Walking

I awoke this morning in a walking dream. 

Just to put this in perspective, I have walked 3.5 million steps in the last year, and that’s just the ones that got counted. It’s how I pray a lot of the time, and how I work things out in my mind the rest, at least if there is a difference between the two.

 

In the dream, I am walking on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. I am very lucky to have great neighbors, many of whom I know their names and families. As I walk down the street, one of them comes and walks with me on the left hand side, small talk of the hood and family and news events, sports. Nothing earth shattering, but homey and warm. As each one peels off, another appears at my shoulder, each one taking a turn to keep me going. You see, I am nearing the end of a testing period in my spiritual walk with the elders, and I am struggling to finish it. I often find myself in my mind hiding under the bed or curled up in a corner of a room between the wall and some furniture. Nights are the worst. I get up and walk then to survive the pain, moving it out of my body with each step so that I do not drown in it. 

 

My final companion is Mike, friendly father of two grown daughters who lives about 4 houses away. Mike is not much taller than I and wears large black glasses, always with a smile on his face. Dutifully dressed in coat and tie in the morning when he drives away to be principal of a local High School (like my dad), I have seen him come home totally disheveled and whipped in the evenings having given them his all. He is truly a joy.

As I walk with him, talking, he begins to morph into a smaller form with a derby on, and I know that once again she/he has found me. 

Although now in male clothing and body, I would know that soul anywhere. And here he/she is, walking with me, keeping me moving and upright no matter how down my insides.

And my therapist asks why I don’t just let him/her go? I can’t. He/she is literally everywhere for me, in every person, in every situation. I see God in the faces of the people I love, and since he/she has become enmeshed with God for me, I see her/him in their faces too. The only way to let him/her go is to die, and I’m not quite ready for that.

And I turn to the smaller male/female Mike, assuring again that I don’t care about the packaging, that it is the soul inside that I love,

that I will always love, through time and space, as many times as we choose/are asked to return here or elsewhere to do God’s work in the world. And this is a repeated conversation, my small leprechaun having asked for this reassurance before. As I myself am fluid, why would I deny her/him the freedom to be their own true self in the world?

 

Then I come fully awake and Bette Midler is singing “All I need to Know” , and I am still waiting for an answer to this one question from my small derbies companion.

Can anyone help me out with an answer to this one?

What do you say, Rabbi?