NIGHT AFTER NIGHT

I nearly deleted my previous post (A Dream) because I disliked it. My sole purpose was to show the stark contrast between my fulfilling previous life and the foul purgatory that I'm presently trapped in.

How exactly did this present situation happen? Without going into tedious details, I'll merely say that it's surprisingly easy to fall from grace and lose everything that you once had.

My dreams lately are strange and disturbing. I seem to consistently talk to dead people. I tell my mother all my problems. She listens carefully and patiently but never responds. The deceased are always there but remain reticent. Perhaps waiting for my impending arrival........

Am I being morbid?
Sorry, but I'm not in a jovial mood - - far from it.

Recurring dreams have plagued me most of my life. Some people can't remember their dreams. Mine are often ominously vivid.

For many, many years - from my late teens into my early 30's I had very frequent nightmares concerning my father. He was the most violent person I ever knew and I was more terrified of his rage than anything else on earth.

These nightmares persisted every time I fell asleep - - to the point where I was extremely reluctant to ever sleep. And they were always the same:
The usual (and frequent) violent  confrontations, when he'd physically and savagely attack me. I'd inevitably wake up screaming - - every single time.

It was impossible to eliminate these nightmares no matter how hard I tried. Eventually they subsided.....with age and passing time.

My next bout of persistent dreams occurred in my mid-30s when I left California and lived in various places that I hated.

These dreams weren't exactly alike but they had the same unnerving, persistent theme. I was always wandering, always at night, in strange, unfamiliar places - - city streets, shopping malls, dark neighborhoods, isolated country roads. I wandered and searched - - frantically trying to find something but never did.

I'm sure these dreams signified my intense unhappiness and a quest for perfection, peace, and solace that was unattainable.

Strange. Very strange.

After my parents died, I kept having a similar dream. It was late at night and I was in a dark, isolated park. In the distance there was a bench and my parents were sitting on it. 
I called and called, but they didn't hear me. I tried to walk over to them, but I walked and walked and could never get there.

Why am I revealing all of this? I have no clue. These are thoughts that cropped up from nowhere and I wrote them down.

I'm in a very dire, retrospective mood.
Hopefully it will pass.
Eventually.
Perhaps........

                                   Jon

BETWEEN DUSK AND DAWN

 

 For some weird and indiscernible reason, I suddenly remembered that I never pimped my book for children on this blog.

The peculiar thought occurred to me when I  found a dust-encrusted copy of it on one of my bookshelves yesterday. It was published in 2016 (2nd edition 2018) and I can hardly believe that five years have passed.

The thought of me writing a children's book might come as a shock, because the general consensus is that I dislike children.

In truth, I don't hate the little rugrats. I simply like them best from a distance of fifty miles. At least.

Between Dusk and Dawn is a paperback book with seventeen poems, approximately 65 glossy pages, with an array of colored pictures that I selected.

 

 

The poetry depicts the magic and mystery of the nocturnal world - with the beauty that enhances our dreams, infused with shrouds of uncertainty that inspire our fears and induce nightmares.

The moon, owls, crones, sprite, will o' the wisp, bats, werewolves, gnomes, ghosts - - things quite appropriate for the Halloween season.

Available at Amazon.
Between Dusk and Dawn

 

NIGHT

Night is the time
between dusk and dawn
when the world is dark
and the hours are long,

when a creamy moon rises
above the tall trees
and wise old owls
whoo-hoot in the breeze,

when the leaves on the trees
softly rustle and sway
and almost seem
to have something to say,

When the stars far above
always twinkle and glow
while the shadowy earth
drowses way down below.

Night is the time
when cats like to prowl
and moths like to flutter
and wolves start to howl,

when crickets are chirping
by the banks of a creek
and bats fly about
in the sky as they squeak.

Night is when shadows
will lurk in your room
and silence will listen
in the gathering gloom

and outside your window
the night creatures creep
while dreams come to visit
as you peacefully sleep.

 

SOMETHING

But suddenly something
jolts you awake.
What could it be.
for goodness sake?

Was it the wind
as it whisked past the house
or was it the scurrying
feet of a mouse?

Was it a creature
outside in the gloom,
or did the sound come
from the midst of your room?

Could it have come
from the dark closet door,
or from under your bed
with the dust on the floor?

or maybe the sound that you heard
wasn't there -
and is only a dream
that gave you a scare.

Jon Varga

copyright 2016-2018

  

FOG, MOON, AND SHADOWS

These February days are slowly getting longer but not nearly enough. It still gets dark too early and daylight is quickly lost in mountain shadows.

Two nights ago it was frigid, a chilling 12 degrees (Fahrenheit). Last night was much warmer, but a wild wind whipped around -  singing like a phantom chorus through the treetops, wailing in distant unseen places.
And then the rain began.
Intense dampness, as always, prevails.

I've been having disturbing dreams. Of people long dead whom I love. They want to contact me but, try as they might, there is no connection. I wander through a somber dreamscape of darkness trying to find them but they remain elusive.
I hate these dreams. They don't frighten me. But they are unsettling.

My dreams are always dark now, reflecting my waking hours. Enough said.

I'm in one of my melancholy Magyar moods. Which only serves to make me annoyingly intriguing (he says with a grim sarcastic smile).

Despite having an enormous amount of important things to do, I baked a cake last night. Then sat - eating cake and drinking coffee - while watching a YouTube video of Swan Lake.

And remembering the very first "live" performance of Swan Lake that I ever saw: one magical long-ago February night at the Los Angeles Music Center. It was the ABT (American Ballet Theater) - during the golden era when Lucia Chase was still alive.

But I'm being boring.....

How about some visuals?

The sunrise a few days ago - I can't remember exactly when. Possibly Thursday? This is a view from the back porch.

The full moon - the "blue moon".

These photos were taken just before dawn, when the tired moon was drifting towards the west.

Midday fog on the front part of my property. This was taken on Friday.

DREAM WITH PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT

I've lately been plagued with horrendously frightening aura migraines. I've had three in the past two days. I first started getting them in my early 30's and they continue to enhance my sporadic panic attacks and perpetual anxiety.

My life has never been quite as idyllic as one might imagine....and never will be.

My mother suffered with aura migraines. More women (supposedly) get them than men. She suffered silently. Never complained.
In stark contrast, I am a dramatic, hypersensitive bitch.

I had an unusually vivid dream last night - during a rare doze between rampant bouts of sleeplessness. Most of my dreams are disturbing (I merely threw that in for armchair analysts to ponder) but when I wake they are quickly forgotten.
This dream dared to linger.

I was playing the piano for my mother. Ever since she died, she is merely a vague but comforting shadow in my dreams.

Ironically, I was playing the very first piano piece that I ever heard her play. She was performing at an auditorium in Covina, California when I was seven years old. I was spellbound.

In the dream I was playing my own piano transcription of the piece. I vividly saw my fingers - - and every note, every chord, cadence, and arpeggio was absolutely correct. It was extremely vivid.

I suppose the dream is significant, since I haven't touched the piano in two years. After all the problems I went through in Texas, and after the movers "lost" half of my cherished piano manuscripts, I've been reluctant to even look at a piano.

My life as a musician in California - - the concerts, rehearsals, the intense comradery of like-minded friends - - is now a thing of the distant past. 

This post will probably be of no interest to anyone but myself. I'm merely thinking out loud in front of a host of strangers.

Ironically, this piano dream happened on the exact November date when my Mom and I met the pianist Van Cliburn (now deceased). I was fifteen at the time - and I later studied piano with A. Thomas Talbert, who was a close friend of Cliburn.

Dreams, memories, disconnected connections....