Prose Poem: Unruly Tenants

   A group of unruly people followed me home from band rehearsal last night, and crawled into my dreams.

   These people rented spaces in a massive old house.

   The landlady was cranky. She called a meeting of all the tenants.

   Was I an observer or one of the tenants? The dream world is not always specific about this assignment.

   The landlady revealed the tennis scoreboard she had set up in the lobby. Each tenant's name appeared in the vertical column to the left, and out to the right of the names, horizontally, were the numbers of the rented spaces and the contracts they made to renovate the space. So far, nobody was winning.

   The landlady was furious with everyone. No one was keeping to the terms of the contracts.

   The renters were:

• a dancer
• a philosopher
• a chef
• a writer
• a healer
• a teacher

   Some had spouses; some had children; not all with spouses had children; not all with children had spouses.

   Each renter had excuses:

• too busy
• other priorities took over
• the work was too expensive
• or too hard
• or needed more skill

   The landlady was cracking down: Get it done or get out.

   Caught in the landlady's headlights, each renter was wide-eyed with terror. There was no place else to go. There was nothing else to be done. Time's up -- get the work done, or you are out of here.

   Later, I went to a party at the dancer's house. He showed me how to get to the Caribbean ocean through a tube. We swam there, or the current took us there. We landed on a beach.

   An Afro-Caribbean man on the beach opened a large scallop shell and showed me how to feed abundantly on the fruits of the sea there on the beach. He also told me that if I came across a grouper as long as his arm, he would pay me $100 for it. {Yeah, I know -- sometimes seafood is just ... seafood.}

   According to the dancer, whenever the going got too stressful in the house, we were free to take the plunge and find the ocean and the beach. The tube is always open, and you can breathe underwater. Go there any time.

   I could tell: the landlady really wanted everyone to get the jobs done. She knew: if each tenant fulfilled her/his contract, the massive house would be fabulous. She wanted everyone to stay and to complete the work.

~~~***~~~

   Of course, this is all a metaphor of the Self, and each character, location, and talent is some aspect of mySelf.

The unconscious brings such gifts!