Vivid Dreamscapes

Bella Mercedes

I start this dream as a young boy in love with this beautiful black haired, Latin girl. She is wearing a beautiful, flowing dress, indicative of her free spirit soul. We must be 10-12 years old. I am wearing black pants bunched up around the shins (puffy-like) & a striped shirt with suspenders. I feel a hat on my head, kind of leaning forward, towards the right & a belt surrounding my waist. She is telling me that she can no longer see me for she is moving away.

Her parents are separating us & there is nothing that I can say or do about it. I go to her house to say goodbye & her mom turns me away. The morning she is due to leave town, I go to her house. Her dad turned me away with such anger! What did I do?? I am forced to see her afar. I stand at the foot of the slope looking up that tall weathered stone wall. We used to climb and play on that wall as naive children. Life was full of joy & peace back then. The same wall that was the center of our joy together now drips with moss and is water stained – leaving long, sad track, like the tears running down my face.

Towards the right I see her standing there in front of her house. She sees me – waves to me and then is slapped, so as to stop her from waving to me. That moment my life is shattered as her mother drags her away and loads her in the back of a big black shiny sedan. I feel that the times are 1930’s & I see everything in black & white. I see myself, and all this, as a spectator in a movie theater now. The camera pulls the scene back. It zooms out behind me and shows me in the foreground looking up the slope towards her. As I walk up the street past our slope, the camera follows me to the left, the car she is in, drives off to the right and away she goes out of sight, out of the scene – and – out of my life.

As I walk up the hill I start crying and getting older. Half way up the hill I am a young man, about 18 now. I focus on the rough, broken stone wall of the building to my right, that accompanies me on my journey up the hill. My life progresses and I continue on the same path. When I reach the cobblestone intersection at the top of the hill, I turn right. I now feel as if I am about 25-28 years old. Time has past so quickly & what have I accomplished? My friends come running towards me from the left and spin me around towards the right. They spin me as if to lift my spirits and tell me to get over her. “How can I, she still fills my heart” I said. They tell me that it’s hopeless and that she no longer lives in this village. As we spin more I hear a faint voice call out my name & shout out “she is closer than you think.” I begin to wonder where can she be. As I spin to the right the camera zooms back and then freezes in place. We spin out of the picture towards the right.

The camera still in its frozen state starts slowly to zoom in to the beauty shop across the street. The shot flies in thru the window and the darkness of black & white turns to a vivid/vibrant rainbow of colors; across the person sitting in the front chair; Over the beautician, who is taking care of this beautiful young girl in the next chair. The camera stops behind this girl’s head & focuses on the mirror in front of her. First the image is blurry, and it’s difficult to make out a face – but then the camera starts to focus on the reflection in the mirror and – it’s her! Bella Mercedes! with her fine curls & her manicured hands! She is so close… yet so – so far from me, from my heart, from my soul.

We seem to continue living a life of missed opportunities. Getting older & always swirling away from one another. Always like the shape of a ying-yang. Me going & her coming. The two never meeting, but like the ying-yang, swirling together to be what we have become.

The next scene finds me a bitter old man. Walking back on the same street. Walking to the left of the scene, all alone with shabby torn, worn-out clothes. I walk with a cane holding up my very existence. I am slumped over and feel weak as if life had beaten me to my last glimmer of hope. Again life presents an opportunity & I do not see the forest for the trees. Overwhelmed in self-pity and sorrow, I miss her coming by in her glowing horse-driven carriage going on with her life. She rides off to the right as I walk, drained and overwhelmed with self-doubt, off the scene to the left. As her carriage, and my life, passes me by I hear a siren song softly playing in the background. It is the song of Bella Mercedes & it talks of joyful days long gone, hoping for yesterday to return – while letting tomorrow slip thru my fingers. It is the song of my sorrows for the Bella Mercedes of my youth.



Each and every time that a chance encounter was lost I would hear this beautiful song in the background. The song is in Spanish & it’s about Mercedes the black-haired girl of my past (but also the name of my wife – Mercy). I do not remember her face, but get a feeling that it is Mercy. Lamenting how I have lost her, the song offers hope that we will one day see each other again. The odd thing about this dream is that even thought I woke up several times during the night, the dream had its continuation. Almost as if the pause button was pressed every time I woke up & the play button was pressed when I fell asleep.

Strangely enough it played out like a movie or should I say a lucid dream where I am aware that I am dreaming and can put on hold whenever I feel a need to.

It is strange! In my waking life I do not feel that I am lamenting something lost. But in this dream everything is full of sorrow and self-lamenting. In this dream life, I seem to have let life go by. I see all the different stages of my life wasted in self-pity and full of lost opportunities.

But the most informative part is the ‘story playing out like a movie’. Whenever I could not handle my sorrow the action became a scene in a movie. I walked away from it.

Carpe Diam my friends!


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