A Dream.

I dreamed last night I'd been kidnapped. I was living in a strange house at the whim of a strange couple. I was with several women, and there were often more women coming and going, in and out. Some of why we were kidnapped was to serve as sexual prisoners, and some of it was for housekeeping, and some of it seemed just for the fun of being bossy and torturing someone.

I was miserable and afraid. I felt like I'd never be able to get out.

Suddenly, though, in an odd green jumpsuit, my favorite grandmother appeared. I was happy to see her, as I knew she'd come to rescue me, but also because she's been dead for several years. I miss her. She came in, politely, and winked at me in a way that told me I could walk right out the back door. She stayed to schmooze with the kidnappers and distract them from my departing, and I was somewhat surprised by how easy it actually was to leave. I went outside the door, which kind of transformed into my childhood home as I was escaping, walked out through the garage, and jumped in a green car. I fumbled with the keys a bit, but I got the ignition started just in time to scoop Grandma up as she was fleeing.

We were free!

Detox Day 3

So far, no projectiles are flying yet, and he hasn't brandished any knives or guns. He's miserable. I'm miserable. It's great at our house.

I think I might be depressed. I'm struggling with getting out of bed, ever. It's been accumulating for a while, and I think it's getting worse. I don't want to sleep, especially, I just don't want to face the world. The world is a mean motherfucker, and I'm tired of it.

I had a dream a few nights ago. I was on an elevator, and it was packed. I started humming to myself, and then I started saying "Om." I kept saying it, over and over again, and then the other people on the elevator were saying it, too. We were smiling and creating this beautiful, vibrating space, resonating inside and out and between all of us. They were strangers, but I knew them perfectly, and they knew me. They were glad I'd started it. It was weird.

It reminded me of my new toy, the Junky's Wives Club. We're starting a step study over there. I'm excited. I wish that club was a place. I'd get out of bed to go there.

Dream.

Oh, you're dead now. Now you've gone and died and made a mess. How am I going to clean you up? Am I supposed to call the doctor? Do I call the police? Goddamn it.

I'd found his body on our couch, stiff and blue. It made me furious. Furious! He was calcified and cracked and it was a great, big mess, and I was going to have to clean the whole thing up by myself like always. I tried to lift him up, and he was too heavy, and his skin kept peeling off and getting all over me. There were stains where he'd leaked on the couch.

The couch is going to be no good after this!

I finally figure out how to hoist him up, and I kind of fold him over my shoulder, slide him in half, and fit him into a duffel bag. I notice that he's ripped apart at the seams, and he's filled with lasagna.

You got sauce on me!

I take him outside and try to get him into the trunk of the car, and he's too heavy. An old acquaintance from college happens to be walking his dog as I'm hefting my husband onto my shoulder. "I need help!" I shout, imperiously.

"Ok." He starts trying to help me lift the bag. The dog is curious about the lasagna.

We finally get him in the trunk of the car, and the guy asks me, "Don't you think you should have called the police before you cut him up like that? You might be a suspect..."

"I didn't do anything!"

I'm really fuming now, and I realize it's time to get to the airport. I'm on my way to Rome.

And I'm in a hotel in Rome, and I'm on the phone with the accountant in my office. I'm explaining to her that I won't be in the office for awhile because I had to go to Rome for vacation because I'm really tired. I explain to her that I can see St. Peter's from my window, and I can see it from every angle, no matter where I look. I keep talking to her, telling her how tired I am, how awful it's been lately, how much I need vacation, and suddenly, I realize that my husband is dead.

I realize it, and I'm paralyzed. I start trying to tell her that I'm really, really sad because my husband is dead, and that I've been wrong all along...it's not a reason to be so angry. It's really, really sad. I can hardly breathe. I'm trying to tell my mother that my lover has died, and she's not listening to me one bit. She's telling me he was a good for nothing junky and that I'm better off without him, and I can feel my heart beating. I can't breathe. I can see my heart beating, bluer, because he's died, and I don't know what's happening. I don't know how I'm going to be able to open my eyes anymore. I don't know why nobody can hear me.

Swoop.

I'm up at an unfortunate hour tonight because I had a terrible dream:

Look! he shouts at me. We are getting out of my car and approaching the house I lived in when I was in high school. It's a house that always makes me feel unsafe. I look at him, and he's pointing up in the trees.

My eyes aren't adjusting. I can't quite open them. It's suddenly too dark, and I can't see what he's so excited about. He seems afraid, but also interested. "Look!"

I hear feathers and rustling and feel something swooping down on us. He grabs me and pulls me to the ground, and my vision adjusts just enough to see an owl attacking us. He's covering me, but the owl is coming down, and it's going to get him, and then I know it will get me because I can't see it well enough to fight it.

It's a graceful metaphor: the bird of prey, looming; his fascination with it, and my inability to see it coming and fear of being unable to ward it off.

Spider Dream.

Dream:

We were having a picnic. It's beautiful weather, and the food is nice, and there's a blanket. He's lying down, and he's kind of withdrawn, but it's ok. I'm enjoying the sun, the food, being together. We're talking a little.

I notice a large, black spider walking across the blanket, and I point it out to him. I'm laughing, and he's not listening. I'm remembering our first apartment, the giant spiders that we had, how he'd catch them and take them outside. He's not really listening.

Soon I realize there are more spiders. There are lots and lots of them...endless spiders. They're all over the blanket, and then I see that they are all over me. Everywhere. I am afraid to move because they might bite me. I am kind of frozen, looking down at my foot. I can see a really big one with its fangs extended, preparing to bite me. I want him to help me. I'm afraid to ask. He's not paying attention. I whisper, "Please help me. I'm afraid. Please, please help me."

He just keeps lying there, dozing.

Powerlessness Is Scary.

It's a dream:

We're in the car together, and he's driving. We're heading to one of the studios where he used to work, the first one. We've not been there in a long time, and we're both excited. He's going to finish a piece he started, and it's going to be really beautiful.

He's driving. I don't like it, but I'm trying to ignore that I don't like it because things are so pleasant. I think that I should just let him drive. The sun is setting. I look out the window and try to enjoy it.

The studio is over a hill. I notice some traffic cones and flashing lights. " I think we're not supposed to go this way," I tell him. I'm trying to relax. He keeps going. There are workers waving their flags at us. People are shouting, "Don't go that way!" I am getting more and more upset, but I'm also trying to watch the sunset and trying to relax. I'm trying to let him drive. I'm trying not to take the wheel.

Suddenly, we're falling. He's driven into a huge pit. We're falling, and it's taking a long time. I'm hoping that we won't die. I don't know how anyone will ever rescue us. I look over at him, and I want to touch him. I notice that he's nodding.

A Dream.

Last night I dreamed that my pit bull had been skinned like one of the people at BodyWorlds, but she was still alive. Her tail was wagging and her eyes were kind of popping out of her head like the corpses we saw when we went, and her tongue was hanging out of her macabre little mouth. She wanted to be petted just like in real life, but she was all wet and unpleasant to touch.

I asked him, "Where is the dog's skin?" but I knew he'd skinned her and was selling her fur on the internet. He got all crazy and addicty-worked-up, and replied, "WHERE DO YOU THINK!?"

Oh man, I can't wait until I get that unconscious mental real estate back. My mind is on fire!

Murderer!

I absolutely adore the way my dreams have become so obvious and transparent since we've been mucking through The Junky Crisis 2007. Everything is very clear and symbolic, and I remember them all so well. I never had such clear dreams...

So last night, I dreamed that G was a murderer. We would drive around to various places, with me lecturing in the passenger seat, "You really shouldn't murder people, you know. You could get in a lot of trouble!"

And he'd whine, "Why do you always try to control me? You won't even ever let me be myself."

And then we'd stop somewhere, and he'd be stabbing someone repeatedly, and I'd say, "Stop murdering that person!"

And he'd respond, "I'm not murdering her! Why do you always accuse me of murdering people!"

Stab. Stab. Stab.

At one point in the dream, he'd murdered his father, sliced him up into horrible, gory, teeny pieces, and left his body in the river by the park (What river? What park? In the dream, it was "the river by the park." There is no river or park in our lives, so it's strange how definitive these locations were.). And then, we were at church, and I was trying to hide all the things with the blood on them, and I was afraid because now there were things with blood on them with my fingerprints.

I knew that it had gotten quite bad if he was murdering his own father and I was hiding knives. However, I was not leaving, and I was just as excruciatingly, ridiculously enamored with my murdering-ass husband as I am with him and all his bizarre, baroque oddities in real life.

So we're at church, and it's time to stand up and sing, and his mother comes in, quite drunk. She's stumbling and falling, and everyone is looking at her. It's exceedingly bright in the church. Her cell phone rings, and she answers it. This is really, really inappropriate. She tells us that she is drunk because his father didn't come home the night before, and she doesn't know what to do with herself. She can't find him anywhere, and he won't call her.

Her cell phone rings again, and she smiles hugely, and she tells us that it's her husband, and she has to go pick him up from the park by the river. Instead of being afraid that he isn't really dead or that he has re-emerged in a zombie state, we are certain that she is lying and she's really going to get drugs. I see the murderous rage come over my husband, and I know that his mother is not long for this world...

I tell him that I'm going to have to leave him if he doesn't stop with the murders, and he simply smiles and says, "Oh really?"

I realize that I am likely to be murdered soon myself, and so I shut up.

Animal Rescue Dream!

A perfect, funny, ridiculous dream:

I am at some sort of animal fair, and while crossing the bridge in my ice cream/mail truck, I realize that there are many animals who need saving. I start picking up kittens, bunnies, puppies, guinea pigs, baby rats--all kinds of mammals. I shove them all into my car in one huge cage. There's even a lion in there, but it's miniature, like the size of a pit bull. So I'm driving all these animals around in my truck, including my own pets, the pit, the shepherd, the fat invalid cat, and the beautiful girl kitty, and I realize I have to go meet G for ice skating.

We go to the ice skating rink, and he is very emotional. Sometimes we're ice skating, and sometimes we're body surfing down a river, but it's a very clean river, and I'm naked, which is kind of inappropriate because my boobs keep floating up everywhere and men are looking at me lewdly, but it feels really really good. And sometimes there is ice skating going on, and it is somehow very male and competitive and creative, as if they are hip-hop ice skating dancers, and my husband is an old school member of the ice skating dance posse, and he feels like they are not keeping it real enough, and he has this big speech and cries a little because the people who used to be his friends are betraying their true selves.

And then his mother is there, but it's not his actual mother. This woman is very polished, very rich, and very suave, and very judgmental of my husband. Apparently we had gotten married at this ice skating/swimming palace and they'd served us unlimited free Dunkin' Donuts, and she thought it was tacky, but G made the point that she'd eaten tons of the donuts. And there were people praying with their hands up.

So then when we get back to my parents' house, all the animals are still in my ice cream truck. I had forgotten them, and it's the middle of summer, so I am afraid they are dead. I am most especially afraid that my real-world pets are dead, so I open the truck frantically, and I start petting my animals to rub them back to life, and they slowly wake up. But then I realize I've really got my hands full with these animals...there's way too many, and I don't know how I'm going to take care of all of them. There are so many cats and bunnies, and I know that I can't let them go wild because they'll eat each other, and so I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to convince my mother to let me keep 50 cats. And I don't know what to do with the miniature lion, which will definitely be a neighborhood problem. All the little baby mice are dead, and all the bunnies had babies and they're dead except for one or two, and there are snakes, and I don't know how to take care of snakes...

Imagine me trying to take care of things! And taking care of things so hard that I accidentally destroy them!

I keep having these dreams lately where I'm not getting things done, where I'm late or irresponsible or not meeting deadlines. I don't know what that anxiety is about, since I'm not blowing anything off that's important. Maybe it's my anxiety about not being able to save the world fast enough...

Heroin Dream.

Ahh, yes. I had a really exciting dream last night. I have felt for a long time like I am much too empathetic. It's damned near pathological. I feel, and I feel, and I FEEL other people's mess.

So last night, I dreamed that we were looking for people to come over and help us with our new house. We needed a carpenter and an electrician, and I was trying to find these people on the blog. We found this wonderful carpenter who always posted these lovely comments, and he knew that I was also a heroin addict. It was a big secret, and this wonderful carpenter pulled it out of me, and made an announcement to the world that I, too was a heroin addict, and I needed help.

Immediately, when he said it, I knew it was true, and I felt my body wracked by withdrawal. Pain and agony and misery and thirst and hunger and stomach and mess, mess mess....

And my mother was very mad at me. And I was still in law school, some how, and I needed to get my work done, even though I knew I didn't want to be a lawyer and I was going to drop out. I was a miserable heroin addict law student.

It is funny to me because my best friend is struggling to get her law papers done. My husband is the miserable heroin addict. I'm just fine, but my unconscious mind insists on fighting other people's battles for them. Strange stuff.

Now He's Dreaming...

He dreamed last night that we were having sex, really hot sweaty sex, and that he fell asleep in the midst of it (insult!), and when he woke up, he was all tied up and trapped in yarn (I knit), and that the yarn was everywhere, hanging from the ceiling, strung across the room from the bedposts and the windowsills, as if I'd gone yarn-spider insane, and he's tied up and trapped, and I'm about to plug the whole device in, which he knows will be terribly dangerous for him, so he shouts for me to stop, but I plug it in and he's shaking all over, and he realizes that if he's going down, I'm coming with him, so he lunges for me, and we're both shaking and frying and getting electrocuted in all this yarn...and then we wake up, and somehow it's come unplugged, and there are two people looking at us, all bedraggled and fried and naked, and they're saying, "Wow...those people have crazy sex." And he wakes up fully, knowing that I'm going to realize it was just a silly episode and let him get up, but instead, I smile menacingly and go to plug the yarn device back in...this time I'm free...so he starts explaining to me that I don't really want to hurt him, that we could just get naked and have sex, and that it was just an episode and we're over it, we're past it, we're going to grow, and I agree, and we start having sex again...

Simple Dream

A very black apple, single and fascinating, in my fruit basket.

Snake Dream

I had another fun dream last night, this time, with snakes. I was very eagerly purchasing pet snakes, a red one and a blue one, and I wanted desperately to be the sort of person who could handle snakes without fear. I became quite fond of my snakes because they were beautiful, and I carried them with me to a conference about literature/tattoo convention. I was wearing a beautiful silk blouse with 3/4 sleeves, and I had one snake coiled around each arm. The blue snake was wiggly, but the red snake was quite still.

I wanted to show my snakes to some of the people I was hanging out with at the convention, and I kept feeling these twinges of fear. The snakes were dangerous, I knew, but I wanted so much not to be afraid of them that I kept forcing myself to swallow the fear and just enjoy the snakes on my arms. I went to show my friends, and they were all immediately terrified and wanted me to put the snakes away.

I had to find a room where the snakes could stay. I thought about the bathroom, but I realized that people might need to use the bathroom during the keynote speaker's speech. Then I kept opening doors down this long hall, and finally I found a room that was rather reminiscent of my family's church's nursery room, where I went to play during church as a small child. It was a perfect room to keep the snakes in, and so I went to put them down.

Getting the snakes uncoiled from my arms was a particular challenge. Both snakes were suddenly latching onto me with a death grip, and both were highly poisonous. I didn't know what to do, because I didn't want the snakes on me anymore, but I loved them because they were beautiful. I started trying to find ways to pry them off of me, very carefully casually removing first the blue one and then the red one from my arms. I put them down on the ground, and they moved all over very quickly. I left the room.

Later, the snakes were under the garage. There were kittens, and the snakes were alternately trying to eat the kittens, which was terrible, or at risk of being eaten by the kittens, which was terrible.

My mind is so busy lately!

Here's what the online dream dictionary had to say about snakes in dreams:

To see a snake or be bitten by one in your dream signifies hidden fears and worries that are threatening you. your dream may be alerting you to something in your waking life that you are not aware of or that has not yet surfaced. The snake may also be seen as phallic, and thus symbolize dangerous and forbidden sexuality. The snake may also refer to a person around you who is callous, ruthless, and can't be trusted. As a positive symbol, snakes represent transformation, knowledge, and wisdom. It is indicative of self-renewal and positive changes.

Weird Dreams, Again.

I had another strange, strange dream last night. This time, I was walking down a busy street. It was summer time, and I was hot, and there were lots of street cafes, so it was kind of annoying because of the heat and the traffic on the sidewalk and having to step around the street cafes. I'm walking and kind of grumbling to myself, when thr road starts to angle upwards, steeply, and suddenly there are all these bikers...not like cool bros on Harleys...like Frenchified bicycle riding hippies.

Now, I don't have anything against bikers in my waking life, but in my dream, I found them to be horribly annoying. I had some kind of attitude about them being hippies or something...like they were annoying to me because they thought they were better than me or smarter than me or healthier than me, and I was especially annoyed that they had all these bicycles spread out everywhere, all in the street, and it was hard enough to walk up this freakin' mountain without bicycles and people being everywhere. They had on their annoying biker suits, the tight clothes and the weinie helmets, and they had water bottles, and the whole thing was REALLY annoying.

I'm on my way to work or somewhere I need to reach urgently, and my thighs start burning, and I'm climbing and stepping through this mass of bicycles. Eventually, the bicycles are really stacked right on top of each other, and the road is quite high, so it's precarious to walk around. Soon it stops being bicycles and starts being bicycles in disassembly, but a kind of organized disassembly...like a hardware store filled with bicycle equipment, bicycle parts, bicycle ratchets and screws and chains and things, all organized very nicely in these metal crates. It is nearly impossible to walk, but I keep going, digligently, until I get past the crowd and finally reach the top of the mountain.

At the top, I look down, and all I can see is an extremely steep, extremely snowy slope. I can't ski. I don't even have skis. There are a few people skiing, but it seems exceptionally dangerous, as they are really sort of flying off. I can hear a phone conversation between two mothers. Neither of these mothers is my mother. But they are mothers, and they are saying, "She'll just have to ski with the rest of the young people. They're all skiing, so she can to."

I consider my options: ski, or walk back through the bikes.

Now what the hell does this all mean? Something about working hard, trudging along, and getting to nowhere good? Or something about pushing against an obvious mechanism of escape (climbing uphill on foot when I'm surrounded by, completely encumbered by, bicycles?)?

Should I buy a bicycle? Were my thighs just sore from the gym?

A Dream With Another Reality

I had another fun dream last night. The last time I was telling folks at work about a dream, my boss said that you know you're psyche is fragile when your dreams are so transparent. It's true...I've been having some real whopper dreams lately with symbols in them like a 9th grader's poem.

In the dream, I was sometimes watching a movie, and sometimes a part of the action. The premise is that there are two worlds, and you can choose to move back and forth between the two. The one that I have chosen to be in is a world inhabited by artists and communists, an experimental world, with clean streets and true love and everyone getting paid to contribute what they can and do what they love. It has happened, however, that this beautiful, exciting, theoretical world isn't working out, and there are riots, weird concerts that everyone is required to attend, and people doing drugs in these long, winding alleyways. I am trying to escape from something, and I seem to be either very privileged in this world because I can move in and out among the riots, the concert hall with the looming government officials, and among the drug addicts in the weird alleys. I think at one point about how it isn't clear whether or not I have special privileges or if everyone can just choose to move around freely because we are in the exciting alternate universe space where everyone is a free, intelligent being who can make adult decisions ofr him or herself. Also, at one point, I am a stripper. I am working as a stripper and performing at a tattoo shop in front of hundreds of people who are required to watch me by the government, and I can look out windows and see trees and trampolines and a rattlesnake in the branches of one tree, like what Becky and I saw one time when we were in middle school and practicing cheerleading moves on the trampoline at my childhood home.

Everything in vaguely frightening and liberating at the same time. My mind moves back and forth between understanding that I am completely happy and completely at peace because I have exactly what I want and knowing that I am in terrible danger.

To reach the other world, you have to walk up a very long hill (I am walking with my husband up this hill trying to get back to the first world, and we comment on the poor engineering of this road and how it is so impossibly steep, and he points out an alternate route we can take with stairs that are less steep and easier to climb even though it might take a little longer because it winds and covers more distance), pass through the rioting crowd (which is at the same time very menacing and dangerous and also not--they are wrong and right at the same time, they threaten you because they are against you but at the same time they represent a very deep truth and they are there to protect you), and then you have to pass through a terrible, beurocratic place, something like a post office or an airport, to come out in a murky, dark bus stop or train station or parking-deck kind of building. When I reach this building, my husband points at a child sitting at a counter reading a newpaper, and says, "This is how you know that the place we are is Jersey." He says this with more than a hint of derision.

We are disappointed to be back in the normal world, even though it feels much safer. The roads are less clean and there isn't the feeling of heightened idealism or transformation or whatever it is about the other world that is so much better.

What a strange dream! It was all sepia-toned and detached, and intricate, and strange, and obviously about how I'd thought I was making the right decision to be with my husband, and how I was making the right decision in so many ways but also making a horrible wrong decision in other ways.

It's funny how the mind does that...renders these weird excavations and buildings and stories from feelings you aren't even aware, or you're only partially aware, that you're having.

Oh, also in the alternate reality, almost everyone was biracial. It was very clear that everyone was biracial because we had become so intellectual that all races were blending into one. There was also all these forests, and I knew that there were people in the forests plotting things, like government coups or overthrows or revolutions, and it was scary and ok at the same time. I could walk through the forest and be a little afraid I was going to be held hostage or raped or forced to join some militant army, but I knew theoretically it was impossible because people in this place had evolved past such meannness.

Strange, strange stuff.

There were also all these people walking past the concert hall where I was a stripper/writer/tattoo artist, and the hall had tinted windows, who would seem to be looking directly into my eyes, but actually wouldn't see me at all.

And there was a moment when G and I were traveling to the old world where we had to go stop at a Croatian grocery store, and I wanted to buy something to drink that would be interesting, but I couldn't find anything, and I was sliding around on my stomach on the floor and somehow accidentally tore their linoleum and had to promise to bring them the tape to repair the linoleum that I knew I had in my house in the old world, and the Croatian men agreed (again with the menace and calmness at the same time), and then I bought some Croatian chocolate and a diet Coke.

Another Dream

Last night I dreamed that I was at the beach and there were these kittens...there were many I could pick from, and I narrowed my selection down to 2. One was a durable, canvas-textured, blue kitten. It felt just like a canvas bag, like you would take to the grocery store. The other was a total beautiful bundle of fluff. I liked the canvas one, and it was blue, which was kind of special, but I chose the fluffy one.

I was very excited about having a new kitten. I held it and loved it and scratched it, as one would do with a new kitten. Soon I found myself putting it into a jar and filling the jar with water. I think I was trying to clean the kitten, but I left it in the jar for too long, and it started coming all apart, like it was made of tissue paper.

I think the two kittens were my two husbands, and I chose the fluffly, falling apart one instead of the sturdy, reliable one. Hah.

I think I'm going to get a kitten.

Another Perfect Dream

From the Bill Moyers interview of Joseph Campbell:

Bill Moyers : Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden hands?

Joseph Campbell : All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

I've been so frustrated with him for not wanting to go to the right job, and I keep trying to talk to him about why he might not want to go--he's nervous about tattooing since it's been a long time since he's done it, he's nervous to go work at a shop where everyone is better than him instead of a shop where he is the best artist, he's nervous because he's told about a million lies, he's nervous to get back into a routine--all these tings seem obvious and legitimate to me, but he's been unwilling to even admit to these issues. I think if he'd been more willing to talk to me and face up to these issues, I would have been able to be more patient with him. Also, though, if he'd been able to deal with the issues, he probably would have just gone to work.

That's the most insidious part of addiction, I think...the lying. The lying to others, and the lying to yourself, and the way that the disease gives you this ability to believe two things at the same time that absolutely are not true.

He went to work, today! He is at work where I want him to be at work! It feels good...not just because it's where I want him to be. I want him to be there because it's where he belongs. We had a talk this morning about following your bliss, and how when you're on the right track, things work for you. G is a spiritual man, and he recognizes these helpful hands that push you along the way. From the way he got his job to the way I got my job to all the people we've met along the way who have given us both wonderful opportunities to grow together as a couple and individually as artists...he is supposed to be where he is today. There is no question about it.

I dreamed last night that he and I were in the old Zelda game, like from the original Nintendo version. As a kid, when I'd play the game, I used to trip out on how there was an end to the world...a big brick or brush wall, if I remember correctly. I used to always take my guy out there and walk him around, thinking about the end of the world--the edges of the world--and then I'd think about our world, the real world, and how it must have an edge somewhere...anyway, in the dream, G's character was wandering around on the edge of the world, bumping into horrible trolls, and shouting at me, "THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY. GOD, YOU'RE ALWAYS TRYING TO CONTROL ME! I'M GOING THE RIGHT WAY! LET ME GO THIS WAY!" and bumping around, uselessly, running into walls and trees. (It's funny that this petulant, outraged tone is the tone he perpetually has with me in dreams. My husband is such a twelve year old in my mind sometimes.) I, on the other hand, am going in and out of buildings where there are princesses to rescue and monsters to fight and gold to capture, and I keep telling him, "You're supposed to be over here!! Come look at all this stuff!! This is the right way!! Come with me!!"

It was a funny dream, and I told him about it this morning while he was getting dressed for work. He was very nervous, and finally admitted that the nerves about all the things he'd lied about were what had been keeping him from being excited about getting back to his art. I think as soon as he has a few good days under his belt, and especially as soon as he starts making money again, he'll be glad he's back.

It's where he's supposed to be. I'm sure of that. I told him the stuff about the Joseph Campbell bliss idea to make him stop stressing and know that it's the right place, and if it's the right place, it isn't going to be too hard. He liked it that I was pleased with him. I am pleased with him.

I liked him again last night after he got home. I wanted to touch him and put my head on him. His legs were bothering him, and I rubbed them for him like he likes me to do. I buried my nose in his armpit and smelled, and fell asleep touching him. It's nice to feel that way again. Maybe before much longer, I'll feel like that all the time.

Yay working!

Here's A Poem I'm Writing

It's based on a dream I had during the time when G wouldn't stop selling things on the internet. I dreamed I'd found an ad on Craigslist where he was trying to sell his feet, and I came home, and he had them cut off and sitting on this awful piece of cardboard...like a dirty, blood-smeared cardboard tear from a box. And I was very upset and told him that he could not sell his feet on the internet...and he told me that he COULD and that I CANNOT CONTROL HIM and they are HIS FEET ANYWAY, etc, just like it would have been in real life. But the best part of the dream was that after he was done yelling at me, he got really whiny and insisted that I help him to the car and give him a ride to the place where he had to go to sell the feet, because he needed help, obviously, because how could he be expected to walk without his feet?

The poem is bad. Don't judge me. It's in process.

Let’s not deny that we are in a crisis
tonight, with our dirty hands
and tired eyes pointing
downwards.
Let’s embrace
and face our great reckoning.
It’s clearer to me, now,
that you are someone I am meant to know.
It’s all becoming very clear.

In my dream, I was upset
with your plan to sell your feet
on the internet for fifty dollars.
I’m doing it for us, baby,
we need the money right now,
and besides, you can’t control me.
They’re my feet.
Now help me.
Isn’t it obvious?
I mean, I can’t walk
without feet?

The day I spent in the psychiatric emergency room
attempting to rest in a too-small chair,
the 5 hour wait and my toes pressing the fronts of my shoes
wreaking panic,
I read stories of women’s weddings
in the Weekly Woman magazine
and thought of our own, and how funny
against their mango calla lilies and champagne
our rough sketch
wrenched heart-first from an affair
by the weird provocation of god and government,
made ridiculous and legitimate, signed and sealed
with wax melted in a feverish heat.

I have not trusted you,
have not trusted a love that might dwindle,
have not trusted your mind to sit still,
have not trusted your eyes to see me
have not trusted your lips
have not trusted in your return

You have made my love ridiculous
and now, with my heart on fire
I wish you would die
I wish you would leave me
I wish I could kill you
I wish I could unlove you
and I wish for the end
of this endless payment
for the sins of my father
for the sins of the men
before you
before me
for the round, drunken sins
for the flesh-hungry sins
for the world I did not make
the world of my unmaking

Tsunami Dreams

Throughout my life, I've dreamed about getting swallowed up in the ocean. I think the dreams started because as a child, my parents had this trailer in a trailer park at the beach that we'd go to on the weekends. There was this huge gazebo that I'd play on and under, and I'd often dream about being on that gazebo and watching the water get higher and higher until it finally overwhelmed me. Or took away my things, or endangered my family.

I've been having that dream again and again lately. I guess it's a pretty transparent metaphor for feeling overwhelmed. The first time I had it recently, I was with my mother and sister and my sister's little girl. It had become my responsibility to protect my niece, and the water was getting higher and higher, and my niece was very concerned about her doll getting lost in the water. I was very anxious about not losing my flip flops, not getting out towel wet, not losting my niece's doll, and finally not losing my niece as the water and waves climbed higher and higher, higher and higher. Finally before I woke up, my mother and sister were running and I was slogging through waist-deep water holding my niece above my head while trying to escape from a giant wave that was approaching quickly, ominously.

Imagine--I'm feeling overwhelmed and feeling terrified because I'm responsible for a child-like person. I wonder what that can mean?

I had it again last night, but this time I was with Jeni, who is one of my closest girlfriends. We were having a nice time at the beach, and we walked across the gazebo to find that the water was way, way way too far inland. In this dream, I was anxious about the environment--the water seemed to be much further inland than it ever was in my childhood, and I explained to Jeni that it must be because of global warming. Then the waves become higher and higher, and Jeni and I are in danger of getting swallowed, but we hold each other's arms and struggle to get away.

I like this dream better. I'm scared, and I'm still overwhelmed, but I'm depending on my girlfriends to help me make it through.

In these dreams, I never get swallowed, but it's always close and so very dire. All the tsunami business in the news feels personal. What a terrifying thing to experience in real life!