The Peppermint Wind

In my tan leather lace up boots I stood and looked at my new home.
How could it have come to this? I never even imagined my life coming to this point.

I walked over to our "house", the sand crunching underneath my feet. The dusty wind blowing sand into my eyes. I sat down under the extend tarp, peered out past the desert sun, and thought about all the things we had lost.
Our home.
Our city.
Our dog.
Our hope.

I looked at each family, just living day to day in their white trash best-we-can-do huts, cooking pheasants and lizards over open fires.

Sand started to inch down my shorts and I thought about how life would be now. Now that the world was crumbling into an abyss. No more stores, grass, or flowers. No more peaceful walks on the beach, or nights in that cozy bar.

My thoughts were interrupted by an image far away. It was large, and quickly heading our way.

A tornado.

Sheer panic came over the families. All of a sudden the little man-made shack of tarps, bricks and boxes that was just seconds ago thought of a pile of trash, was now my home and only means of protection from the harsh sun. And it was about to be destroyed.

All of a sudden this insignificant lousy life that I was living, was more valuable than I could ever imagine.

Everyone ran through the empty canyon looking for a structure that might somewhat shield them from the twister headed our way.
I ran towards a large boulder that had a sort of cave-like-feel with a small ledge, and I held on for dear life. Watching the tornado come closer and closer at a raging speed, I decided I could watch no longer and turned my head.
Just as I looked in the opposite direction, I saw another tornado coming our way. We were being sandwiched between two natural disasters, and there was no nope.
I clung to the rock. My body, sweating from the panic, was surprisingly relaxed by the cool mineraly nature of the rock. It started to pour musky rain.

I closed my eyes to see pitch black, but memories flooded my vision. Images of my childhood, the ocean, my family, and my work flew through my mind like I was flipping through an open book. But then everything went black, and I could only hear one thing:

"There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.


Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.


Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends"

I took a deep breath and wished, I could cool in the peppermint wind once again. 

5.12.11

No current ideas that may have triggered this dream.

Poem by Shel Silverstein "Where the Sidewalk Ends"