Real Writers Group..Crazy Night. Days Spent Unscrambling the Dream.

It starts out as an average night. No surprises, the obligatory bedtime rituals all taken care of and an early night snuggling into the two hot wheat bags, one at my feet and the other tucked into my left side. Winter brings with it those annoying aches and pains and the niggle under my left rid responds well to a heated wheat bag, resting next to my pajama top.

I sleep easily after a busy day and although I am unaware of the subconscious sorting about to take place in my deepest REM sleep I am at this stage of the night blissfully unaware and unprepared for what is to come to me, by the early dawn, rays of light.

Let me digress for a moment.

It was about thirty years ago when I first met Ziggy. Ziggy Lowenstein a talented artist, musician and as radical as they come. There was nothing average about Ziggy and I was attracted to him like a moth to a bright porch light.

We met at a music concert gathering way out in some distant desert town. I remember him driving past in his big convertible, horn tooting, wolf whistling us girls as we were pitching our small tents just inside the gate of the large dusty paddock  full of dirt and paddy melons.

Dark hair, deep dark velvet eyes he was wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans.

 Ziggy was tall slim and a total chick magnet. We had seen Ziggy performing around at other outdoor gigs and as a classical trained pianist who now played keyboard for the Zboys Band, Ziggy sang in his own unique style, a mix of Bon Scott, Jimmy Barnes and a bit of Mick Jagger all thrown in together, for good measure.

Ziggy was also an architect who worked for a big company in Sydney. On the walls of his Harbour view apartment were not only architectural drawings, mounted and framed, but also many of his other artistic passion, that of 3D drawings. I will always remember my first visit to his Sydney apartment some six months after we became an item, as they used to say back then. I was gob smacked at the visual displays of Ziggy's 3D masterpieces and also very impressed.

He would incorporate fragments of his life into his art, usually early in the morning when his creativity was at its peek. So it was nothing to find him in his workroom putting pencil to art paper and adding more to these surreal 3D drawings.

I was fascinated by all of Ziggy's talents and although a talented photographer in my own right my admiration for Ziggy was immense. He painted a picture for me once and gave it to me as a present. He told me when he was not with me anymore, that I could always look at the painting and see pieces of his world projected through this artwork and to remember that he would always be with me no matter how far apart we would become physically. No fences could ever restrain our free spirited approach to life, love or each other.

So what does all this have to do with my dream state almost thirty years on. 

Well I thought I had tucked those days behind me, moved on and forgotten, however during my hectic day today I was unpacking boxes stored in the garage and the painting, Ziggy painted for me all those years before was uncovered for the first time since his early and unexpected death two decades ago.

Mixed emotions pervaded my senses as I carefully unwrapped the brown paper covering on the painting. Memories flooded back as I stripped back the old sticking taped paper to reveal my beloved, free spirited Ziggy's Surreal life painting. My heart beat faster as I recalled the painful news delivered by the Drummer from the group, " Crystal I am so sorry babe to tell you this, Ziggy is dead." I can still feel the faintheadedness, the disbelief and the deep moaning sounding out from my whole person, as Freddy described to me how Ziggy had rolled his convertible on a dirt road on the way to an outback festival.

I did not function well at all with the news and the months to come are still even now a total blur to me, but over time I did move on and make a life without Ziggy but always felt Ziggy to be with me not only in spirit but also in my new outlook on life and living. I took so much of his zest and love for life right along with me as a legacy from knowing and loving him totally.

My dreams this night were crazy. I was sitting in an unusual looking unfinished house in the desert..could that house have anything to do with Ziggy's profession? The desert was where we met and became lovers. Is that why the desert is in my dream?

The fence is there too, why? Can it be because as such free spirited people nothing can hold us in, especially only part of a fence. The piano, Ziggy's formal training, his love of music and the old convertible, Ziggy's trademark. Yes it's all there in my dream and in the picture too.

I know I will spend sometime piecing it all together, like the shrubbery on the wall and all of the minute detail, there must be a meaning for it all.

At times life feels like a dream, surreal at best. Other times when I think back as I am now, I understand how the Ziggy's of this world shared so much of themselves and lived so fully. When Most of us seem to just exist. I know today I will have to relive some of these blurred memories and my subconscious has already begun to sift through and untangle my mixed emotions in my dream.

I have made up my mind about one thing though, Ziggy's painting is going up on my wall again. Just as my grief tried to bury him in my mind and I tried to cover him up and place him out of my sight by wrapping the painting up and putting it away, I now realise that Ziggy was a big part of my life and still is. His painting means even more to me now as I recall so much about what it represents to me and how much of him still stands here before me in 3D reminding me of his talents and his unique view of the world around him.

I love Ziggy with all my heart and now Ziggy will remain in my heart as openly as his artwork remains on my living room wall, for all to see and admire.

Milli 10 © 2010

The above is a fictional story written for the Real Writers Group.

The image above is the basis for this fictional story.