Leath Spiegel Is Staying With Justin

Happy New Year! I hope you are refreshed and optimistic—I know I am. There’s nothing better than waking up and walking across the way to soak in an outdoor mineral bath and watch the sunrise over the mountains than perhaps walking across the way in the evening to soak in an outdoor mineral bath and watch the moon shine on the waters of the Rio Grande. Fortunately, we were able to do both at the Riverbend Hot Springs Hostel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Southwestern New Mexico is predictably vast and barren, although I was surprised at how anxious I became once the internal chatter of my brain was lulled to sleep by desert winds, coyote howls, and tumble weeds.

Perhaps it was travel anxiety (which I get from time to time when I’m far from home and down really feel there’s a place to be alone and recharge), but I think without the distractions and highly regimented schedule of my daily life, accentuated by the long distances between towns and the slow march of time there made me realize how insignificant my life is, full of meaningless activity designed to give me control over my destiny. And that's my life in a nutshell; fighting against the tide of meaningless. It was shocking to see it laid so bare for me, although I did purchase a velvety black Stetson at a thrift store for five bucks, which made me feel somewhat better.

Although K wants to move to New Mexico immediately (and set up a juice bar/coffee shop that the owner of the health food store tried to talk us into starting), I might need another year or more to make such a vast move. I’ll miss the trees, my family, and my friends. Truth or Consequences is mostly retirees, any type of civilization (including movie theaters and malls) is an hour’s drive one way, and there’s no sushi. Although I thought I was ready to drop out of the world as I know it, I perhaps might need more time to wean myself from the small details I enjoy.

At the airport I was waiting for our bags when some girl was chatting on her cell phone (something I did not miss, along with booming rap music, in T or C) and mentioned that “Leah Spiegel is staying with Justin,” which, of course, was a bad thing for Justin, by the tone of her voice. But what’s wrong with Leah? Doesn’t she want what we all want? She wants love and purpose and surely doesn’t mean to hurt Justin on purpose. And who is cell phone girl to judge her? I think all that is wrong with our lives is contained in the sentence, “Leah Spiegel is staying with Justin.” When I meditate now, I use it as my mantra—Leah Spiegel is staying with Justin Leah Spiegel is staying with Justin. It was a nice cadence and reminds me not to be judgmental.

I had crazy dreams last night. The first was that K and I were moving into my great Aunt Teresa's place on Chester Street. She's the crazy reclusive shut-in who doesn't answer her door but can be seen sometimes, on Sunday mornings, at the Burger King on Eastern and Chester. Anyway, her place smelled of mothballs and time. We were attempting to rid ourselves of much of her stuff (our old baggage), when I decided to keep an old comforter with a huge cloth butterfly sewn on the center. “It reminds me of when I was younger,” I explained, although the significance of the butterfly and my youth is hazy at this time. (Is it a memory of my transformation, or do I believe there is a transformation left to come?) I also made a promise to visit and buy her some groceries this week, although I hear she doesn't answer the door anymore. I always wonder if I'll wind up my Aunt Teresa. I think this dream was urging me to either confront the reclusive type of person I am or embrace her.

The second dream was that strangers kept materializing and walking through my parent’s old house and my two grandparent’s old houses. I would try and engage them, but they would ignore me, as if they were ghosts. I tried to tell my family, but I couldn’t quite explain it and felt ashamed. The experience was actually quite frightening. In my old bedroom at my grandparent’s house, a black girl who was my age with a tennis racket materialized. I asked her why she was here and who she was, but she didn’t answer. My mom was coming up the steps and, as the girl dematerialized, I asked her to come back.

Later, while I was sitting in the living room next to my aunt, a man in a white uniform (service or military, I’m not sure) walked through. I stood up and asked him who he was. He had eyes the color of clay, a high forehead, and short sandy hair. He said he like my boots, which were scuffed on the toes and actually were ankle bootlets that I got rid of several months ago. His shoes were black with thick black soles, the kind some sort of service worker or police officer might wear. I then realized that he was dead and that our houses were somehow portals to other spirit levels, perhaps purgatory. I asked him why, if he died so long ago on earth (he looked like he lived in the fifties), why he was not yet in heaven. He took my hand and said, “it’s because you have to climb there” (presumably through different levels).

No one in my dreams has ever actually talked to me, with sound and lips moving, except for this man. He was so real that I woke up frightened out of my mind. When I went back to sleep, the other spirits, like the black girl, were waiting for me. I saw my father in this realm, or rather, his jacket in my grandmother’s back yard, so I knew he was in the house. I asked my new friend how to avoid contact with him, and she said that I shouldn’t look at him or engage him at all; otherwise, if he saw me here, he would have access to me even after I left. I tried to avoid him the rest of the dream. In this dream, real time was relative; some moments I’d be a young kid again; others not. I began to lose track of whether I was dead or alive and who was dead or alive around me. I again woke up terrified.

I guess shouldn’t have had chili last night.