Now I Was Excited

We were milling about in small room.  A crowd had formed and there was an air of waxing expectation.  The room wasn’t built for a speech.  To view the adjacent room one had to look through a large door frame.  It was functional and not particularly well kept.  It reminded me, or perhaps was sourced from the recreation center in Harrison, New York, as it used to look in 1975 or so. 

Then in the other room he approached the podium.  And it became clear why we were all there.  Barak Obama was about to begin speaking.  A buzz spread across the small, intimate crowd.  Now I was excited.  And, as he nearly always does, he began to speak powerfully and I felt as though I were going to cry.  Michelle was there too, as she often is. 

But he didn’t speak for long and I was soon glad he didn’t for he and I were now chatting.  He was sober and smart but engaged and attentive.  And there was a foil who I was associated with but didn’t want to be.  I wanted the foil to beat-it.  I found myself referring to the former president as “Sir” as one is supposed to.  I tried to express the notion that while we had thought we had a compromised president when we had George W. Bush, just look at we have now!  But this commentary didn’t register in the way it was supposed to.  I remembered he was a president himself.  And then we all left and went outside. 

Walking I thought to myself: as long as we were hanging out, we really ought to chat about China.  There are many things about China that we should discuss Sir.  But the foil was talking and then a car sped by, coming too close, as cars sometimes do in China.  And I believe I spat at the car.  Which felt right for a moment, until it didn’t.  But the President didn’t seem to mind.  I had another point to make and was about to do so . . . when I woke. 

“Darn that dream” as the song says.   It was strikingly real and rather exciting to be in the middle of a gestating conversation with Barak Obama.  I felt, as I haven’t in a while, perhaps, that I earnestly wanted to return to that dream.  Perhaps if I close my eyes, I can go back and make a trenchant comment with the former President about China that would register in his consciousness . . . But of course, it was all too late. 

A friend asked: “what do you think this represented?” which seemed a bit clinical.  “I don’t know.  It was great though.” I texted back.  Surprisingly wonderful.  And that’s enough for my modest morning.  I texted again, suggesting that surely and oddly, somewhere, someone in America was at this very minute having a wonderful dream, chatting with Donald Trump.  A dream they too will wish they hadn’t woke from.    

Monday, 02/12/18