Jackie Kennedy

Within the last year I have developed a steep fascination with Jackie Kennedy.

I’m thinking about this again today because I just saw a documentary yesterday talking about how LBJ swore into office on Air Force One and I saw that iconic image of Jackie Kennedy next to him. It jogged my memory of a strange experience I had involving her, and then reminded me that we were on the eve of the anniversary of her passing away. And the only reason I know that now is because I had a really curious experience a year ago.

I had a weird dream in which I was at a cousin’s house, and then somehow or other I fell down a flight of steps and ended up in some downstairs exhibit with a bunch of expensive art. I fell down because I’m a klutz I guess, or I don’t know I just fell. Then a few minutes passed, and then I noticed somebody else falling down the steps wearing a blue dress. Then she got up and started talking with me, and it was then I realized she was actually Jackie Kennedy. She kept saying her husband was upstairs, and we had this long conversation, and at the end of it she gave me a really nice hug and was just really kind to me. Then she told me she knew people who would be interested in me, but it didn’t really feel like she was talking about relationships.

I do tend to think that most dreams don’t mean anything, but that one felt more vivid than life to me. I truly don’t understand what is happening when we dream. For one thing, I don’t really understand what life itself is all about, and I guess none of us are really for sure what exactly is going on. But it’s experiences like that which make me believe that there is some type of spiritual world or some collective consciousness or something, whatever it is there’s something beneath the surface of existence which we aren’t meant to understand. Most people won’t believe me, that’s all right. I’m not really trying to convince anybody but it really just was a strange experience for me. Maybe somewhere in my sub-conscious a year ago I recalled that it was the anniversary of her passing. But I know for a fact I hadn’t thought about Jackie Kennedy in depth prior to that dream. Then I just woke up, read her Wikipedia page, saw that, and tripped out.

Aside from all that, Jackie Kennedy lived a very fulfilling life outside the few years that JFK was in power. She was actually a very accomplished horse rider, and won several championships as a child. She studied history, literature, art, and French in college. She worked for the Washington Times-Herald newspaper as a journalist and photographer, where she got the opportunity to interview the likes of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Everybody knows about her impact during the Kennedy era, but in her later years she even worked as an editor. She was big on saving and renovating historical buildings, and led the charge in restoring Grand Central Station in New York City. It looks amazing now, damn. Basically she was a boss.

All in all few people have put their intelligence and grace to such productive use in a singular lifetime, and she’ll forever remain an icon of the best of what American culture has to offer. It would be a general plus for society if more people like her came into the world.