An academic friend of mine insists "The average person knows zero Islamic history." I find myself saying "Prefeminist intellectuals like Freud and HG Wells saw it as more enlightened than Christianity. Wells's "Outline of History" praised Islam as culminating a historical progression of religions, each more advanced--the top rung on the ladder!" I don't share that view--to me, Islam is at least as self-righteous and sexist as Christianity. So why am I quoting people I disagree with? And what's this about Freud, did I just make that up? Since when did Freud love Islam? Okay, he WAS a rule-enforcer quite in the style of Muhammad, but that doesn't mean he'd ever admit he liked prophets (or profits).

I find myself blathering on, saying more I don't understand. "History changes. History isn't the past, it's what INTERESTS us about the past. From the history of daily life to the status of women to the pirate republics and utopian colonies to slave rebellions to tribal oral traditions, we call things history that earlier scholars ignored. And we find their older focus dull. Kings and battles!"

Um. Well. This time I do agree with my mouth.

Oops! Suddenly I fall inside one such ignored history. I'm living in Brazil's colonial days. Locals are getting sick of the Portuguese emperor; bandits and smugglers are the first wave of the New World rebellion against autocracy. It's the time of Xica da Silva, the slave girl who acquired power and soon topped her masters' excesses.

I'm wandering in the Northeastern interior--poor dusty farm country. Who am I? Oh, that's right, I'm a jazz musician. Looking for my band. They're just a group of farm laborers who play polyrhythmic big-band music. I'm the odd one out, the only non-local.

Find one member, help him catch his son, a toddler who's mobile enough now to get out of the house and wander naked. His dad talks so fast and soft I miss most of his words.

We join the rest of the band in the local bar. A white visitor is asking them questions. I see myself reflected in the bar mirror and realize I'm Chinese. I speak English, Chinese and Spanish, but terrible Portuguese. Wonder, do they see me as a rich white outsider, like this questioner? I only feel truly connected to them when we play.

That night, playing without Z----, we try to cover up his absence with technique: we play difficult songs really fast, to prove we don't need him. To cover up our missing heart.

But it sounds hollow. Showing off won't fill the hole. We have to evolve our own new heart. We can do that, I know we can--but growing a heart takes time.

In music or out.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Islam = a rule-based life, not letting my feelings guide me.
• Brazilian Portuguese = the language of passion, sex, and fun?
• I'm Chinese = neither owner/abuser or slave/victim, this side of me stands outside their game. Not fluent in the language of passion... but I do try. Underdog parts respect me for that. They think I have genuine feeling. It's only ME that doubts...
• Slave rebellions, feminism, Xica da Silva = two nights ago I was a slave girl on the run.
• Utopias, pirate republics, restaffed jazz bands = I'm trying to build a new me from scratch!
• Z--- is missing = my hard drive's dying, and I feel lobotomized without it.

Whatever else the dream meant, I'm going to start taking my music more seriously. I got that much. I've been blind to how much it means--not just to me. To others!

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Today I write dream songs and play them in a band called The Krelkins. I hadn't explored jazz much in 1994, but to my own surprise a lot of my songs are jazz-infused, like Saboteur or Coyote Sent Me Cash!.

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