Thin Ice

My little sister Addi, my son Lennon, and I were playing... I had drove the van out and parked it on the ice and now we were out of it... walking along the ice... Addi and Lennon each wandered off a bit in different directions.. I stayed back... suddenly I became aware that the ice under my feet was giving way...groaning and crackling like it could break at any moment. Carefully stepping, I headed for Lennon, calling out to Addi as I went.. 10 feet from him... I can still picture his little figure. The back of his Grey Hood and Jacket and his Red snow pants as he disappeared into the hole in the ice. Trying to run and calling out to Addi to grab him... As I ran the ice beneath my feet fell away, and suddenly I was in this huge gap of water... I had no sensation of the cold, all I could focus on was Lennon... 5 feet away, but beyond my reach, gasping, kicking, and crying. Trying to hold on and unable to grasp the ice... Addi, trying to reach him... getting to him just a second after he had disappeared into the icy water. Me, trying to maneuver my stiff, lumbering body to catch him as he was being swept down-current... then we were both starting to sink...I watched Lennon falling down into the murkiness... just below me....couldn't reach... everything getting darker... an icky green.... and then. I WOKE UP.

For the next hour I lay awake... trying to shake the feeling of the ground gving out beneath my feet, hugging the sleeping baby boy beside me. I can remind myself that it was just a dream... the mere reflections of my sub conscious mind.... but it doesn't help. I am not yet 30... but already there have been more times than I can count where I was painfully, keenly aware that this whole thing is out of control... that I am falling.... we are ALL falling... and that there is nothing I can do to stop it.... Childhood glimpses... and then since the moment I lay on that operating table, the responsibility of another life on my shoulders..and my world started spinning... faster and faster... I came home with my child and I was hurtling through the emptyness of space.... I lay on the couch dying of an illness last year and I was spinning faster yet... again in the hospital... drug induced coma... falling into the blackness.... So what the hell does this all mean?

I have these dreams... and they are becoming more frequent... Zombies chasing my family... Giant bears lurking in the woods just outside my home..... People I love falling just beyond my grasp... we ALL do right? I am not a bad person... I am quite sure that I have made my share of mistakes... I have hurt others and I have in turn been hurt ten-fold... I have moments of sadness, depression, stress, selfishness.... But all in all I feel healthier and more aware that it appears that many on this earth are....So I don't believe that this is solely a reflection of my own pain or health.... We are ALL CONNECTED... we ALL HAVE THESE DREAMS... maybe there is something sinister that we are ALL AWARE OF... even if it's just subconsciously....

This planet is giving out on us... and just like my van on the ice, we have been the catalyst behind the imbalance that will be our own undoing.... It scares me... it scares me how little many people seem to see outside of their own house... past their own eyelashes even... How long can we take this all for granted before it comes to a screeching halt? How long can you neglect your home before the ceiling caves in on you while you sleep? How long will those of us who still have a choice allow our neighbors to be slaves... and how many must be imprisoned before there is no one left to defend us when the shackles are fixed to our own ankles? I wish I knew how to wake all of my brothers and sisters... I wish I knew how to fix this all... I wish I could create a world that is stable beneath my son's feet... I wish that I wasn't so powerless in this icy water we are all sinking in... and I hope that anybody out there reading this... gets it.