Category: dreams

I dreamed I re-met a man I had loved before– somehow no one was intentionally at fault, but he was engaged to another woman– maybe we had inadvertently lost one another years before– we loved each other desperately, but he still wasn’t going to leave her– all I got, to everyone’s grudging approval, was one night for goodbye. she and friends were active in the rest of the apartment– she maddened by what was going on behind the closed door, but carrying on– I could tune it all out just to be with him. because it was to be just the one night, it was all the more poignant.

and then a kid, someone’s, burst in to ask for something, and everyone on both sides of the door jumped– the artificial boundary breached– and once it was, the others started coming in, too– and I was losing it, screaming, out! OUT! I only have this one night– you have him forever– get OUT! and they went, but by then it was ruined, I was brokenhearted, facing how it was. and I began to gather my things, weeping, desolate. I couldn’t find my train ticket, and I didn’t know what to do since I didn’t have any money– so I had to ask for their help. the ticket was black, and she found it and handed it to me with a soft look on her face– and I took it with a sob, and it was over.

thisbe is showing me around her house– it must be her house in new york, for her mother lives there, too. it’s full of little triangular nook & cranny rooms with rocking chairs and desks and doors that open to the outside shady spaces under the trees.

I have a hideaway up a kind of petrified tree inside the building right above the most populous room. I have a difficult time swinging myself up to climb the branches, and I wonder how I’ve done it so many times before– is there another way, or am I just getting old? once I’m up there, bits of paper slip down into the notches of the branches and onto the floor below– they are old love letters, and I have to climb back down to rescue them before anyone reads them.

my family is clearing out my parents’ house, and I have to go pick up odds and ends– old clothes and things inherited from our grandmother– mostly old china I don’t even want.

I’m scooping up handfuls of large nails and a crowbar with some dire intent– I don’t even know what it is. I walk toward where I think my car is parked, past some kids and people on the neighborhood street, and then realize that isn’t my car at all and have to circle back. the house is in a severe state of disrepair. there’s a recent snow on the ground, but it must have been raining for days previously because the ground is all soft mud. I’m crossing up the driveway to where the car may be parked at the back when my feet squish down in the morass. at one time the driveway was bricked, but many of the bricks have gone missing, leaving a pool of black mud. I walk farther back, gingerly along the scattered bricks, until I can see there is no car parked back there. then I reach down and fish up a couple of old logs out of the mud and stand them against the fence. they look like gnarled old men, and I realize they are people, sleeping, whom I must awaken through some arcane process. there is writing across their foreheads, and it seems to mean something to me.

my throat is full of jagged, splintery pieces of metal– I keep coughing, hacking and pulling out shreds of steel wool and thick pins, bits like watch parts– it’s all jammed up in the middle of my esophagus, and I have coughed it up painfully, raising it only slightly but enough so I can reach in with my fingers to pull the pieces out. it’s terribly uncomfortable, ghastly to feel the sharp, metallic scraping, but also exquisite relief to have each piece out. sometimes, if I’m lucky, several pieces come away at once. each bit frees my throat by degrees.

I’m peeling an excess layer off of the inside of my mouth. it cuts very close to the new skin underneath, so is nearly excruciating– but, again, a relief to be free of the blockage, to be clear and vivid once more.

there’s a panel we’re each given or set before which has seven categories, buttons or flaps, each with a little representational icon, used for testing our character and priorities. as you address each category, it sets up a little scenario and then records how you respond to it. I know one of them involves money, but I forget the rest.

I’ve gone back to boarding school for another year, and I somehow overhear something about my not being special, being unremarkable in some way, and I am absolutely livid. I go to my room to unpack, innately taking solace in my living space, and learn that, as an art student, I’ve been given a second room– as a studio or creative space, tho the layout is identical to a typical dorm room. for a moment I consider the dilemma of somehow fitting out and splitting my stuff and self between these two rooms, and in the end simply move into the creative space with a kind of “so there. just let them try to tell me I can’t do this” attitude. the more I take possession of the space, the happier I am.

my friends live upstairs in flats on floors above me, and I live down below, by myself. there’s a sense of outsiderness and former friendships broken or bent. they’re building slides up there down to the ground and painting them with smooth blue and black paint. it’s a big engineering project having to do with somebody’s injury or disability. I learn that one of the guys up there is unhappy, having a hard time– broken up or family bereavement or the like– I go to see him, want to put my arms around him, to pull my strong heart out of my chest and put it in his as a backup– but I can tell right away that, tho he is a friend, he doesn’t care like I do, like I always have for him– and I give him a squeeze and go away again by myself.

my sister and I are in my parents’ basement, in the former luggage room, checking the big shadowy equipment. our parents have updated things in recent years, but the equipment still looks ancient, dark and shadowy and bulky. we’re fussing with the hot water, trying to get it upstairs for bathing, and I decide to just bathe right there in a trim slingback chair device that seems designed expressly for the purpose.

I see a baby hippopotamus being tumbled and bounced down a rolling river, round keister up in the air.

and then there are rapids full of dogs and cats on floating debris, speeding toward some ominous end– too many too far away for me to save– but some jump off and brave the rapids, swimming, and run off into the wilderness, shaking the wet from their fur.

at some point somewhere I’m pretty sure there’s a purple rhinoceros.

finally, I’m walking along the wooded shore of lake superior when I glimpse something odd, something my eyes and brain together can’t quite make cohere– what *is* that big blue round thing standing in the shallows, turning slightly as if it were… paddling?? and then I see an odd curl– is that a plume?– on top of its head– and suddenly the whole thing coalesces: it’s a big round bird, like a cartoon partridge but enormous. and it is a vivid blue. right as I come up on it and am able to see it more clearly, it startles and paddles out to sea.

just then a couple of huron mountain environmentalists come along with boogie boards, see the bird with an intent recognition that causes me to realize they’re come specifically to see these birds (by now I’ve noticed there are more of them, a flock all paddling the tree-hung shallows)– they’ve tracked them to this spot. the people throw off their gear hastily and make for the water to slip in and get closer to the big blue improbable bobbing birds– I try to ask a few questions, but the woman is distracted– her eyes never leave the nearest bird even as her hands are hurrying over her gear, unfastening straps– and her answers to me are hurried as well and abbreviated– I stand and watch the two people paddle out quietly, lying low on the water, and then I turn and continue on along the overgrown shore.

I have a friend or lover who is dark and beautiful with curly, wavy, thick, shoulder-length hair– he’s persian and has the most exquisite features– but I’m not entirely sure where I stand– it’s possible I admire him too much and am dismissable. I get him a gift while I’m out around the little town, and when I’ve given it to him, I’m seized by doubt– I had thought it such a pretty, unusual gift and that it would suit him, but after I’ve already handed it over, my heart quails with embarassment because I’m suddenly certain that it’s entirely wrong– not appropriate for a guy at all, even a beautiful and unusual one. it’s a pair of earrings, and while he does wear a small pair of gold loops in his ears like a gorgeous pirate, these earrings I’ve found and given him are entirely wrong: bright blue metal, fan-shaped, and dangly. really something out of the atrocious ’80s. I’m mortified. and he sees how inappropriate they are and even downright ugly, and I know there’s a judgment of me being made for having chosen and given them. and then he’s walking on with a kind of cursory, insincere thank you tossed back. I even try to pursue it, suggest taking off the bottom dangly fan, can’t leave it alone, trying to amend and explain and recapture some sense from whatever my original inspiration might have been– but it’s gone now, and all I can see is how dreadful what I’ve given him is.

I drop in to visit a friend, or my cousin, and gradually realize that she has plans I’m interrupting and that I’m not entirely welcome– she and her boyfriend or husband are having drinks with the couple next door, and he stops over a little early, and they’re chatting and he asks what she’d like him to make her to drink– I’m standing there like an awkward, unwanted embarassment, so I leave.

I climb aboard my balloon flying contraption and take off over the city– decide I want to fly to the urals, go visit the asian russian mountain cities– so I imagine the direction and eyeball a flight path and set off– but as I’m soaring high over downtown houston, I realize my craft may not make it so far, over oceans and wild mountain reaches– it’s only a humble, makeshift contraption– so I turn it and head for a closer home, where I feel I belong.

partway into the trip I have to crash-land– I lose altitude and am going down fast– but fortunately, as it turns out, there’s a big, soft buddha statue to cushion my fall– I crash into its belly, and all the people, the family, come running to see if I’m okay and to help me out.

I wake up in triangular traction out in their backyard, hanging from my head, the top of my spine– and I feel perfectly fine (although I accept an offered advil)– and in fact the crash has managed to open up my sacral chakra, and now I feel clear and calm and laughing and light. I didn’t realize how closed I’d been before.

when I get down out of the traction, there’s a kind of community fair in progress– possibly even a welcoming celebration for me, which seems perfectly astonishing and unimaginably generous– and the bake-off is just beginning with an apple pie contest, and they call me down to taste and judge. I’m honored and happy and having fun, and I go over and praise both pies for their shapeliness and color, though they’re as different from one another as two apple pies can possibly be: one is classic traditional, and the other is experimental. I try the experimental one first– it has deep fried slices of apple, or maybe even some entirely other fruit or vegetable, inside a spicy crumble crust– and it’s surprising, delicious, quite fascinating really, and I know then and there that I’ll definitely be giving this one a prize, tho I haven’t even tasted the other one yet.

I show up at huron mountain in a state– it’s an off-season gathering, some sort of social obligation, and I’m weeping and shouting at my father in a public space, the dining or club room– I’m thoroughly beside myself– at the time I don’t consider the display; I’m entirely focused on my anger and frustration with my father– but later, after I’ve calmed down somewhat, I realize what I’ve done. I’ve made a spectacle of myself. I have to get out, get away.

since I arrived by plane, I have no car, and it’s dark and I’m not entirely well, so I don’t know that I can handle the old brown jeep on the roads– but I go. on the road all the oncoming traffic is driving on the wrong side– they keep having to turn quickly and get in the other lane– I’m flashing my lights and honking and driving slowly in order to give them time to move out of my way.

other cars are stopping at the railroad tracks, but I race right across and glimpse an approaching train.

I go to the inn in town and try to make myself inconspicuous in the public spaces– I just need some time to rest and recover. a member of the staff tries to take me around to introduce me to the other guests, but I say, no no no, I’m quite fine– I’d just like to sit quietly and read if that’s okay. so she goes away, and I turn to the contents of the inn’s library. I see, all along the top of the old upright piano, piles of magazines all stacked together and buckled and warped with water-damage– and I wonder, why in the world does she keep these?

I notice a hole in the hardwood floor, a gap to the space below, rooms with light coming up– and then I see more holes, scattered, worn by walking– and it occurs to me, viscerally, that this floor is undependable. I try to imagine a way I might fix it– and there’s even a guy downstairs who might do it for me– but really I’m leaving this place, so I don’t much care.

there’s a channel of cool fresh water outside, and my friend and I go to swim in it– it’s like a living snapshot of a river, just this little piece framed by concrete and then the rest flowing in and away at either end and out of sight– all we can see is what’s right here, bright and clear and in motion. I say, I’ll bet it would be good for lap swimming— and my friend gets right in and goes to work swimming against the current– which is strong, and she struggles. and me? all I want is to get in and ride that current away.

I’m watching a whale rise from the water– it’s blue-black and round like a cartoon whale but big as life and alive. I want to touch its rubbery, resistant skin.

I’m standing in a kind of gigantic hall– a confined space– I think maybe I’ve fallen to the floor from higher up. the ceiling is midnight-, deep-space- blue, and when I look up, I see swarms of airships darting far above– so many it’s boggling. and I turn and ask the person beside me, “are they always up there, above us, and we just can’t see them in the light of day, in the natural air? are there always so many?” and the person beside me says, “yes.”

my dear friend has died. I’ve gone to the seaside town for the planned-celebration-turned-memorial– and I can hardly bear it. I can’t stand to be alone, but there are queues of people lined up to pay their respects– I avoid all that and seek out our mutual friend who’s keeping busy hosting a gathering. I’m having trouble finding her in the crowd and collapse in the shadows, overcome by grief– she finds me by my sobbing. I cannot believe or bear it that our friend is gone. I don’t know how to continue– everything that was right before now seems entirely wrong and out of whack. how can all the world just go on as before, now that she’s left it?