I came to a tropical island seeking that solace before my time, and that is either another story, or part of the story at hand. There be dragons here, so clearly it is a part of this story.
Here is a short backstory on what has proven to be one of the most persistent themes in my life. I had graduated from the university, and times being as they were, finding a job that made any use of my degree proved so very difficult where I lived, in the Bay Area, that I "gave up" and took any old job. I felt defeated, but at least I would be able to pay the rent and buy groceries. What I did is not important - what mattered is that it made no use of my education. What also mattered is that in no way did I consider that this was the end of my career path, or that school had been a waste. The waste was the nothing job, better however than nothing at all.
At the time I lived in a house with four other people. There was Michael, already a published author, Bryan, a jewelry craftsman who worked with cabochons and silver in a casting shop, Boingo, who turned out to be a serial rapist, but no one knew until the police came for him, and Chaya. Chaya was my true friend in the house, and Bryan was her boyfriend. Chaya crocheted. She crocheted all day long, and smoked. She smoked a Marlboro cigaret every fifteen minutes. She drank water. She used chapstick on her lips as often as she smoked.
Chaya's crochet work was marvelous. She was in my world the ultimate Bohemian artist. She created for herself alone, wearable art, that she draped upon her stylish boy-like frame when we walked about in town. Bryan had his own room, as each of us did, and did the cooking for the two of them, except when Chaya made stuffed cabbage leaves. Chaya did not drive anywhere because she could not drive. It seems it had never been necessary for her to learn.
The source of Chaya's income was her step father, Gregory, a Hollywood producer. Whenever her mother Barbara and Gregory came to town, they took us (Chaya and me) out to dinner. It was always someplace extra fancy, and we listened to their stories. Sometimes I would drive Chaya to LA and they would take us out again. For reasons Chaya never disclosed to me, Bryan was never along on any of our dinner dates or LA excursions.
There were times that I asked Chaya if she did not feel humilated relying on Gregory to support her, and she shrugged. If I mentioned her reliance on Bryan, she blew up in an anger cloud and days would go by until she agreed to speak with me again.
Last night in my sleep, I was at a party and Gregory was pouring drinks. He spoke some to me about Chaya, and her lifestyle. He was now supporting Chaya's daughter as well. We drifted our separate ways, and it came to me I could learn something from Gregory, as I too had daughters who were not able to support themselves adequately, or seemingly take care of their worldly needs. I followed Gregory out to the parking lot, where he was having trouble with his very large car. He was trying to park it on a hill without using the emergency brake, and ended up parking it on its side so it would not slip down. He crawled out through the window, and then lay down on his own side. I was alarmed that he was like an elephant, and he gestured to me to take his pet dragon and look after it. The dragon was a lot like my dog, docile under the right conditions, or not, so I handled the dragon and stroked it on the side of its head and felt that love you feel for certain beings that are yours. I indicated his dragon would be well taken care of, and then I asked him what he would have done differently. Gregory looked at me in surprise, and raised his eyebrows. "It is not a matter of what you would have done differently. We all do what we do, and the important thing is to find peace with your decisions. Do what you can do. Know that you did what you could."
In many ways, Chaya was very much like my mother. I determined not to be reliant upon others, and yet, my dearest friends have often been women who were taken care of through the largess and love of those around them. The dragon is the child who grows up to be the adult who demands that others feed it. Gregory and I are of course more alike than not. We followed our dreams and were either snagged or willingly entangled in the needs of those whose dreams had everything to do with taking from others, convinced that others had what was rightfully theirs. Gregory gave willingly and joyfully, never considering himself to be anything more or less than the comfy cushion of no needs that could not be met, when it came to money.
From a socially conscious point of view, there is a tangle here of needs and excess that my subconscious mind is seeking to address. When we love our dragons and vow to take care of them, our dragons are peaceable. Otherwise… those dragons are forces we cannot control. And those dragons sometimes demand far more than we are willing to give. Chaya never reached that point with Gregory - he was a bottomless well, and she was not greedy. But what do you do when the dragons demand a mountain? What do you do when you remember you are also a dragon, and the wealth is increasingly concentrated with only a handful of people, and they are nothing like Gregory?
