While I was running in Dreamland cemetery on this Sunday past, an old man pulled up next to me in his car, rolled down his window, and asked me “When are you going to grow up and pay your bills?”
“Never,” I yelled back laughing.
Today, I encountered a 40-something pony-tailed male bicycler in Dreamland who was stopped along a path reminiscing. And he shared this with me: “As a child, I grew up here. This was my glorious playground.” He just stopped talking at that point and maintaned a huge smile on his face—like the Cheshire Cat, as if the fun he had had in this playground still hadn’t yet run out.
“This is still my playground,” I responded to him. “And I’m a still child here—like you and everyone else.”
***
I’ve been seeking refuge lately in Dreamland, after the gates are locked. Well half-refuge, I suppose. While the gates are yet open (only until 5:30 pm now—a schedule lasting until the Spring), I drive in, park, and run as much as I can—usually to about 5:20 pm. Then I drive out before the twenty-foot-high entry/exit gates are slammed shut, park my car in an adjacent neighborhood, and hop a low back-alley fence back in. On foot, with loaded backpack, I’ll seek out a quiet spot (well, actually, in a cemetery after-hours, I guess all the spots are pretty quiet)—okay, so I mean a killer, inspiring, and kick-ass scenic quiet spot like on the steps of President Garfield’s monument (see pic below) and do my thing. What’s my thing? This very blog, for one (and I’ll put it to post from here via the satellite of love quite shortly.) And, of course, my affair with Rumi (aka ‘the ghost-written chapters’.) Which is still developing (as she sits aside me smiling at what I’m typing.)
“Is she (Rumi, aka Roomya) really real?” you may be wondering. Well, yes. I mean at least as real in terms of playful and imaginative interaction as any ‘real’ woman has been in my life lately. Jimmy Stewart had his
So that’s it, my friends. Here, from the steps of
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