Just one more mornin'
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself outta bed, yeah
Put on my walkin' shoes,
Went up on the mountain,
To see what I could see,
The whole world was fallin',
Right down in front of me.
[chorus]
cause I'm hung up on dreams I'll never see, yeah baby.
Ahh help me baby, or this will surely be the end of me, yeah.
Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.
[chorus]
Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.
[chorus]
Ok, it’s not Shakespeare or Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote or Kurt Vonnegut but I literally grew up listening to this song. It was the second track on side two of The Allman Brothers Band album (that was both the name of the album and the name of the band - they were either real economical with names or not very creative, I have to go with the former because . . . well, they sort of invented and dominated an entire genre of music). It was the longest song on the album at 7:19 and the music dominates the lyrics if you catch my drift.
They were known for stretching out a song. Considering that the live versions of Whipping Post clocked in at 22:53 and Mountain Jam ran 33:39 you just have to believe that for the brothers, it is was more about the music than the words. That’s ok with me and it seemed to work ok for the Grateful Dead and later for a little band from Vermont called Phish.
But anyway . . .
One of the more interesting side effects of this medicine that I’m taking is vivid dreams. Now I couldn’t find that specific terminology listed as a side effect but I’m certain the Doctor who gave me the prescription used those words . . . and if she didn’t, well it makes a much better story if she did, so there.
So, either way, I’ve been having the most vivid dreams lately, including the one that centers on the mythology that if you die in your dream . . . you will die right then in real life. I’m here to dispute that myth.
I won’t go into the whole dream sequence because, well it’s dream and most of it didn’t make much #$%&* sense. The end of the dream found me in a very tall building looking out over the city. I had to be at least 20+ stories in the air. There was a beast (let’s call it a lion) that was roaming the floors inflicting the most excruciating pain as it found people in it’s path. It wasn’t roaring or tearing them limb from limb or anything that you might expect an angry lion to do. In fact, it was quite nonchalant as it wandered around, but when it found you . . . it was bad, real bad.
To save a bunch of folks the agony and suffering at the hands of this beast I had convinced them to hop on this trolley (remember this is a dream so it doesn’t have to make sense) and had steered it thru a window causing everybody to plummet to their death 20 stories below.
Seriously, compared to the horror, suffering and pain that the lion was handing out, falling that distance to a quick splat at the end was a merciful option.
I was still standing at the now shattered window (for some reason I had jumped off the trolley right before it crashed thru) and watched the lion as it ambled towards me. I turned to face the skyline thru the open window and stepped off the edge.
As I fell, I leaned back to the point that all I could see was the blue sky above me and the sides of the buildings on either side slipping by as I rushed towards the ground.
I thought how beautiful the sky was and wondered what I would feel when I hit. And. Then. Bang. Everything went black as I felt the first feeling of impact with the concrete. The first thing I thought was “wow, that didn’t hurt at all. I guess the impact was so severe and sudden that my passing from consciousness to . . . well, whatever it was I was feeling now was so sudden that I didn’t really have time to feel anything at all. Mercy.
Remember, I’m still asleep and dreaming. I didn’t wake up just before I hit. I didn’t wake up just after I hit. I kept right on dreaming.
The first shock was the sense of peace. I thought “this is it? This is what dead feels like? What the #@$% is everybody so afraid of? This is nice.”
I didn’t see any bright lights or hear trumpets or find myself staring into the face of God and much to my dismay . . . I woke up right about then.
Here’s the deal. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in Heaven. I believe that Hell is, at least, separation from God. So maybe I had to wake up right then because I wasn’t dead. Maybe it was just my vivid imagination (and I do have one) picking plot lines and story elements from the storehouse of movies, books and shows I’ve seen over the last 51+ years and weaving all those parts together to entertain me while I was sleeping.
I don't have a clue. I don’t care.
What I came away with was that death is not the end of things, it’s how you get to the next thing. I believe that next thing for me is community with God and that even my most vivid imagination and all the most vivid imaginations of all of the most creative minds in the world all gathered together in one place will not be able to describe it.
So - I will leave you with these words from brother Gregg Allman.
Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.
Preach it Gregg. The living is in the race . . .
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