The Ideal Woman's Home

My dream, revelatory many years ago, probably 30-some years ago, that The Ideal Woman lived in Redfield, Iowa, is surely a bust by now. It seems there has to be a shelf life on these kinds of dreams.

One, maybe it wasn't actually revelatory, but just something like this, a combination of "sumthin' ah et" and the randomness of words, sounds, and pictures in dreams. Maybe at some point back then I heard a TV news story that had something to do with Redfield, or a newspaper article, or saw the red sun going down over a field. The more I think about it -- especially after all this time -- the more I'm thinking it has to be a bust.

And yet... not so fast... don't they say in church this thing about prophecy, that it comes in dreams and visions? And if the word is the word, there's no shelf life on that. It might have been a dream for the future, not for The Ideal Woman existing 30-some years ago. In fact, it might have been that I was the first, or among the first, to glimpse the prophecy all those years ago as something even now to be fulfilled. It's an interesting nugget, isn't it?, that it suddenly pops back into my consciousness after all this time.

The obvious temptation is to go to Redfield, like the Magi, looking for The Ideal Woman. Maybe somewhere along the way I can find the Little Drummer Boy, and with him keeping a steady beat for our travels, we'll get there just in time to behold her in her glory. What if she's just now being born, She who will be The Ideal Woman? I could be like with Tony Randall or Paul McCartney. Just because I'm an old guy, I might yet live to fall in love with The Ideal Woman, if she hurries up and gets born. Or perhaps the Little Drummer Boy, being "little" and a "boy" will have a better chance of hooking up with her.

I say "hooking up," but that's just a joke. Kind of puts it at a crass level, something that seems essentially holy and is not really any laughing matter.

I have several -- I wouldn't call them "fears" exactly. Some trepidation, hesitancy; I'm thinking of some cautionary flags. I've been out on a limb before. I won't bore you with the details. Except to say at the very least, it's an embarrassment to come slinking back home after you've been massively wrong about something. They never really forgive you till you make an honest effort at counseling. So I'm a little reluctant to follow this new star.

The Tibetans -- or whoever it is -- those ones who are always looking for a white buffalo or red heifer -- they've got it easy; their heads are so far in the clouds everyone forgives them for traipsing over hell's half acre for the latest fulfillment of prophecy. It's curious you never hear how it turned out. That buffalo's always right over the next hill! Lucky dogs.