misadventures and morning light

I didn’t want to fall asleep but sleep overtook me. I saw shifting faces, real and recalled from distant past from very many places and times that surely have aged by now, and several unrecognized people slipping and sliding past each other as kaleidoscope images and nothing to connect. I awoke right away disappointed at falling asleep still grasping at what I just saw but with nothing to snag. I’m disappointed at falling asleep and having it slip off like that, I’m disappointed with my own mind, just poof and a story is gone. What a bummer.

Without getting up, no rolling over no shifting or lifting my head I’m dropped off again. A continuation of what I was doing IRL except a lot more complex. IRL a new file is created and some 100 or so photos adjusted in Photoshop wrongly dragged down to the new file for temporary holding. The original RAW files reprocessed and the adjustments going straight into the original file after reprocessing by their assigned numbers taking the places of the ones that I moved. A clean and straightforward way to handle that situation to correct best as possible. The dream version reviewed all that and made a huge mess of the files making the task much more complex, dividing the original RAW files unnecessarily into groups and creating new files to capture the adjustments to the point that I kept getting lost in the confusion of RAW and originally processed with reprocessed files that I created. I woke up thinking, “Well that was pointless. I did it the best way previously IRL” 

Awake again, shifted my body and dropped off again. And I’m in my family home. I am teenage now. The place is brightly lit and filled with life, my family members coming and going. Both parents alive and quite active themselves. Each of us more as our spiritual selves, finding ourselves in the same place but that is only a location where each of us is advancing our own individual interest. They are not conflicting interests, just intersecting at the location my father provided. The home is merely the loci or foci where each of us pursues our own choices. The vibe is completely different than IRL My father’s personality is not predominating, not controlling us, rather each of us pushing, forcing, our individual direction, seven lines that all intersect at the point of that house, our home. There is not conflict, the home is shown by its vibrations as similar to an airport where widely varying interests happen to intersect at the place that my father provided while his own interest is equal to my mother’s and to all five of their children. My parents are airport builders and providers, themselves pilots of their own lives.

My mother intends on traveling somewhere and she asks who would like to join her. One sister goes with her, they are like minded their interest in this coincide. and I decide to join in another vehicle. It’s not clear why it was appropriate for two vehicles. Just accepted. She’s leaving immediately and distressfully with no actual plan. No map. No consideration or planning whatsoever. Just go. I’m trying to pack and to plan for contingency and to anticipate everything that will be needed. I know in advance with my cash and my cards I can buy my way out of any mess I’m dragged into but I must at least have my wallet to do that. Do I have enough t-shirts? Underwear? Clothing? Shoes? Cell phone? Laptop, enough time to comfort my dog who's becoming anxious? I run my fingers through her soft fur and talk to my dog, lying to her that I’ll return in five minutes. My dog doesn’t trust what I’m saying. She wants to accompany me. Cash? Cards? I’m running all over the entire house. I’m in the basement, the first floor, the second floor bedrooms and bathroom. I’m gathering things that I’ll need. Mum and sis are in their car and ready to go. 

Where are we going anyway? Don’t we have map? Mum says, “Capital Nebraska, don’t you know where that is?” 

“No, I do not. I never heard of the place. That doesn’t even sound right.” 

“If you get lost just go to Capital Nebraska and we’ll reconnect there” How careless. I’m anguished, and thinking, “Jesus Christ you women are a couple of flakes. Nobody travels like that. You two know better than that.” My older brother senses my anguish and helps pack but doesn’t use luggage, he just carries out a laundry basket loaded with things he imagines I’ll need. He’s careless as they are. He’s helping me rush but I don’t want to rush, I want to take reasoned steps and make sure I won’t make my own trouble but none of my family is concerned with any of that. Just go. They each have more confidence than they have common sense.” And they’re off and into the darkness. 

I’m startled awake now. Thinking, our home never was that cluttered and messy. There never was crap all over the place. I thought back to how the place was in fact very well ordered but oddly how much of it was mine. I hadn’t appreciated that until just now upon waking. I created a lot of things that my parents actually used for their decoration. Odd and childish things. They accepted everything I created and actually used it. They actually liked the crap that I did just learning, just experimenting with various arts. They loved the things their kids did, and I was the most artistically inclined. And it showed. It still does show. My sibs saved all of that stuff. No matter what. They loved every bit of it and actually used it. Incongruent things. Decoupages, ceramics, objects in various and incongruent styles, plasters, drawings and paintings, all of that stuff went up and stayed up. Even a childish nativity, obviously the creation of a child, extensive and childish, goes up every year, lovingly, and faithfully, and an important part of their own expression. Even to this day. My older brother wrote that he told his grandkids if they mess with the nativity pieces he’ll break their little arms. While I’m charmed with the thought of them playing with it. No matter if pieces get broken. Not so to Barry. To him it’s more of a treasure. But it’s not. It’s actually quite stupid. I’m not so sure I’d do that myself. The dream forced me to confront that although my parents did not understand me hardly at all they still adored all things I brought into their home. All of it. And now at this late point I find all that quite extraordinary.

 Throughout I never did fully appreciate that. 

I could cry. 

Even past all that and all children well grown and creating their own families. In his final year my dad said to me in his kitchen, “It’s like that owl over there, Bobby, I just really like that owl.” I looked across two rooms at the owl just sitting quietly unobtrusively on the brick fireplace. A plaster that I poured and painted as a young boy. It looks like a real owl. “Dad, I made that thing.” 

He thought a moment trying to remember how the owl came into his house. As a boy, my dad had his own live owl that he found in a nearby park and that he build a cage for at his own parents back yard in Bethlehem. His parent’s accepted the things he dragged home too, and tolerated their son’s interests. The plaster owl reminded him of that episode, the disruption he caused by his own childhood live owl. He looked at me. “Oh. So you did.” Now that’s all past. 

And I realize we all really are like that. As humans we really are careless adventurers through life in the manner of our choices. No matter how careful our planning we cannot possibly account for all outside forces and influences, we really are winging it all the way through, from beginning to end, facing each challenge as they occur. That really is the characterization of our human existence. And this explains the interest in, say, playing cards. The game coincides with how our lives go. We really do play the hand we are given and everything devolves from that. A card game is wildly bizarre. So is real life, no matter how well or forcefully planned. Such as this bizarre election. Hillary Clinton and Democrat party could not possibly account for the sudden emergence of Trump. Everything was going so well, so excellently according to well plotted plans. Then boom Trump and all that is disrupted terribly. With Republican party left bewildered, discarded and, well, trumped. 

You couldn’t make up this shit if you tried, and if you did, it would come off as too on the nose. 

Awake again, drop off again. I’m with a group of males of various ages who I know and we decide to explore a forest that comes into our sight. A lovely copse of spaced trees with thin white trunks, cool shade, speckled light and well arranged for being a forest. We go into the trees and see beyond an open space and another stand of trees like the one we are in with human figures gathered in there. We decide to make our way toward them to see what the group is doing over there, and possibly join them. The ground is wet, then very wet, then exceedingly muddy. I have on the wrong kind of footwear for this adventure. My shoe is solidly stuck in the mud. I pull out my foot from my shoe to move forward. Turn around and pull the shoe from the mud while chiding myself for not preparing properly for such a hike as that. I know better than wear street shoes for that. In the moment it takes to recover the shoe moving water filled it with mud. Emptying out the mud from the shoe I must confront a large earthworm took up the space inside. Fast as that. So worms are desperate for safety too. The muddy worm entirely filled my shoe. It’s a big one. Getting the worm out took a good deal of effort and tugging it out I marveled at the size of the worm. This place has the biggest fastest worms ever. Pleased that it’s not a slug. I hold up the worm, amazed at its size and announce the group of explorers, “Hey! Imagine fishing with this!” The entire party of friends-explorers were amazed at its size, and well pleased at this discovery of the natural world. This is something new for the books. 

The quality of light changes. I rouse and open my eyes and look out the opened sliding glass door. Cold air is filling the room. The sun is beginning to lighten the sky. I’m cheered. I beat the sunrise again to see its magnificence happen again. My impulse is rise and set up the tripod and capture the change of light on the buildings and the mountains behind them. But I’m too lazy for that. I watch the buildings illuminate and the mountains light up and come into view. I stay put and take it all in without moving, knowing this display of natural wonder, cosmic in nature, is available to everyone who cares to watch, while enjoying my own private show, this sunrise is for me. This morning is mine.