July 20, 8:11pm, 2011
Dear Louise,
We’re all just trying to figure out how to be human on this crazy Plan*et–how to ride our vehicles all the way home. It’s like we’re learning to ride and tame a wild beast; and, if we remember how to speak to that beast correctly, it will take us to our destined destination. If we don’t, it will force us to ask for help. (I have a song about that–Mercy Me) 
Have you ever ridden horses, Louise? I think you have. In fact, I know you have. You and I have been riding together for most of our lives, and I think you already know exactly what I’m about to say ’cause I’ve probably said it to you a thousand times. Remember? Life is like riding a horse, if you pull too hard on the reins, you’ll get thrown; if you let the reins go completely, you won’t go anywhere. The trick is to hold the reins just right and, then, ride down that perfectly grey-green path of Now in harmony with your s*Elf; ride all the way to y*Our true home in the stars.
And here Eye am, getting back on the beast again, weeping glass water memories onto the floor. It’s like Pema Chodron says (I’m paraphrasing here), the feeling that you want to run from? That is the very same feeling that welcomes you home. It is like Buddha sitting t*Here under the tree, meditating and vowing not to budge until enlightenment has opened his he*Art completely, like the lotus opens in Spring. W*Hat is this Feel*In*g? The Pie*rcing? Feel it, Lizzie, don’t shy away from it. The floor is st*Art*I*ng to move.
I’m back in the jeep, talking to the ghost of my mother, the hitchhiker, on the way to lick my wounds in the California mountains; I’m thirty-two years old. It’s July, 2005. Or is it? Where am I?
“What are we talking about?” I ask my mother’s light being.
“Eye am coming back to Camp*Us E*Art*h in the form of your daughter, Louise. Eye have chosen Tony to be the father of my dreams. You will not remember this dream until you fully wake up.”
I open the present. There are three things wrapped inside the gift.
The first is a green, leather-bound book. The title reads…
Re*Member*In*g Now: A Science Fiction Autobiography Series
Re*Search Book One: “The Myth of The Golden Th*Read
(or, How “I” real*Eyes*ed “I” was Act*U*All*y “Eye“)”
By Lizzie West
I open the book. T*Here is a quote on the first page.
“All the world is a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being of seven ages.” –Shakespeare, As You Like I
I turn the p*Age.
“What if you woke up one day to real*Eyes that you were living inside a painting, a book, a dream, a game that poses as reality and disguises itself as passing time? What if you suddenly saw as you have never seen before, and you k*New, at once, that the world was not at all what it seemed? In fact, you found out that the universe was really a quarantined, multidimensional, University and that you were actually en*Roll*ed as a student on Camp*Us E*Art*h. What if you real*Eyes*ed that life was a series of classes–each day a classroom, each lifetime a grade–and you were actually over a million human y*Ears old?
***
Lizzie repositions her body in the jeep and looks up, holding the manuscript in her hands, “What is this?”
“Do you love him?” The hitchhiker asks.
“Tony?” After a moment, she confesses, “Yes, I think I do.”
“Listen to me,” the hitchhiker goes on, “Time is totally different from how you think of it here. This may not make any sense to you at all, now, but it will. We’re both trying to get back into body right now, How*L. Okay? Remember? This is not a linear journey; life is not linear. You’ve got to remember t*Hat. You and Eye are sitting on the other side of time, right now, a long way from Camp*Us E*Art*h, and, yet, we are here all the same. We both came here to get our next assignment. Now we both have to get back through the portal, in time. Eye am about to leave you, to fly so Eye’m not late for my next test. You need to do the same.”
“You’re trying to tell me this is all a dream?”
“Yes, it’s all a dream. Don’t you remember? Every scene on this crazy planet is a scene from the Long Dream, and this whole thing is a game inside a s*How inside a Per*Form*ance inside a University. My new body is stuck inside your body’s belly, while your body is slipping into a coma on Camp*Us E*Art*h. Remember? We have to get back before it’s too late.”
It’s June, 2011. I’m sitting here next to your papa at the blonde wooden table with long green legs in our new home on the East Coast. I think to myself, Since I was 14 years old, I’ve moved at least eleven times. Why? What have I been looking for? I have moved boxes into boxes into boxes into boxes; I’ve Lived on tour, out of suitcases I found in vintage shops. But I think life is slowly getting unpacked and broken down. I think I’m finding it.
I sing softly into your papa’s ear, “Someday, you’ll find, everything you’re looking for.” I kiss him on the neck, rub my fingers down his lovely back, and smile.
“That feels so good,” he says. Your papa is working on some of the graphics for the “Thank You For Giving Us…”project. At the moment he is manipulating the drawing that I did of Bonanza–the big-hearted cartoon dog I’m drawing for the new musical book. The dog in the drawing is grabbing a winding, yellow ribbon out of a nasty storm-cloud mouth.
Your papa hard at work on finishing the song "holy tender"
Eye am gently th*Inking to mys*Elf, In this metaphysical, quarantined University, without teachers, we are lost. Eye come back to another moment–to this table on the porch.
It’s July, 2011. I feel the metal chair on which I am sitting, smell the mint in the planter, taste the coffee, sign off on another fundraising e-mail to a friend. We’ve almost raised the $30,000 for the Thank You For Giving Us… project. It is now $29,080.00. Nineteen hours and less than a grand to go. I st*Art daydreaming, traveling back through the Long Dream.
The hitchhiker goes on, “Do you remember what the holy tender is?” I shake my head, not sure what she’s talking about. I feel like a small child. She looks like a hologram of who she once was–a wingless angel. “You need to take the present back through the portal to*Day, okay?” She says, “You will be paid for y*Our work in the holy tender, but not until you get back into your body. Listen to me carefully, How*L.” She leans forward and presses “play on” the CD player. A song comes out of the speakers; it’s my voice. I recognize the song but don’t remember writing it. The lyrics say, “You began inside of me, just a seed of who you’ll someday be.” My mother says, “I want you to look at the present right now. Life is a lucid dream. Look at your hands.”
I look at my hands holding the package. I see letters written on the brown paper wrapping I’ve just removed from the present. Where am I? How did I get here? Is this a dream? It is my own human handwriting. I can barely make out what it says but I focus my eyes on the letters, and, suddenly, I am waking up in the jeep.
There is a sheet of paper folded into my hands. I unfold it. It reads:
“Re*Member y*Our Next Assignment How*L: Finish y*Our last assignment.”
My last assignment? In the paper there are two antique-looking silver keys. I sit up and rub my eyes. Where am I? What happened? Dharma is staring at me with his one eye, like he’s been watching me sleep the whole time. 
The jeep is parked on the side of the road. I remember now; I got tired of being lost. I took a nap.
I look at the clock. It’s only been ten minutes. I vaguely remember the dream I was having, but it fades into a grasp and then the grasp is gone. I start the car, back up, and head down the road in search of my friends in Santa Barbara.
More soon,
PS: It’s almost my birthday. Remember? We exceeded $30,000 by 3:33pm on the twenty-first day of the seventh month of the eleventh year of this pre-ourstoric human century.
