It’s hit me again, that flavour of “I’ve been here before, in a memory made long before I arrived here”. This is another of the ‘ugly’ premonitions. The taste is sour. Not of fear, as in when I dreamtremembered it, as fear is of the unknown. Once again the truth is a lot more simple and therefore complex than imagined reality. This is one for the records – one door opens, another opens. See what I did there? I do not believe doors ever close unless we slam them, metaphorically speaking. Even then we can open them back up. Nothing is forever, especially the past, which is already water under the bridge. The onrushing flood of the future just a ripple on the river of this lifetime’s horizon, as false and shimmering as any horizon, disappearing as quickly as it is chased, as any good horizon is wont to do. Back to reality with a bump. Or a smack. Slap down out of the clouds of meandering thought into this, what is so complacently labelled the ‘present’, a fun pun that rarely sees the light of day. What kicked this all off? A taste, a flavour of disjointed belief and misappropriated understanding. I am here, when a moment ago I was a million miles away, remembering a dream I had once upon a time about the present, here and now. Now I am back, on platform 3, waiting for my train home. The ghost of a memory long gone but not forgotten. An ominous dream that turned out to be a positive future viewed from the wrong angle. Maybe I did see everything clearly, back then. Maybe the dream included a full history of all then future events rolled up into that one jarring sensation of tastinglivingbeingin what has not happened yet. Maybe that is why it was so terrible then, yet so brightly tinged now. Is all perspective down to a mixture of experience and understanding? Is this what we call ‘growing up’, learning how better to roll with the punches life throws at us, to take it on the chin with a smile and not say, “that wasn’t so bad” but rather “I can see the benefit of this”. Hindsight is not always bitter, sometimes it can be sweet. So, life begins a new phase. A new leaf is turned and no one knows the true future. There will be trials and tribulations for sure, but that only is the spice that makes life a ‘living’ experience. Sometimes breath’s bedfellow’s bitter tang can bring tears to our eyes, make our face go red, clear all reasonable thought from our conscious mind and leave us grasping for that ultimately unreachable horizon glass of water to ease our pain. But we do not really need that glass. The grasping is a further source of pain, not a final relief. The glass of water is inside all of us, if we can only find it, to drink from and share with others. Some call this God, some call this love, some call this compassion. Those burdened with cynical embitterment would call this ‘false hope’. But the definition of hope can not be false. Hope is. The glass of soul-quenching water exists and we can share it with everyone without ever running out. There is enough to go around. And the best part of this plan is that all those once quenched will never look back. Cynical embitterment will be altered to clearer understanding, which in turn breeds more compassion and further conversion from the negative to the positive perspective, for that is what life is all about, perspective. I am no different a human being now from when I woke up afraid of the future, so long ago, than I am right now, in that very future. Yet the fear and distress is not so, it is love, compassion, understanding, a renewed focus on life’s gifts and challenges. This is not because that taste of the future which we label ‘deja vu’ was wrong in any way, shape or form with regards to the reality as it stands right now. Instead, the difference is in my understanding of what all this means, how I fit into that picture, which in turn let’s me see the pain as a blessing, the upcoming battle a chance to prove my beliefs on the battlefield of the emotional and psychological plane against the negative fears that make us all give up on a good thing at one point or other in our lives because “it’s just not worth the trouble”. This is ‘worth the trouble’, as is anything involving living. Let’s see where this road goes. The worst that can happen is the realisation that my summation was wrong, and with that realisation the gift of renewed clarity of vision, a new perspective. A fresh start. No need for bitterness, this is life. This is love.