When I played music, my nightmares ended. – Quincy Jones

For the past several years, there are two recurring dreams I've experienced.  Or perhaps one might deem them nightmares, but not in the sense of bump in the night delirium.

One dream involves going back to college.  Now mind you, once upon a time I graduated from university studies.  But dreams go where dreams go and apparently in my foggy dream state, there's been some sort of snafu.  As it turns out, I've been notified that I was accidentally issued a diploma by mistake. And so, all these years later the powers that be require my attendance to finish up needed credits and in every installment of this dream, I always feel compelled to go back.  So back to school I go.  But what would seem to be an easy task always ends up complicated in dreams. Professors and the students are rank strangers to me.  The university itself looks only vaguely familiar.  And the problems of yesterday's college life remain the same in my dream college life: money for tuition, room and board, and transportation.  In the last dream episode, I was begging someone in charge of student employment for a job I had at the campus greenhouse in real life.  Then there's always the romantic life of the college student. Well, we won't talk about that. There are different scenarios, but in every case, I come oh so close but somehow find a way not to graduate.

In the second recurring dream, I find myself attempting to find my way home or some such known destination.  And evidently, it's not about getting there, it's about the journey itself.  It's basically a road trip.  And often I'm joined by an eccentric cast of characters, ghosts from the past, relatives, village idiots, wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and an occasional cameo by a celebrity. All I know is I haven't been able to be my own casting director.  They just show up.  The dream scenario is usually the same.  I'm stuck somewhere.  I'm trying to get somewhere else.  I run into all these weird people who are usually along for the ride providing me some semblance of help, but I keep getting sidetracked and getting further and further away from my destination.  The advice they provide is nonsensical or ambiguous at best.  Some of the stretches of highway are a constant in these dreams. But these are roads that lead to nowhere. And the occasional celebrity I meet is usually down on their luck like me. My brief conversation with them has me inquiring what the hell happened to them? The one bright spot if there is one is the existence of this picturesque, quaint, Texas town I always seem to pass through. It's the only familiar part of the journey I look forward to. I want to linger there but the open road always beckons.  So back to that Lost Highway.  Steve Forbert in his song The American In Me  expresses my sentiments exactly:  I need me a destination.  I ain't the kinda cat's going to jump in his car and drive.  I'm using my transportation so then when am I going to arrive?

So, in my amateur dream analysis perhaps I haven't arrived. I haven't resolved some issue.  I haven't achieved some goal.  I'm still trying to graduate and find my way home. And like Quincy Jones, music does provide me some solace.  It doesn't rid me of the nightmares but does provide a modicum of resolution.  End Of The Line is a song I wrote that these recurring dreams have informed.  I didn't know it at the time, but the dream state finally collided with the wakened state.

End of The Line

I was just waiting
I was contemplating
I was shape shifting back and forth in time
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line
I was swinging a hammer out in Alabama
You know those chain gangs
Can be cruel and unkind
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line
You know where you can find me
At the end of that highway
The one that Hank Williams
Sang about in 1949
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line
I was down in the valley
Rumbling in the alley
Going where those angels fear to tread
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line
I was on the set of a movie
Clowning around with George Clooney
Laughing 'bout a scene where I was left for dead
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line
You know where you can find me
At the end of that highway
The one that Hank Williams
Sang about in 1949
You know where you can find me…at the end of the line