― Albert Camus
Frozen
While I was shaving this morning I gazed at the man in the mirror and thought, I don't even know who I am.
It's a hard thing to admit but in my situation even more true because my deep-self lies hidden in dreams and represented in enigmatic code.
I never knew what my dreams meant but I'd be jerked back and forth between agony and ecstasy only to awake frustrated, trying to riddle out the mystery of me, encoded in a past I wasn't sure I even lived.
But all that changed last night on the walk with Clair. I don't have all the answers but now I know for sure I've lived another lifetime, and just need to figure out when and where.
I have to drive carefully on the way to Clair's townhouse because an overnight storm has turned the streets glassy, all the trees cloaked in mist, their branches enamelled with ice.
It's beautiful and ghostly, but also strangely ironic—the weather outside reflecting how fragile and estranged I feel on the inside.
I feel like an amnesiac slowly recovering his memory and I don't like some things I see. I'll have to ask Clair about them.
"How do you like the weather?" she asked, as I removed my parka in her foyer.
"First ice," I muttered, "not sure how I feel about it."
"C'mon Case, you always loved it—it was your favourite weather."
I stared at her dumbfounded. Case—it was the same name she called me in my dreams.
Her eyes grew huge and dark when she saw my reaction. "What's wrong—was it something I said?"
"You called me Case."
A sudden sadness clouded her features. "I'm sorry, Clay—I misspoke. I try to repress it but I guess it just slipped out. You have no idea, do you?"
I shook my head.
"I figured as much. It'll take time but we'll have to go slowly. It was painful for me remembering parts of our past life. I'm not going to dump that suddenly on you. You wouldn't be able to withstand it."
"Was it that bad?" I croaked.
"No, not all of it. People are flawed. Not everyone is proud of parts of their lives. Why don't we eat first and then sit before the fire and we can talk about it as much as you like?"
"You mean, we can talk for as much as I can withstand?"
"There's both love and pain, but what we had is real. You need to know both parts. Come, sit and eat and I'll tell you about Trina and Dan."
We ate in her country kitchen looking out at the frozen ravine beyond. The view was eerily beautiful with the silvery filigree of branches seen against the Niagara escarpment. It reminded me of Bruegel's painting of hunters in the snow.
"You thought Dan and Trina 'hit it off'," she smiled, "well, it turns out you were right. They ended up talking all night in a vintage 24 hour diner. I know it's way too early to say for certain, but Trina sounds like she's in love."
"I hope Dan is equally smitten—he’s a really good guy and I keep telling him he needs a woman."
"And what about you, Mr. Wilde?" she teased.
"I think I already have someone, but the problem is getting her out of my dreams into real life."
"Maybe the truth is, you're living two lives.”
What she said felt like a gut punch knocking the air right out of me. Of course, I was living two lives—one during the day and the other at night. Why I didn’t see that before, was beyond me.
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