Crazy for Chocolate

I am shocked.  Some people don't like chocolate.  I find that to be absolutely incomprehensible.

I do like chocolate, to the furthest extent of liking, way out on the far reaches of the universe of passion.  The first time I went to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory in San Francisco, I was on heavy, heavy overload.  Where should I start?  How much could I have?  Chocolate, unbelievable chocolate!!! I was excited, fascinated, giddy with the fragrance and taste of chocolate, cocoa, cream, everything.  I believe I stared at a deep vat of glossy darkness as a heavy paddle turned through it, round and round, just as hypnotized as a cat.  I had to be guided away just like a drunk.  My eyes had become spirals.  

Yesterday, I took a nap and woke up after a short while feeling a little irritable, unsatisfied with my sleep.  Then, it began. Tall rich chocolate cake floated before my eyes, four layers high. Devil's Food tempting me like sin itself.  What a great name, I smiled.  Back to dreamless sleep.  

Still later, I woke briefly and there floated the chocolate cake again, with its tender, moist and yielding crumb.  I swear I could taste it.  Oh, what a cruel thing, this persistent delusion with ten million calories hidden inside, an embodiment of sensual allure and instant gratification of a giant dark chocolate tooth.  What misery to be denied its satisfaction, said my dream as I was regarding the cake.  Oh, did I want that cake.  I slept again.    

Finally, I woke for good and did not think of chocolate cake.  I guess I was finally rested at last.  I felt the need to check my balance and equilibrium when I stood up.  Still good, back to normal, no problem.  What a relief.  

But, now that I am thinking back on it, the chocolate cake is just as vivid as if I had it sitting here in front of me and I can taste it, smell it, touch it.  Tall, dark and handsome.  Come to me, baby, it calls.  See what happens when you diet?  

Flying Dreams

Seems to me, it's not my choice to be alive.  I am.  All at once, I was alive and my heart was beating and it's beating still.  When I was old enough to notice, I saw that I couldn't fly, and that mystified me because in my dreams I could fly and I did.  I just lifted up my arms and took a deep breath and lifted right up off the ground and kept going up.  I looked down on everything and hovered up there and kept watching things. 

Now and then, I have these slow-moving dreams where I can fly and off I go.  All my life I've had them.  I fly like superman does, arms out in front and horizontal to the ground, but I look down on the stuff down there below me and it feels far away, passing below me like a movie.  I've always flown in a way that you might call mysterious.  And that doesn't mean it's because I'm human and I don't have wings.  No.  It's the feeling of lifting up and taking that deep breath that does it, makes it mysterious and lot like hope rising up. 

Sometimes I know I'm going to have a flying dream and I just settle down and try to be patient for it, because you know what they say.  You notice a dream and it goes away.  So, if I'm kind of nonchalant about it - meaning I try to look like I don't care one way or the other - I can let the dream sneak into my bed and curl up with me and then it's mine. 

I have had times when I wished I really was in a flying dream and could lift up, like a bubble in water, up to the clouds and then stretch out my arms and decide which way to go away and then just go.  But, like being alive, lifting up above my troubles is not really my choice - at least by flying.  It's not my choice to have the troubles I do.  I have them.  They're there, like a mean dog.