Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again, and again and again. Only it was not the Manderely of Daphne du Maurier's mind. This one had no name and came from the creations of my own mind.
As a point I hate when writers write about dreams. Usually they are as dull as hearing someone tell you their dreams in real person and usually it has little plot point.
Not many people are aware of the fact that I am a dreamer. I make up stories in my head all day long about the strangers I see, or the actual people I meet. That is not the kind of dreamer I am talking about.
I am what is called a vivid or lucid dreamer. I dream like the movie Inception, or Groundhog Day, or Nightmare on Elm Street. Oft times I am aware of the fact I am dreaming and I am able to marvel in the things going on around me.
Much in the same way I do when I am awake, I know I am awake and I marvel at the stories that pop into my head about my surroundings.
I recall my dreams from my childhood. Scary ones mostly. I have dreamt I met the devil (he drove a VW Bug and wore an expensive suit), The Virgin Mary (She looked much like a prettier Jacki O and drank tea with white gloves on while signing autographs), just the other night I dreamt I met Barack Obama, and I am still kind of pissed off at him for what he said to me.
I have watched my children die with me frozen in some dream like grip unable to save them. I have seen my husband come back to life just to tell me he never loved me. I have had my father sit at the foot of my bed after delivering my first child and nod with approval. Okay that one may be chalked up to pain meds.
I dream of houses, water, mountains, secret rooms. I dream of elevators that make Willy Wonka's look like a trip on a mall escalator.
I can awake from a dream be awake for an hour or so and pick up where I left off. That is where I am now. I am sitting at my kitchen table pounding out these words with a bit of frustration, anger and fear.
Today alone I have witnessed the death of so many people in my dream. Every time I tried to change it someone else died. So much for a relaxing nap. I was afraid to go back to sleep and have it all pick back up again and be inside that macabre house.
Sleep did find me, and I was at Manderley again. This time it was the corpses of the family pets reanimated from Hell to kill and slaughter my family.
Last week in my slumber I was at the Hotel del Coronado (where I have actually never been) having coffee with Hemingway. This week my dreams make Stephen King novels look like a episodes of Sesame Street.
I do not know why this gift of vivid or lucid dreaming has been given to me. When I do extrapolate on a particular dream I often make people jealous. I get responses of , "Wow I usually dream I am out of laundry detergent."
I am making coffee now because I can not risk going back to Manderley a third time. I would rather be awake and tired.
I have read books on my kind of dreaming. I know what Freud, Jung, and Miss Cleo would each tell me about my dreams.
Tonight however I am in like minds with Descartes; " I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake."
Now I will try to balance my visions and eradicate them from my faculty by drinking coffee while keeping a keen eye on my pets lest they turn evil with eyes protruding, flesh falling off and I must hack them to death, again.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Wanna See A Dead Body?
I have never been much of a goal-oriented person. If there was something I was wanted, I wanted it immediately. I was not a planner.
My summers as a youth were for the most part lazy. I lived by a lake, I swam, saw friends, was shipped off to sleep-away camp for many summers. Nothing special.
Many of the stories people tell me or that I read involve a summer spent trying to attain a goal. Endless visits to the lake to climb the tallest diving board, only to slink back down the ladder again and again until finally, as the summer comes to an end, the person walks barefoot across the board that stretches out in time and distance and leaps. Their hair wet and heart pounding with as much fear as pride when they emerge. Goal achieved.
The part of the lake where the younger kids and families went to in my town was simply called, "Island Beach." I can tell you it is much larger in my memory than it is in actuality. About 100 yards out is a floating dock. Again my memory is increasing size and distance. Maybe it was 100 feet. Whatever the distance, if you were under a certain age you had to do a swimming test to get a little tag that would spend the rest of the summer pinned to your bathing suit. This tag said, "I passed the swimming test and I can swim out to the dock if I want. So there."
I passed that test more than one summer, but it was never a goal. I had grown up with swimming lessons, so passing was no big deal. And the mysteries of being able to hang out on the dock were not as mysterious once you were dry and realized you had to swim back.
Summers for me were a time to just be a kid. Not a kid you would read about in a novel. Not a kid who found a dead body, or bounced a ball for 79 hours straight to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I was, in all honesty, just an average kid without any goals or ambitions except maybe to learn all the lyrics to Grease.
My youngest daughter and her friends have made this summer one with a goal. One very specific goal. This summer, this group of five girls have decided that they want -- no need -- they need to raise enough money to buy tickets for a concert that will not take place until next summer.
The plans and chatter are endless. Selling old items, calling in to a radio show offering a cash prize. Setting alarm clocks to remind them to wake up and call. Making jam to sell for $5 a jar. Car washes, baby sitting, and even begging to be paid to clean their own rooms.
They have a goal. They have the ambition to follow up and the motivation to keep at it. I watch, I listen, I offer ideas. Mainly when I am not annoyed at the chatter, I am honestly impressed.
These are the kind of kids that are written about in books. These are the characters that make up a good movie. These are remarkable humans. I see into their futures and I see the tenacity continuing to grow, the goals they will create and achieve. I am slightly jealous.
If I am the one who instilled such stalwart values in my daughter it was by accident or default. I can not even claim that I had the goal to raise ambitious children. Just happy ones.
It is summer now in Texas and when I am not hiding away in my air conditioned happiness I will venture to take the children to the lake. It is not a walk down the block as I had, but it is worth the drive. The wood of the docks is such a familiar feeling, it is as if I am walking in my past.
I have become the mom who regales my children with, "Well when I was growing up there was a lake..."
My only goal for summer since moving to Texas has been to survive it. Ignore it. Avoid it. And on the occasional trip to the lake, enjoy it.
How is it that I have nurtured beings who have goals while I remain floating without an anchor? I am still the person who wants things immediately. I have not learned how to plan, plot, work toward and ultimately achieve any goal in particular.
I am completely apathetic about this awareness as well. I do not feel remorseful, or driven to pick up a sword. I feel no shame or guilt.
I am a watcher. I am a thinker. I prefer to sit on the dock and watch others attack the water over and over again trying to get the perfect dive.
Then I see that it is my children diving. My children with ambition. I am filled with unwarranted pride. I smile. I encourage. I bear witness. I may not achieve much else but deep thought and pleasure from what I have been given, but I am happy. Happiness alone is a goal worth striving for.
My summers as a youth were for the most part lazy. I lived by a lake, I swam, saw friends, was shipped off to sleep-away camp for many summers. Nothing special.
Many of the stories people tell me or that I read involve a summer spent trying to attain a goal. Endless visits to the lake to climb the tallest diving board, only to slink back down the ladder again and again until finally, as the summer comes to an end, the person walks barefoot across the board that stretches out in time and distance and leaps. Their hair wet and heart pounding with as much fear as pride when they emerge. Goal achieved.
The part of the lake where the younger kids and families went to in my town was simply called, "Island Beach." I can tell you it is much larger in my memory than it is in actuality. About 100 yards out is a floating dock. Again my memory is increasing size and distance. Maybe it was 100 feet. Whatever the distance, if you were under a certain age you had to do a swimming test to get a little tag that would spend the rest of the summer pinned to your bathing suit. This tag said, "I passed the swimming test and I can swim out to the dock if I want. So there."
I passed that test more than one summer, but it was never a goal. I had grown up with swimming lessons, so passing was no big deal. And the mysteries of being able to hang out on the dock were not as mysterious once you were dry and realized you had to swim back.
Summers for me were a time to just be a kid. Not a kid you would read about in a novel. Not a kid who found a dead body, or bounced a ball for 79 hours straight to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I was, in all honesty, just an average kid without any goals or ambitions except maybe to learn all the lyrics to Grease.
My youngest daughter and her friends have made this summer one with a goal. One very specific goal. This summer, this group of five girls have decided that they want -- no need -- they need to raise enough money to buy tickets for a concert that will not take place until next summer.
The plans and chatter are endless. Selling old items, calling in to a radio show offering a cash prize. Setting alarm clocks to remind them to wake up and call. Making jam to sell for $5 a jar. Car washes, baby sitting, and even begging to be paid to clean their own rooms.
They have a goal. They have the ambition to follow up and the motivation to keep at it. I watch, I listen, I offer ideas. Mainly when I am not annoyed at the chatter, I am honestly impressed.
These are the kind of kids that are written about in books. These are the characters that make up a good movie. These are remarkable humans. I see into their futures and I see the tenacity continuing to grow, the goals they will create and achieve. I am slightly jealous.
If I am the one who instilled such stalwart values in my daughter it was by accident or default. I can not even claim that I had the goal to raise ambitious children. Just happy ones.
It is summer now in Texas and when I am not hiding away in my air conditioned happiness I will venture to take the children to the lake. It is not a walk down the block as I had, but it is worth the drive. The wood of the docks is such a familiar feeling, it is as if I am walking in my past.
I have become the mom who regales my children with, "Well when I was growing up there was a lake..."
My only goal for summer since moving to Texas has been to survive it. Ignore it. Avoid it. And on the occasional trip to the lake, enjoy it.
How is it that I have nurtured beings who have goals while I remain floating without an anchor? I am still the person who wants things immediately. I have not learned how to plan, plot, work toward and ultimately achieve any goal in particular.
I am completely apathetic about this awareness as well. I do not feel remorseful, or driven to pick up a sword. I feel no shame or guilt.
I am a watcher. I am a thinker. I prefer to sit on the dock and watch others attack the water over and over again trying to get the perfect dive.
Then I see that it is my children diving. My children with ambition. I am filled with unwarranted pride. I smile. I encourage. I bear witness. I may not achieve much else but deep thought and pleasure from what I have been given, but I am happy. Happiness alone is a goal worth striving for.
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