We are all in the garden; trees spring up from the middle of the floor and overpower the wall, branches hang heavy with leaves over pictures and bookcases, foliage twists and turns around tables and chairs, and as we sit with one another in this room, we are all in back of ourselves in our timeless garden where the world has always been and will always be - eternally giving birth to itself. We watch ourselves in back of our cardboard faces, we reach out to touch one another in that timeless secret place where we are buried from ourselves and each other. Waking, we are asleep and our sleeping selves - flushed with life and brimming with wisdom, are waiting for us to join ourselves and truly join each other, to live in our garden forever.

The room is a stage, badly put together. The walls lean, the chairs are heavy and unholy. Joel comes in with Zondra. His sweater flows into a purple cape and his hair streams from his face; the light of God is across his eyes. He is going to the city. Peter asks him to roll some dope first. Cool and wise, Joel takes off his sweater and says he is going to shave after he rolls some dope. He is careful, he is in danger, he is going to the city to get dope - and Zondra stands in her purple jerkin and long cape, with her black hair flowing. Patient and waiting Zondra stands, as she stood and waited long ago when they went to Galilee, when they rode the donkeys across that barren path, when they followed Joel who followed Christ - Did Joel bring the grapes, did he bring the wine, did he set the table? When he laid the way, when he journeyed back and forth to bring supplies? To bring clothes? To bring food? As Zondra waited while they fled the ghettos and pogroms, when they scurried from the forests and ran across the hills and brought blankets for the children of Israel lying in their cellars, when the soldiers passed the houses and the marching war boomed while they were burned and crucified, all - all. And in that moment of now as Joel is all Joels shaving in the bathroom, Zondra stands at the door in her hippy purple cape and broad Brooklyn accent: "Joel, for Gawd's sake, they're waiting ..." "All right, all right," Joel leans closer to the mirrors, an ironic Brooklyn Jewish businessman, shaving before breakfast, before he has to go to the store, the weary peasant schmo, "I rolled them their dope, what do they want from me." "Hurry," Zondra says, "We haven't all day." And I see her mother in a Brooklyn kitchen reminding her father to bring home the fish. And I understand it is all now and there is no garden other than the garden we are in and we have always been in this garden. There is no other life and these are our true lives which we live over and over, playing our parts and our roles with forgotten memories springing to surface - until that day when all duality is encompassed and we comprehend our own true lives and learn to join in fullness and freedom with our own past and present and to step beyond the bonds and limitations of this, our illusory life, which is but a particle of our true lives. And at that time the stage will disappear, the leaning walls and heavy chairs will crumble, the foliage which grows and beckons from between the floor boards and around the ceiling, the clouds that float beneath the lamps and the flowers which lay strewn across the floor, will all grow and flourish in abounding joy, and there will be no doubt and they are there and have always been there. We all join ourselves with tears and wonder, long lost from our true souls, and merge into the wonder and mystery of those vague and nebulous shadows which call continuously to us: which come to us in sleep or early waking, through the strains of music and the visions of art - or some sudden word printed on paper. And at that moment the garden will disappear, for there will be no use for it. For it, too, is just a stage to play and recreate mankind eternally, as our own paltry lives have been played in this room. And when the garden disperses and floats into eternity - at that moment when man reaches the summit of his consciousness, he too, will disappear and we will float with one another and join one another in the heart of God-for we are God-incomplete and parted with ourselves and each other-until that final revelation when we will fully be God, in the eternal mystery of God, and dwell in that peace and everlasting glory which is our true home.

Linda comes home from school: a car drives her in the yard. I am your daughter, the beautiful dark haired princess. She is a charming young high school student wearing a jumper, a dark knit shirt under it, her dark hair flashes, she twinkles out of the car and says thank you to the old lady. I am sitting out here in the cabin watching her. She goes in the house, they tell her I'm on acid. I walk in. "Hello awready," she says in her fake Brooklyn accent. She and Zibby practice accents: they have a Brooklyn one down to a T. Sometimes they are English shop girls, sometimes Brooklynese, sometimes Russian Princesses, but always hysterical. "Awright awready," she says when she sees me, "So you're on acid."

"I can't find my glasses," I say, "I'm going crazy."

Gretchen appears like a Madonna. "Here are your glasses." They are in her hand. I am the beautiful blonde haired princess. I live here because I love your son and he is too young to leave home. "They were in the toilet."

"Don't say toilet to me," I say, "the toilet is broke again. I can't stand it."

Jose comes in. He is God's Workman and He is fixing the toilet.

Alex, the Prince, my son the Messiah, grabs my cigarettes. "You know I'm too stoned too stop you," I say.

Linda starts to get the stuff to bake some bread. She asks me to get pans from Marci. I look stupid. "Oh, I'll go with you," she says. I ask Jose if he can drive. We discuss our toilet. Shit does not flow upstream. When we moved here the rains came, the septic tank backed up, the drains backed up, chaos, chaos. "Galileo proved it," Jose said. "He dropped a big turd from the leaning tower of Pisa and said for all to know, "Shit only flows downstream."

"So they put him in jail," Alex says.

"Because he spoke the truth?"

"No, because he threw the shit."

We go get the pans. We drive Jose home. He turns the car around for me. I say, "Look, it drives like a real car: I can drive this car. Thank God I don't have to drive the toilet." The girls are all efficient, walking to town to buy groceries. "What do we need?" they both sang aloud.

I say, "Buy some cottage cheese and toilet paper." Gretchen says, "I'll remember. You want Kools? I go into the store, very sophisticated. 'Kools,' I think she'll let me have 'em."

I say, "Buy some cottage cheese and toilet paper."

Gretchen says, "You want a little treat? Some chocolates?"

I say, "No. Bananas and apples." Linda starts to write it down. "Oh God we can't carry all this crap," she says.

"Bread. Buy some bread."

"But Mother, we're going to make the bread, that's why we're going to town. Oh God, she's always so confused."

The girls decide to drive to town. I get in the car. Linda makes me get out of the car and move to the other side so she can drive. Alex makes Linda get out of the car and move over so she can drive. Gretchen gets in the car. She says, "Did you have a nice day on acid?"

I say, "I'm very confused." We get the groceries.

We drop the girls off at home and drive on. I want to see the ocean. I say to Alex, "I have to take more acid than you because I've had a lot more shit piled on me all these years."

Alex says, "It's all the same shit. You can't have more or less of it. It's just the same shit. We had it too." He agrees how we have to get back to the real you. "What is it," I say to him, "that thing they take away from you. What is it?" "I don't know," Alex's broad southern white-cracker-barrel-down-home-Illinoisish voice. "I don't know, but once they get it, you gotta get it baaaaack, you just gotta get it back." We are in Heeser Drive, walking back to the car. Alex roars his free laughter into the darkening skies.

I walk into the kitchen. The girls are talking about the yeast. Is it supposed to bubble that much? Gretchen is one side of the dining room table, Linda on the other. They have a hunk of rolled dough. Linda is playing with it, shaping it, punching it, throwing it. Suddenly she throws it to Gretchen. Gretchen laughs, jumps in the air, catches it and now she is pushing and pulling out this huge clay-like mixture. The girls are laughing. Alex walks in and puts on a record. WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE.

Linda's loaves of bread come out. They are perfect. Beautiful. She is beautiful, her face flushed, smiling, patting the tops with butter. "We'll eat one loaf now," she says. "I can freeze the other three. If I make four loaves of bread, twice a week; that lousy arithmetic comes in handy ..."

Dinner is over, the room cleared, Linda is settling the last minute pots and pans, wiping up dishes. Please awready," she gets the chair I had pulled away and puts it back next to the oven to keep the door shut where the last of the bread is baking. "I put this chair here for a reason, ok awready?" She sits down, opens a history book. "We had a movie on China today. Actually it wasn't as bad as they used to be. It was a little more, you know, honest. It's getting better all the tiiiiiiime," she hums. "And you know that report I said I didn't know what I was going to even say, that I forgot and then it was due? So I got it back today and I got an A but I think it was a crummy report." "Well it couldn't have been that crummy," I say, "if you got an A on it."

She looks at me very solemn, licking the spoon. "Why? That's his opinion, not mine. He gave me the A. I didnŐt give it to me. Also," she keeps licking the spoon, "you know the gym teacher I said she didn't like me, I didn't like her? So today I got my home room changed . She is my new home room teacher, so now I like here. She says to me, you're a good kid and I want to see you make a good grade in gym, so, she thinks I'm a good kid, see? She tells me, (Linda imitates a lady falsetto voice), 'So, dearrrrrrrie, just sew a red thread on your socks and you'll get a good grade in gym.' Should I do it?" Linda looks at me very solemn again. "Should I give up my ideals and sew a red thread on my socks..."

Bobby Markets is from Mendocino and the author of five books, The Mendocino Malady series, On the Eve of My 50th Year, Being Here, Lately I've Been Thinking,, Popper and How To Be A Human Bean. Her books can be purchased at Stone Press Box 711, Mendocino Ca. 95460. (707) 937-0239.

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