…during the early morning dream hour I have a nightmare about being at a gig, all set up and ready to perform, when out of nowhere I find myself driving away from the venue, getting lost, remembering I’m supposed to be on stage, and then accidentally stopping at and wandering into some strange, empty house. A drummer friend of mine from years ago, playing the same venue later on the same night stops by to drop off a kit he won’t be needing, and is surprised to find me there. I say, where am I? And he says, casually, this is Ted and Carly’s house, as if I should know who they are, as if we go way back. He says, shouldn’t you be at the club? I mean, downbeat was half an hour ago. And I am in a panic and also, for some reason, not wearing a shirt. You gotta go, he says, and I’m like, yeah, but where’s my shirt? He helps me find it, and the next thing I know he’s given me directions to the club and a bicycle to ride. Nevermind that I drove there; I’m riding a bicycle now, but first I find myself on someone’s deck and every other board is missing and it’s not safe and then I’m back at Ted and Carly’s where the rest of the band is waiting for me and I feel awful. I mean, I had just driven away from a gig, abandoning my bandmates, forfeiting earnings and potentially getting us banished forever from that particular venue. And my bandmates act like it’s no big deal. No problem. They gave us another gig. Everything’s cool.
I don’t know what’s going on with this dream. I could make some educated guesses, but I’m no expert. I’m no psychologist. On the one had, this dream is pretty typical of dreams I have in which I am failing miserably at something I am ostensibly good at. I’ve had lots of teaching dreams in which everything that could go wrong goes wrong. And this is a musician dream of an abject failure, of doing something that in real life would be incomprehensible to me, impossible. Both the teaching and musician nightmares are about a complete loss of control, probably a deep seated fear of mine, while intellectually I know that much is out of my control anyway. In most of these nightmares I appear stupid, mindless, almost insane–terrifying because on the one hand, my thinker is the essential part of my being that seems responsible for me being me, and on the other hand, I am loathe to appear incompetent to others.
Lest I forget the significance of this day, the inauguration of the new old president, none of which I watched, by the way, but read briefly about in my news feed. The dream might just represent my awareness or fear that as a country we are heading for chaos. I have spent the last three months trying to square myself with that fact, trying to take care not to be obsessive, trying to watch less news, and trying to steel myself against what I know will be a difficult, maybe even disastrous four years. Still, I have found over the last several weeks much to feel joyful about. I am engaging more with my closest friends, taking great pleasure in writing and playing my drums, and even today, my songwriting partner, Adam Fagelson, sent me another Project MA tune to work on, and during my meditation this morning, I found myself almost overwhelmed with gratitude for his friendship and collaboration. Today, while the country descended into darkness, I found light in the studio recording drums, writing lyrics, and recording vocals. In the dream, my bandmates find me, forgive me, convince me that the chaos was no big deal, not a problem. We’re getting a second chance. All right, then. All is not lost. All is not lost. All is not lost. Not yet, anyway.
michael jarmer 