I have depression. Or more affirmatively it has me. I am writing this article with the hope that I can get out of my head long enough to see where I am going. Life is a complete mystery to me, almost like a sad poem. There were times when I was so happy that I felt as if God had given me a miraculous gift. They called it manic-depression and now it is simply referred to as bipolar disorder. Yep, disorder is what it is.
But why the depression? I was never feeling this way until I got out of jail two years ago and didn’t have a job. Then my mother died some months later. In a state of sheer terror and despair I had a dream. It was one of the most vivid dreams I could ever recall ever having had. For those of you who understand these nocturnal imaginations perhaps you could write to me and explain what it meant.
I was in a car stopped behind a long line of vehicles on the other side of a railroad track. To my right in the passenger seat was a man and in the back seat was another man. I thought they were just friends but after awakening I realized they were spirit guides. Alongside the road was a drainage ditch that ran under the railroad track. In my sight I could see far ahead of me to what was the main street of a small town. I got out of the car and observed the landscape. There were rolling hills and patches of forests in the distance. I knew this to be Montana even though I had never been there before.
As I walked around the front of the car there was something interesting in the drainage ditch. It was a giant blue feather, about three feet long with a black tip. I walked down and picked it up. Then I went to the rear of my car and opened the hatch. I had a big toolbox in the back and I moved it forward and placed the feather behind it between the back seat and the box. I closed the hatch and got back into the car. As the line of cars ahead of me proceeded to move forward I told my friends that this town had the oldest hamburger stand in the country. I said it was an A & W. The man behind me said there was an older one than that. That’s when I awoke from the dream.
As most of my memorable dreams come in the morning I got up with a great feeling. I could recall the dream in all its detail and somehow the depression had vanished. I sat alone at my kitchen table and thought how important it would be to give the dream a name so as to remember it. I called it Save the Blue Feather. Then I started musing in my mind that it would make a nice title for a cable TV movie. The name kept running around in my head and I felt so much more happy with each passing moment. Then it occurred to me that if I had a movie in mind I would need to write a story to go with the title. I leaped up and ran to my computer. The following is what came out.
There was a young girl of twelve who wanted to be a singer and an actress. She grew up as an orphan and both her parents were orphans. By sheer luck and determination she and a boy won a singing competition which moved them toward a chance to be in a musical being staged in her hometown theater. After she was selected to play Becky Thatcher in Tom Sawyer she had a dream where she encountered a wolf. She had seen this same wolf twice before on a camping and field trip. While asleep she couldn’t scream and within a week she had developed a life-threatening throat ailment that kept her in the hospital close to death. An old woman who used to bring her clothes at her orphanage came to the hospital and placed a crocheted blanket over her and tucked it under her neck. The next morning she was up and talking to the nurses. Her parents and friends were amazed at the miracle that happened.
To complete the story she went on to star in a play about her experience. In her hospital bed she had a writing tablet that she could communicate with because she was unable to speak. Her parents were fearful that she would die and started making arrangements to organize the things in her bedroom to bring to her. The girl was told about this and she tried to write down what she wanted most. In a desperate attempt to speak she managed to squeeze out “Save . . . the . . . blue . . . feath . . . er.” Then she passed out with the doctor rushing in to check her vital signs. She was still alive but had fallen into a deep sleep, partly because of the medications. Anyway, the name of the play became Save the Blue Feather and it was seen as a wonderful tribute to the strength portrayed by a young girl wanting to fulfill her dream.
It is my hope that writing this will bring me out of my depression once again and I can finish the story and have it published. Most of my dreams lately have been very harsh with people getting severely injured or killed. I have dreams of ugly characters and often see orgies. I wake up feeling very depressed and don’t want to get out of bed. I stopped working to try and finish my story so that my writer’s representative can help me with the process of getting it out into book form. I feel like it could be a good movie and if so then my problems with money would be suspended or removed entirely. Well, I’m off to continue the story and I hope I have made your day a little brighter by a guy who wants his dreams to come true. Yes, just the good ones like Save the Blue Feather.
