Sister Christian Dream or “the time has come”

 

The dream was set in a house I didn’t recognize, but it was my house and I was in a large tile-floored basement with random items scattered about.

I found parts of a disassembled kid’s sized drum set piled in a corner and I began assembling it without being sure I knew how to put it together. 

The hi-hat was the most difficult because I had to find the two matching cymbal sizes and figure out how they connected to the foot pedal mechanism.

There was a bass drum, of course, and two toms that had a hollow melancholy resonance to them that I tried out with the smallish drum sticks.

I experimented with laying down a simple groove and found it awkward to coordinate my feet and my hands to make all of these moving parts work.

Eventually I found a rhythm and not only a rhythm but a strange musicality of sorts that made it seem like it was something more akin to a guitar or piano.

It’s hard to explain but I was playing them in a way that they could accompany a singer without any other instruments involved and so I began singing.

The song was “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger and it was beautiful.  I felt my heart swelling as my voice quivered with emotion, a vulnerable vibrato.

“Motoring, what's your price for flight?  In finding Mr. Right…  Sister Christian, oh, the time has come, and you know that you’re the only one to say, OK.”

A time jump occurs and I’m performing this drum and voice duet on American Idol.  The celebrity judge is barely composed, tears running down his cheeks.

But this small drum set is too old and rickety.  It begins to break under my weight and playing, “Where you going? What you looking for?  You know…”

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