dandelions

Make a wish.

Blow a long, forceful kiss.

And wonder whether the seeds of your dreams will grow into sun-mimicking flowers, to weave into crowns, or just weeds, to be violently ripped from dusty cracks of abandoned pavement.

by ravichri / flickr

I almost died this morning, in my dream. It was very shocking, actually. Not at all like the dreams I had as a child, the ones that were filled with adventure and where I would race up to the edge of a grand cliff before awakening, full of adrenaline. No. This morning’s dream was different.

I was in a small boat – a row boat, perhaps. I was spending the day with my dad. We were on a smooth river, like the Thames or Charles. It was calm. The mood was serene. And we started talking about currents. I don’t remember the specifics, as happens with dreams.

At some point, we decided to swim. I think we were going to race. I knew he would win. He always does. He’s fairly competitive.

So, I dove into the water.

And, suddenly, I couldn’t float.

It was terrifying.

I struggled to keep my head above the surface as my limbs became dead weight. I had no control over them. I could do nothing. I battled for breath. I knew I was going to die and I couldn’t even yell or flail. All I could do was sink. And time suspended itself.

by andylavelle / flickr

I finally realized, oh my god, I’m not getting out of this… this is is… I’m not ready to go…

My father pulled me up. As I broke fully through the surface, I regained control. The river relinquished its grip. I took a deep, deep breath. And I felt alive. Incredibly shaken, slightly weakened, but ALIVE.

My father immediately started swimming off, intent on winning the race. I started off after him, just a little behind.

And I woke up.

***

I can’t quite shake the terror of that dream. The fear isn’t the heightened kind one gets from watching Paranormal Activity or taking a stroll through a haunted house. It is more seductive and cloying than that. It makes me want to walk through biting cold, breathe audibly, pinch myself, stretch to the point of pain – anything to feel my body and prove to myself that the malaise which was so methodically dragging me into the abyss is truly gone.

I’ve never had this kind of dream before. I really, really didn’t like it. I have no idea what it was about.

It was the second dream in as many days which kept its hooks in me long after my eyes opened.

***

The night before last, I was on a subway. London or Prague. It was too clean and spacious for New York. I’d found a seat and was occupying my time.

by John and Julie C / flickr

Then, I saw someone a few feet away. I don’t know who it was. A friend. I got up to say hi, leaving my purse on the seat.

I glanced back, realizing the temptation I might be offering a thief. Sure enough, a man was riffling through my bag. No one said anything. No one tried to stop him.

I yelled out. He looked up. I dashed over. He handed my purse back to me. He was unapologetic, almost matter-of-fact. Without hesitation, I said something to the effect of: you better not have taken anything, mister.

Clearly, I’m a bad-ass.

He assured me he hadn’t had a chance to abscond with my valuables. Reassured, I returned to my friend, gripping my purse firmly to me.

The train stopped. The man slipped off. I realized my purse felt exceedingly light. I looked inside.

The man had taken my wallet. My identity. My life.

SHIT.

I woke up.

***

I don’t know what that dream is about either. However, I did remove my social security card from my wallet as soon as I got out of bed.

Just in case.

What have you been dreaming about?

My bathtub was re-enamelled late Friday. I wasn’t allowed to use it ALL weekend while it dried. That meant no showers – a BRILLIANT excuse to stay in my pajamas for 48 hours. I only left the house once, to take out the trash.

So, I never made it to the market for fresh flowers.

But I DID open my mail, shred an entire file drawer’s worth of paper, clean past my closet and put new, deliciously white sheets on my bed.

A fantastic, productive, introspective and relaxing weekend.

And then, last night, my cat woke me up SEVEN times. Did she not get the memo that I do not need training for a newborn?

And this morning, it was raining.

by hedonaut/flickr

And it has continued to drizzle all day, filtering the light into a muted grey.

It makes me very, very sleepy.

I have no energy. Nothing. Nada. I sip my tea and yearn to curl up under the covers for a long winter’s nap…

Perhaps to wake up in Italy in the spring.

Watts Towers

What is it about living in a city that makes one less curious to explore?

When I travel to other cities, whether in the U.S. or abroad, I wouldn’t dream of missing their highlights. But when it’s home, there’s always tomorrow, or a self-conscious “cheese” factor, or the comfort of routine that keeps me from pulling out my map and my camera.

I’d heard talk of Watts Towers from the very first day I arrived in L.A. It’s the story with which people juxtapose that of the Watts Riots, to illustrate how this town is complicated and surprising. The riots of 1965 were a violent manifestation of fear, a push-back against hatred, intolerance and injustice. The towers, constructed from 1921 through 1955, were an artistic expression of peace, possibility and beauty. Quite a contrast. One I wanted to see. Or so I kept telling myself. But I never got around to it.

patterns

Then, three things happened.

1. I created my Intentions list at the end of 2009 – a huge long list of random activities I dreamily professed to want to experience. Suddenly it was all on paper, in front of me.
2. Then, I made it public by posting it here – that made, and makes, me feel oh-so-much-more accountable than those thousand-and-one lists I’d always scrawled in random notebooks or the back pages of my journals. I’m no longer the only one who knows how much I sit on my ass and talk big. Still, though, it took an outside force to get me driving across town on a Sunday afternoon.
3. If the ever enthusiastic Dian hadn’t read my list, seen my intention to visit Watts Towers and spontaneously agreed to join me on my venture, I’d still probably have no idea how inspiring broken bottles can be.

Simon Rodia spent 34 years collecting broken things, the stuff others see as junk, to create a vision.

DO SOMETHING BIG.

That was his dream.

perspective

He didn’t become a millionaire. He didn’t cure polio. He didn’t advance technology.

He constructed beauty out of trash.

broken bits

He’d never trained as an artist. He was a construction worker.

He didn’t seek or gain fame (at least not in his lifetime). He had a failed marriage. His neighbors thought he was crazy, and that he was designing a hazardous blight on the landscape.

He had a day job.

vision in pieces

And every single day, for 34 years, he came home and built these towers. At night, after an exhausting day of physical labor. On the weekends, when others were going to BBQs or the beach. He hand-selected every single piece of broken bottle, chipped china, shattered glass, and discarded tile. He had no architectural drawings, sketches or plans to consult.

It was all in his head.

How’s that for commitment, for faith, for trust?

dreaming big

Do you have a dream that strong and clear?

To be honest, I’m not sure I do.

But I’m working on it. Are you?

by Pregnancy Education/flickr

Perhaps there is a man out there who will someday sweep me off my feet, or whose feet I will knock out from under him. Perhaps not. The likelihood that, if it happens, it will occur before my uterus retires for this lifetime is slim. I do not have the financial means nor heart’s desire to get pregnant on my own. Therefore, there is an extremely high probability that I will not have children of my own. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable reality to examine. I don’t want any more grief. I’m not sure what my feelings should be about it. I have NO CLUE what they actually are.

I’ve always been clear that I would never want to duplicate the same mistakes my parents made while raising me. There is much about family life, as I’ve perceived it, that isn’t worth repeating or perpetuating. I’m definitely not confident that I would be anything more than a complete, derelict, basket case of a mother. Note: That is not a reflection of my own mother, I swear.

On the other hand, I adore children and they tend to adore me. At least until they hit those terrible twos. Then, they become mean, vindictive little monsters and inflict mortal wounds upon my psyche with alarming accuracy and ease.

I’ve also always thought that the physical and emotional experience of pregnancy is such an integral part of being female that foregoing it makes me something less than a complete woman. I want to know what it feels like to create life. Without the extra hair growth, stretch marks, nausea, increased hormonal imbalance, and potential for torn bits, of course.

Most of my friends have at least one child. My sister-in-law is pregnant with her second. Being of a certain age and not having children makes me OTHER THAN. I’m excluded from the club. And yes, there is a club. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either still so young as to be annoyingly idealistic or so deeply entrenched in parentdom as to be oblivious to the prevalence of a specific social paradigm to which women are supposed to adhere.

I wouldn’t mind this if I overtly wished to make some contrarian statement with my childless or child-free state. I don’t. I tend to like a lot of the folks who are card-carrying members of the Parent Class. Yet somehow I’ve ended up on the wrong side of the tracks.

I know many women who have lost a child, whether by miscarriage or other tragic life events. I simply can’t comprehend such pain. I have absolutely no wish to know it. And how does it compare to that of knowing you’ll never have that which someone else had but then lost? I’m too chicken to want to find out.

If fact, any condition that involves FEELINGS tends to give me the heebie-jeebies. This is somewhat problematic since my emotions have always had more influence on my actions than my mind. In order to survive this conundrum, I dart about the edges of life, rarely engaging completely and shying away from anything or anyone that might potentially carry the scent of COMMITMENT, of any kind.

Parenting is the ultimate commitment.

By exhibiting what some might consider subconscious, passive-aggressive behavior, I’ve steered clear of it. Now I find myself on an entirely different road, with no visible exits. And I’m consumed with thoughts of what the view might be like in that other direction. I feel like someone else took over the controls of my life. I didn’t actively CHOOSE to be where I am.

It’s crazy-making.

Then, of course, there’s the little issue of my secret ponderings. I wonder if maybe it’s not too late. I consider the dangers of relinquishing this amorphous dream, which I’ve never fully embraced, of having a child by someone with whom I want to create and share the magic of life. If I accept it will never materialize, am I killing the possibility that it might?

This, too, is crazy-making.

The only solution I’ve discovered for quieting my brain about this issue while avoiding as many feelings as possible is to create other life questions over which I can go mad…

Why is my left boob sagging to a disproportionately greater degree than my right?

How will I pay my bills in ten years? Should I have walked away from that guy in 1992?

Am I the only person who is intimidated by the Foreman’s Grill?

Why are dust bunnies and mildew trying to take over my home?

Just think, I spend hours caught up with these questions. What if I had A KID in this condition? I just saw you shudder!

Yes, sarcasm and humor make relinquishing a dream slightly more palatable, but it still kinda blows chunks. One more think I don’t think I could handle? A puking kid. But then again, I do clean up after my cat.

So, at the moment, I exist in a bitter-sweet purgatory of inaction. The dream drifts away while I’m still trying to decipher it. Perhaps, I simply need to wake up and focus on the concrete moments of pleasure in my day rather the hanging out with the Oneiroi…

Have you ever relinquished a dream? Have you ever held on to one despite yourself? have you ever felt like an accidental rebel without a cause?