Often my dreams consist of saving people, frequently leaving me more exhausted when I wake up than when I bed down. The objects of my rescues are my children, grandchildren, ex-husbands and lovers, occasionally extended family members, and sometimes friends and unknowns.
A lady I know insists she has an innate skill for interpreting these dramas that go on in my sleep. She informs me that in my effort to maintain calm in my everyday life, I allow my anticipation and fears to visit me in a place where I can relinquish control to some other authority.
If that’s the case then I’d like there to be some Port Authority for checking ID’s, passports and past records of former violators. Some of the people that manage to pass through the portal of my Netherland are doing so without permission, invitation and consent. I am rarely surprised to see them. I have learned to accept their presence and dutifully view the show from my front row observation pillow. These images follow me around in my waking hours, sometimes influencing my thoughts and actions. That can be good, reminding me to not commit the same errors of the past. Other times I am simply haunted.
In real life I’ve lost people in crowds; been left on docks; missed planes, trains, busses; forgotten appointments, classes, birthdays and directions. I’ve misbalanced checkbooks, overdrawn, underestimated, forgot to mail the check, forgotten the day (forgotten the month), picked Door Number Two, mistaken a name, misplaced a face and transposed the number. Most are occasions I have memories of and can recall, relate and share. Dreams are different. They are ethereal, and as with lies, fade away, having no material substance with which to cling.
Throughout the day, images enter my perspective like cartoon bubbles, hovering and disappearing. I close my eyes again in an effort to freeze an image; just long enough to get a perspective, but… it was just a dream. Or at least a part of one that fluttered through my unconsciousness long enough to cause a disturbance on my personal Richter scale.
As far as the maintenance of calm in my life? That is something that will never happen. I’m sure of it. I suspect I will continue to be consumed by all things irrational, behind the curtains of my eyelids. Asleep or awake. And not be surprised.
Thanks for reading.
A lady I know insists she has an innate skill for interpreting these dramas that go on in my sleep. She informs me that in my effort to maintain calm in my everyday life, I allow my anticipation and fears to visit me in a place where I can relinquish control to some other authority.
If that’s the case then I’d like there to be some Port Authority for checking ID’s, passports and past records of former violators. Some of the people that manage to pass through the portal of my Netherland are doing so without permission, invitation and consent. I am rarely surprised to see them. I have learned to accept their presence and dutifully view the show from my front row observation pillow. These images follow me around in my waking hours, sometimes influencing my thoughts and actions. That can be good, reminding me to not commit the same errors of the past. Other times I am simply haunted.
In real life I’ve lost people in crowds; been left on docks; missed planes, trains, busses; forgotten appointments, classes, birthdays and directions. I’ve misbalanced checkbooks, overdrawn, underestimated, forgot to mail the check, forgotten the day (forgotten the month), picked Door Number Two, mistaken a name, misplaced a face and transposed the number. Most are occasions I have memories of and can recall, relate and share. Dreams are different. They are ethereal, and as with lies, fade away, having no material substance with which to cling.
Throughout the day, images enter my perspective like cartoon bubbles, hovering and disappearing. I close my eyes again in an effort to freeze an image; just long enough to get a perspective, but… it was just a dream. Or at least a part of one that fluttered through my unconsciousness long enough to cause a disturbance on my personal Richter scale.
As far as the maintenance of calm in my life? That is something that will never happen. I’m sure of it. I suspect I will continue to be consumed by all things irrational, behind the curtains of my eyelids. Asleep or awake. And not be surprised.
Thanks for reading.
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