On Reasons Not to Sleep In

I believe there is a reason.

There must be a reason why I can’t remember my birth.  My original birth, 14 billion years ago, when all of what would become was thrust forth from the hips of a dot smaller than a pencil’s eraser, or so they say.

Or so they say. 

History is like that.  Some facts, some figures, some stories.  

Memory is like that.  Some facts, some figures, some stories. 

I can’t remember my Earthly birth either.  Why forget?  What’s so important to forget? 

Why do I have to remember the day my Dad got down on his knee on the sidewalk outside our house to tell my brother and me that he wasn’t going to live with us anymore? 

Why do I have to remember where I was and the sound of the voice on the line when I found out my best friend died, my brother died, that I had cancer. 

I can even feel pain in the joy that flies by—in my children’s smile, in a flower that opens, in an exquisite moment of silence.

Memory is grief.  I long.  I miss.  I want back.  I want to do over.  I want to forget.  

I want to remember.  I want to hold on.  I edit.  I edit.  I edit. 

The eraser that I cannot see is large.  Who is rewriting my history when I sleep?  A messy, messy palimpsest, just a straighter more taut line might call it…Truth.

I can say I met Siddhartha in a dream.  He was working a food cart in a light colored and cobbled and sandy town somewhere, not here.  

I’m grateful my mother saved my Big Bird watch from the rain.  She dried it out over a lightbulb in my room—a room she painted a glossy orange with large tulips.  And still, when it rains at night, I lie in bed and scan the yard for things I might have left outside. 

The universe is expanding—can you feel it? 

Self.  Universe.  Self.  Universe. 

An accordion that plays out the dimensions of being…of breathing.   

This is me. This is not me.  Who is me?

This is when my mind remembers my body is made of stardust and there is more space inside this body than matter.  To matter.  What matters?   What matters?

This is when I remember the breath of Mother Earth swirling among the trees—the day I became a very definite We.  

This is when I remember four billion years of becoming, birthing, of living with Earth, of suitcases packed, and return flights back. 

Of flights to stars and sometimes the sun.  

Of coming home.  Again.  And again.

And then I remember.

Wake up.  Wake up.  Wake up.