McCartney's Conundrum.

I talked with Paul McCartney last night.

Granted, I was dreaming, but sometimes our best conversations are with people who aren't technically, physically present. Am I wrong?

In the dream I was unemployed (obviously, it has permeated my psyche), and had ended up volunteering at a zoo - get this - giving the snakes a bath.

I was taking snakes of all shapes and sizes out of unlabeled lockers, completely unaware of what type of Ophidian lay behind each door, and rinsing them down with a hose, taking special care to make sure the water was neither too hot (didn't want to jump-start the cold-blooded reptiles) nor too cold (because no one likes a cold shower). My biggest revelation was that once you have a snake by the ears, it takes equal parts courage and blind faith to let it go.

Paul McCartney was there, and I sat down at a table with him and said,

"So Mr. McCartney, when do you stop dreaming about all the things you want to do, and start wishing you had done the things you didn't do?"

And the man couldn't give me an answer.

He thought about it, but couldn't tell me

the moment in life when dreams begin to die.

And then, unexpectedly (in a transition that is coherent only in dreams), I was sitting by the bedside of an old woman, all wrapped up in a pink crocheted blanket.

She tells me, "all you need is Love."

Apropos, no? The rock star who sang a million epic lines that have defined a million generations and their concept of love and living couldn't distill for me the crucial moment of life. But this old woman looked at me and said, "Dreams and accomplishments will come and will go, but what really matters in life is the Love."

And somehow I knew she wasn't just talking about rose-petals-falling-from-the-sky kind of love,

but also love of self, and selfless love, and love of life.

So here in the waking world, searching for employment is something like working in my dream zoo.

Behind each door lies something anonymous and tricky, some docile, some fidgety, and there seems to be an endless succession of doors to be opened and serpents to be attended to.

Yet what lingers in the back of my mind is not the three $$$'s, (day job, gainful employment, career path), but when and whether the dreams will die.

But tucked away behind even that background noise is a quieter, gentler certainty, resonating not with the glitter of fame and platinum records,

but with the soft comfort of a blanket at bedtime.

Just open your heart, and Love.

Photos: PaulMcCartney, Yawning Princess - Rodney Smith, Snakes - Guido Mocafico, Snakes on Woman - Meirav Stardinner, Paul McCartney - Newberryphotography.com, Red Love Wall - Julie Aucon, Old Woman - Photobucket, Lovers - Vienna, by Kent Miles, dreamer - visualizeus, lockers - google images, Hold the Light - Lightsongs, Beatles Fans - Getty Images, sleeping girl - prettythiefwearswhat.blogspot, "I'm a dreamer" - iamblessed.com, legal pad - tumblr, love tattoo - weheartit.com