Potato-Chip Baby
Monday, February 28, 2005
Elephants
In Monday morning's dream, I was in the Caribbean, (where I will be one week from now, actually).
I was wading in the ocean, and elephants were showering me with water from their trunks. I was wading with a young asian girl, maybe 7 years old.
The two of us decided we would each bring an elephant home from our vacation.
The next 'scene' is at the house where I grew up 8-18 years old. I have 2 elephants in the yard, and they are pooping and acting very depressed.
They are so clearly depressed that I thought, "If I could do one thing over in my entire life, I would do this over and NEVER have brought these animals home." I remember thinking how horribly cruel it was of me to want an elephant. And now I had depressed elephants on my hands.
I had to find a way to keep them in the yard, so I tried to tether one to the garage using an impossibly small hook screwed into the side of the garage.
By this time, the elephant I was working with had become a human. A 20-something man in a suit, to be exact. So, now I was attempting to attach his tie to this little hook in the garage. But, in addition to being a young professional, he was also still an elephant, somehow.
Then the dream switched to me and friend riding a tram in a city. It was night and we were riding in the very front of the car, and it was all open. The tram was going slowly and hit a drunk woman walking in front of it. She landed in our laps and was generally unhurt. But I was very upset by the whole thing.
The title of this entry is a quote from one of my former psychiatrists. "Look at this. (glances at her watch) It's been a half hour and it's nothing but your mother, your mother, your mother."
So, you can guess what my dream Sunday morning was about.
My mother.
Nothing too bad, considering the things I could dream about my mother.
In my dream, I was at a hospital and me, Mom, my sister and my ex-boyfriend were sneaking around, on some covert mission. The goal was to get to the roof. We went into this empty employee break room and they found access to the roof (or, one level of it, there were more floors above us) from the windows.
So, my sister and mom proceed to the roof. I stay inside and just watch them from the safety of indoors.
In (awake) life, I'm not one to pass up excitement, and actually, enjoy spending time on the roof of my workplace. But, although it was a bright, sunny day, and the consequences didn't feel dire, I did not join them.
My sister eventually came back in, and the two of us just watched Mom out there. She was near the edge a lot and it made me nervous, but I did nothing to try to get her to safety. I just let her be.
This is symbolic because for the last 12 years, and especially for the last 15 months, teatering on the edge is exactly how I would describe my mother's life. And up until the last 15 months, I have tried to bring her back from the edge. And 15 months ago, stopped trying. And now have even looked away from the window altogether.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Lost?
I have a friend who is 15-years old. Her family has 'adopted' me and I them. I wil call her 'Julie.'
Julie was gone. I was at her mother's house. She went somewhere, didn't tell anyone and I don't know how long she'd been gone.
It must have been a long time because it was to the point where we all thought she'd been ubducted and killed. There was absolutly no trace of her.
I was at her mother's house with many of her friends coming and going. We were all sad and crying. I was sitting with her boyfriend who was very upset.
We had already gone into town (her mom lived out in the country in my dream) and looked and looked for her. I went to a restaurant to ask about her. It was raining and it was night when I was driving back to her mother's house. I remember feeling that the weather matched my mood and the situation perfectly.
We were all devastated. Didn't know what to do next. One of her friends stopped by and got out of the car. I thought it was Julie and even yelled to everyone, "She's here!! She's back!!" But I quickly realized it was not her and we all seemed to sink deeper into distress.
And then Julie came home.
I felt this almost tangible feeling of relief. All I could do was grab her and hold her and cry. I had never felt such anguish and now I had never felt such joy.
She had gone to the movies with two boys. They suggested they all go to California. So they left. She didn't call, didn't let us know if she was OK. Nothing. I was so mad, and so happy she had returned, at the same time.
This dream made me realize how much I really love 'Julie,' as if she were my own daughter. How I would do anything to keep her safe, and at the same time, I know she is reaching the point in her life where she will me making her own decisions.
And maybe the dream is symbolic of something I think I have lost forever, but that isn't really lost at all.
I think the idea of the dream came from a story a friend of mine told me recently. She said that when she was in high school, during her senior year, she was sitting on the front stoop of her apartment when her friends pulled up in their car.
They told her "Phish" was on the east coast, on their last tour and they were missing it. So, she got in the car and they went to the east coast and followed Phish around. She didn't call her parents until she'd been gone a week.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Horses and death
In real life, I went to lunch yesterday with a friend of mine. She owns horses and was telling me about her horse that was due to have a foal in April. She also invited my husband and me over to go riding sometime on some of her other horses. She said the mare is all black, no other color on her, and that the foal might be a black paint.
I drempt that she told me that the baby horse died and therefore we couldn't come over to ride horses.
I drempt about my sister, too, but I can't remember that one.
Here's a website about paint horses
