About This Dream...

The Universe always speaks and sometimes we are given a brief ability to listen. Tonight, I got a message…

It was actually a 3-part message that culminated tonight. The first part was sent earlier today – I was in a meeting with a community-based organization and one of the ladies there shook my hand and remarked how soft my skin was. No biggie except that everyone in the office rolled with laughter as I stood there embarrassed – I mean, I’m a pretty manly dude (I think), heck, even a fighter, so I don’t imagine having soft hands, not the kind that get remarked on.

Now let’s backtrack a bit to several months ago, while I was in prison. I got an online generated message from an old friend, “Rose” (not her real name), totally out of the blue.  Rose and I really don’t know each other but we have been friends for nearly 20 years. We have never met face to face or even had a direct conversation. We met originally on a couple religious message boards run by MSN, way back when, before Facebook, before Myspace – right around the era of ICQ. (Ah, nostalgia!).

In those days, I spent countless hours trolling message boards, discussing Islam, often crafting apologetics in clashes with Islam-haters, and just as often simply explaining my understanding of the religion to people like Rose who had honest questions and even frustrations about my faith. From discussion grew a mutual respect and friendship.

Over the years, as the cyber-landscape changed, Rose and I stayed connected. As I became more active in social, religious and community issues, my presence on platforms like Facebook grew – in addition to just having a bunch of great and wonderful people as friends and colleagues.

Then it all unraveled with the insanity that was my marriage…

I left that thing with a lot of things broken, and entered a short hiatus courtesy of the Department of Corrections (actually courtesy of a contemptuous district attorney, false statements, and a judge new to my case who was unappreciative of my “non-remorse” – but that’s another story...

Social media wise, I simply disappeared – nor did I seek to have it any other way. Figured I could fade away quietly and revel privately in my own hell-on-earth, without too many people knowing the whats or whys. 

That journey started in January of 2013 and in 2015, I get this note. It is short – It’s Rose, who had embarked on an expedition to track me down from clear across the country. She tells me she does not judge me;  that I am and have always been her teacher. That she needed to find me and needed to send me this note.

I am floored.

I cannot write back because the note does not include contact info, so I fold it and tuck it away. When I leave prison, I tell myself, she will be one of the first people I contact.

I get out. I buy a phone, spending most of the $100 they give me as get-outta-here-on-your-ass money.  And I import my contacts (thanks Google!) and I email Rose. We play phone tag for a few days – until earlier tonight. It is the first time we have spoken to each other using words we have not typed and proofread.  I am smiling the whole time, struck by her Irish/New England accent and attitude. It’s as if we have always conversed, as if we have been lifelong neighbors.  Her first words: “Taj! What did you do?!?”  I cannot get defensive. I cannot minimize or cast blame. This is my friend – who will not judge me, nor allow me to take for give shorts. In that moment, I have known her all my life.

I tell her my story – the in-a-nutshell version but it’s honest and self-critical.

She laughs – it’s hearty, like stew with big pieces of potatoes.  She tells me she gets it and that, “We (women) do evil shit”. This from a woman who has gone through the fire of a hard childhood, neglect and abuse – graduating to a crazy, tumultuous marriage – just like mine. And she is still with her husband – they somehow made it and moved to that “good space”. 

So about this dream,

As Rose tells it, to her, my absence was notable but hardly alarming. Until she had a dream. More of a nightmare than anything, that in itself made no sense. I was not an integral part of her life. We don’t know each other’s favorite color, have not shared private or public pains, and so on. So, why would she dream of me? 

 

In her dream, I was sitting in a chair in front of my house, sadly looking on as several tractors and machines are demolishing it. S approaches me and rubs my arm to console me. Offering brevity, she quips that I have really soft skin.

Here, the rest of the conversation blurs by – we catch up, share this and share that. We come back to her dream. We cannot but both acknowledge, with differing backgrounds and faith perspectives that there is something to it all.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. I tell Rose about earlier today and the soft hands comment. We pause.

There, in that quiet moment, I think we both sense the confirmation: the Universe has spoken – to us, through each other.  I think I know what it (and hence, God) is trying to tell me, where I am being prodded and pushed to.

The last thing Rose tells me before we hang up: “You’re going to be okay”.

I hear you, God – accent, attitude and all…