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| Spring 1971 |
- the flight speed of grief
1604.09
Often, I have had the dream about arriving at the theatre and not knowing my lines but having to go on stage and perform, or showing up at the theatre to find out I was in a show that I did not even know I was in. In recent years, this dream has taken a new form in that instead of being a failure and unable to perform, I am able to improvise.
This time you are in the audience, Mom.
This dream changed up the improvisation scheme. I am at a theatre and learn that I am playing Thomas Jefferson in a straight play of 1776. I improvise an entire scene with two women characters. Then I am trying to get ready for the next scene, asking people what my character wants in the scene, what is his motivation. I ask to be given one line from the script, so I can extrapolate from that line. I know I have no chance to learn the entire script, but I can surely learn one line. I am not getting a lot of cooperation from people and not being told the information I need.
Later, in the dream, I have left the theatre during intermission with another cast member to get some food, but we are delayed in returning and afraid we may miss the start of the second half.In part, this dream is about me conquering fears. Like all the dreams I have in this sequence, unlike the previous dreams, instead of failing, I am able to improvise and succeed, though there is still the shadow of potential failure in not getting the information I need and not returning to the theatre in time. But unlike past dreams in which I simply improvised, this dream was about preparation. It definitely keyed into my recent efforts with preparing for success and analyzing how best to prepare to succeed.
I did succeed in the dream. It felt like a positive dream, despite the shadow of potential failure.
1604.11
This dream was very convoluted, but the heart of it was anxiety and loss of freedom. I was in angst over having committed some crime with a group of friends. We were on the run for some time, but then we were caught and awaiting arraignment. My biggest worry in awaiting the first moment in court was what T-shirt to wear.
The dream started as we waited to change clothes and get the car at the Frayers house if my friends lived on a lake. In any case, me and one of my friends, were sitting on a hill watching the sun rise over the lake when the Frayers came home and we had to explain that we would be leaving soon. I think I was sitting next to my friend Laura, but actually the friends were never identifed in my dream.
Prior to being caught, we left some cabin in a car to which we had to hook a trailer. In my dream, I have precise visuals about hooking up the trailer using a flat, magnetic hook up. We had several guns. Hand guns, but also large assault rifles, such as the M16A4 or the AK-102.
We drove the car and trailer all over, eventually into a large court house with big meeting rooms like Versailles, where we we feared we would surely be caught, but we were not.
Later, we were caught, and we were awaiting trial. I was worried that it would look bad that we had guns because we never used them, but I spent more time worrying about which shirt to wear. I wanted a shirt image that would evoke sympathy and could not possibly offend anyone.
I woke up before the trial actually happened or the anxiety resolved.
1604.13
I dreamed I was Superman. But in the dream I knew I was not Superman but that I was dreaming about being Superman. No cape. The jeans and t-shirt Superman look. I had been taking care of you Mom, and we were at the Boathouse restaurant in Traverse city, across the small cove of Bower's Harbor from where I always stay. But then I had to go to the Neahtawanta to get something. I started to run at super speed, but then stopped myself and chose to fly. But though my run started at a burst of super speed, my flight started very slowly, like a by a dolorous glide.
I just looked up what "dolorous" means because the word just popped into my head and I thought it meant slow, but it means sorrowful.
The flight was slow because it was a flight of grief.
1604.23
I dreamed that I was teaching a class in the basement of my home on West Gull Lake Drive in the big room we called the family room. A face to face class, not an online class. Students had to drive out from Kalamazoo to attend the class. It was our first class of the semester. There's more details that I have lost to this dream since I woke up, but it was obviously a variation on the anxiety dreams I often have about teaching in a new place or not being able to find the place I need to teach. This anxiety is solved in this dream as I am teaching out of my home. It's just another in a series of dreams in which I solve previous anxieties in the dream, like the first dream in this blog entry, which I have had often over the years about being unprepared for a performance that's about to start. I do not dream as often about being unprepared for classes. I dream more often about not being able to find my classes, which here is solved by holding the class in my house.
1604.24
Let me cut right to the heart of this dream, Mom. You told me not to leave you. This was at the end of the dream, so I am working backwards. Dad and I had gone to where I had attended kindergarten, which I know is in Traverse City, but in the dream, we were somewhere more pioneer-styled and possibly Amish. We were in this building and I saw a big interior wall that spanned two stories. It had a decorative wood lattice. I said, "I remember this wall." Then turning around I saw an opening in the second floor, a rectangular opening, wide and thing, so people could look down from a second floor. This is where our class room had been. I spotted some cut-out Christmas decorations in the room, long sequences of people or reindeer, probably at least ten feet wide or more, decorated with metallic spray paint. I wanted to investigate. Suddenly, you were there, Mom. You had not been there before. Dad has transferred you to another chair, and you were sliding out of it as you often did because your legs so stiff. You were all bundled up. You had a royal blue bandage around your head and covering one eye because you had some injury. As you know, this is not something that you actually ever wore. And we were going to go upstairs at the decorations, and you reached out with your good arm and hand, took hold of my forearm, and said "Don't leave me" several times. I hugged you, kissed you, and we rubbed noses, and I said "I will never leave you." This is where the dream ended.
Your entreaty to not leave you alone was so strong, a beseeching, pleading repetition, insistent, PRESENT. It's still lingering around me in a warm embrace as I write this. Not creepy or haunting. Loved. Love.
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| Apparently blurry photos are a thing in our family... and in dreams... |
Even earlier in the dream, my dog Satchel was both dead and not dead. There was a living Satchel, but there was also a dead, at least for the moment, Satchel in many pieces. Liesel and I were cleaning the pieces and putting Satchel back together. I wanted to know if when we did this, if Satchel would be alive. Liesel said she did not know. I am missing details of this part because as we cleaned the pieces, Satchel was not there any more, not alive, but she had been just prior to the pieces cleaning part.
I will never leave you, Mom.
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 294 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.24 - 10:10
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