Light On Dark Water

Driver, where you taking us? (take 2)

That was the title I chose when I wrote about The Doors’ first album a couple of weeks ago. In case you don’t recognize it, it’s a line from the last song, “The End,” one of its numerous suggestions of a rather ominous journey:

The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where you taking us?

Wherever that bus is going, it’s probably not a good place.

But it reminded me of a dream I had a couple of years ago. It was one of those dreams one has only rarely, that are so coherent and seem to carry such a definite meaning that you can’t help thinking they were given to you for a reason. (Well, they’re rare for me, anyway.) In the last scene of it, we were in a bus, sitting behind the driver, waiting for the trip to start. From the rear, the driver was a little scary-looking, seeming to be a pretty tough biker sort of guy, mostly bald, with a beard, very muscular, wearing a grungy t-shirt. But he turned around to speak to me, and I saw that he had an open, generous, honest face, and he was smiling. And he said “Usually when people see where God is taking them, they like it better than where they wanted to go.”

Maclin Horton

23 responses to “Driver, where you taking us? (take 2)”

  1. Janet Cupo

    That sounds like a scene from Joan of Arcadia.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Janet Cupo

    I like Joan of Arcadia, btw, and I like your dream.
    AMDG

    Reply
  3. Robert Gotcher

    Also like the Man Who Was Thursday.

    Reply
  4. Mac

    A specific Joan scene, or just the same kind of thing? I only saw one or two episodes.
    I seem to be in a small minority (of Catholics) who don’t really get The Man Who Was Thursday. I’ve read it twice and it didn’t make a real big impression on me, good or bad. But are you referring to Sunday? I seem to remember something like that about him.

    Reply
  5. Janet Cupo

    It’s the kind of thing that happened all the time. I think if you had seen more episodes, you would have liked it better.
    AMDG

    Reply
  6. Mac

    I didn’t actively dislike it, although I remember thinking it might be a more typically Hollywood-ish view of God than it apparently is. It’s probably on dvd…

    Reply
  7. Robert Gotcher

    I think if one reads it a million times (Man who was thursday), one can get it. 🙂
    Last time I read it it struck me that it was a love story with a very long intermezzo.

    Reply
  8. Janet Cupo

    I thought Joan would have that Hollywood vision of God, also, and I wasn’t that impressed with the first couple of shows, but we had the DVD, so we watched them all. Of course, they are not 100% perfect or orthodox, but I was surprised at how much Joan’s relationship with God was like what I experience. There is a lot of teenage kissy-face stuff that drove me nuts, but it gives you a chance to run to the kitchen or the bathroom without pausing the DVD. 😉
    AMDG

    Reply
  9. Janet Cupo

    When I read A Man Called Thursday, I occasionally felt like I might be on the verge of figuring out what was going on, but that was about as far as I got and I don’t have time for even a quarter of a million reads.
    I borrowed the annotated version from a friend, but it was a sore disappointment.
    AMDG

    Reply
  10. Paul

    It’s a nightmare with a happy ending. The plot is literally “dreamlike”, which makes it slightly nonsensical, but only having read it three or four times I think the main thrust can be summarized pretty easily: Life’s an adventure as well as a struggle, and you have more allies in the struggle than you think.

    Reply
  11. Mac

    I think the first time I read it I found it not especially interesting as a story, and not especially meaningful philosophically. The second time it gained in the second category but not in the first. Whereas some people (e.g. Dawn Eden) seem to find it fascinating on both counts right off. I’m willing to admit that the fault may be in me.

    Reply
  12. Janet Cupo

    I was wondering if anyone else noticed this. Originally, Robert said that Maclin’s dream reminded him of MWWT. Then Paul said that MWWT was “…a nightmare with a happy ending.” When I first read that, I thought Paul was talking about Maclin’s dream, which is also a nightmare with a happy ending. So, I guess Robert must have been right in the first place.
    AMDG

    Reply
  13. Paul

    Perhaps it needs reading in tandem with Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”?

    Reply
  14. Robert Gotcher

    I STILL think it is a love story with a long intermezzo (a nightmare with a happy ending). 🙂

    Reply
  15. Mac

    I don’t know The Secret Agent.
    Slight correction: my dream wasn’t a nightmare. It was a fairly coherent and somewhat bittersweet story of which that was the last scene (sorry, the rest is too personal). The feeling before the driver turned around wasn’t nightmare-scary at all, more just a little apprehensive or worried.
    I can’t remember Thursday clearly enough to judge that resemblance, though I vaguely remember that Sunday may have done a similar intimidating-to-benevolent sort of transition.

    Reply
  16. Janet Cupo

    Don’t ruin my narrative, Maclin.
    AMDG

    Reply
  17. Mac

    It’s not ruined. It’s true for you.

    Reply
  18. antiaphrodite

    Maybe we can start a meta-narrative.

    Reply
  19. Mac

    Yeah! About the psychological factors that make Janet need to see the dream as a nightmare, or that make me deny it, or both?

    Reply
  20. antiaphrodite

    Both, of course! The diagram will be much more interesting.

    Reply
  21. Janet Cupo

    It’s not so much that I need to see the dream as a nightmare as that I need to believe that nightmares can have happy endings.
    AMDG

    Reply
  22. Robert Gotcher

    Been to an Eastr Triduum lately?

    Reply
  23. Mac

    Me too.

    Reply

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