MALCOM X = OBAMA IN MY DREAMS

Eve Arnold, Magnum Photo

big storm last night, it rained Heifers...

I dreamt that we were in Agna, and I was looking into the shaft of a bell tower, where the bells had been lowered to block the entrance to it, as if they were the moving part of an elevator stuck between floors. In the tower were the stairs leading to the lower level, where a bunch of people had gathered. There was my family; mom, dad, sister, my aunt, Skip and other friends of ours. There also was Barak Obama who was the center of all the attention. I was impressed looking at thim that he did not look at all like Malcom X, whose picture I had seen the previous evening in the New Yorker, and whom I thought had a strong resemblance to the president, with his sensual lips and reflexive pose with hand under chin...

The president in front of me was a big man instead, a bit bloated so that his chiselled featured were now round, generic, he could have been just anybody you see in the streets of America. People in the room were making a fuss about him and he was tense and tired looking, formal even though the occasion was familial. He was our neighbor we learned, having bought a house nearby and I immediately wondered how often would he have time to enjoy a vacation here... 

After people stopped trying communicating their enthusiasm with bows and wide gesturing I stepped in and secure in my English, led him to sit next to me on a settee. By now he looked like the familiar face in all press photos, and I felt I had to ask how he wanted me to address him -hoping he would say Barak since he was in our home. He thought about it a while, too long, so I offered "Mr President?" and when he nodded his approval I was disappointed,      though I understood that it was not vanity but sense of duty that required him to insist on showing the proper respect to his position.

My language fluency put him at ease and we had a little friendly chat where I asked him the question on my mind - how much time would he possibly have to enjoy his home in Tuscany? He sighed and closed his eyes, and reopening them admitted sadly that he did not have the time he wished he had to relax, even here... 

He looked exhausted and spent so I told him to not mind me and just lay down and take a nap, and so he did closing his eyes next to me and was fast asleep. I was very uncomfortable as there was barely space for me to lay all scrunched up next to him and not fall off the narrow padded bench, but I kept still as long as I could to let him rest. Eventually somebody made noise and he woke up but I knew that bit of shut-eye had helped, and while he gathered himself to stand I wondered how he would get back upstairs and out of doors with the shaft closed by the darn bells...

What this had to do with the rain I do not know but I wanted to share the silliness of it all!