up with some original lyrics. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I might as well start writing my own music.