12/31/06
Oh. Gary’s annoyed at the prospect that I may not want to go skiing tomorrow. I’m not trying to be an obstructionist, but I don’t feel up to going through all their stuff to make sure they have all their adequate clothing, border collie-ing them to get them ready, The whole last two weeks have been executive function weeks and I’d like to let down.
Dinner at Darlene’s last night. It was a sort of uncomfortable evening; maybe had something to do with Gary having a cold and her having just returned from Alaska the day before after flying all night. She seemed really edgy and on the verge of irritability all night, with Gary. As usual, she was nowhere near ready when we got there and Gary & I had to pitch in. Then at the last minute she’d forgotten the ham, and so we had to stop everything (boys sitting at the table) so she could cut that up. So, even though we arrived an hour later than originally planned, it was still another hour before we could actually eat. So the kids were getting wound up.
I just opened the ‘culture warrior’ book by Bill O’Reilly. Certainly sounds like an aggrieved conservative who feels his values (and by extension, ‘everybody decent’) are under attack by some sort of secular-progressive conspiracy. Interesting that he uses as his horror scenario of the results of a successful S-P movement is a WOMAN president, with a Latina last name. Definitely fear-mongering.
Later:
Just had a bit of a remembrance of a dream. I had several last night; I can remember awakening between. But one dream that was in my mind was of again being in a school that was…finished? Out of session? Some dilemma about trying to leave to get to something, or trying to get somewhere. I remember seeing again a long campus that I’m walking down to get to the car in one of the far, lower lots. I realize I’ve seen that same similar scenario in several other dreams—walking down a long campus, meaning it’s topography is descending and I can see over a long way…smoggy haze. Lots of steps. Sometimes a sense of some sort of fair, tented areas with things and food for sale that my boys want to stop and look at. A bus, municipal public transportation going somewhere—now all at once I flash on another forgotten dream of some sort of road, a highway, lots of concrete—like driving around the terminal island port where the environment is a cold mechanized impersonality. And I’m trying to get somewhere, and seem to keep circling the same areas. But then a memory too of a parallel, but separated highway like the one from Denver to Greeley, where periodically you can make a u-turn across the median and reverse your direction…but then also a sense of floating down a river—like the road becomes a river, where I’m carried past places, overtake people, and at some point get out and ride the parallel river back where I’ve come from. But there’s a lot of feel that reminds me of urban but uninhabited stretches of road—and a strong way of experiencing the ‘personality’ of them.
That’s interesting to realize that recalling a fragment of a dream that came to me as I was balancing the checkbook seems to resonate with so many dreams. Visiting and re-visiting places of education: high school once and colleges several times. Roads, trying to find my way around in cities, sometimes places where there would be people (like in downtown cores where there’s lots of shopping), sometimes places where there would be nothing but the structure that supports the roads and overpasses.
Last night’s dream seemed to have had a flavor of Steve and Monica’s presence, though, and a few nights or so back it seemed like it did then, too.
It just popped into my mind while I was transcribing diary #23, that there was a woman in my dreams last night that I’d forgotten about. She was a co-worker, a speech therapist who worked at Visiting Nurse Association when I did. Sue S. Interesting that I’d suddenly remember that. There was a little feeling of discomfort that had to do with the elephant in the room about having not seen each other for a long time (on my part, feeling a little guilty about having let her friendship lapse because there were things about her I felt uncomfortable with and decided to deal with by fading away.
01/01/07 Monday
9:17
I just remembered a dream. In the dream Sharon lived next door to me, in a little house. It wasn’t opulently furnished, and she had a roommate who was someone I knew, a woman. I was getting a birthday party set up for Scott, and children were arriving. I had done a half-assed job that I was anxious about, and the centerpiece of what I’d hoped would engage the kids was a game from the diary I’ve been transcribing when I met Keith P. The game of two people trying to pop a balloon between them. I didn’t have any of the balloons inflated, and I had to leave for a therapy appointment with Sharon that I was late for—one clock said by 15 minutes and the other said only a minute or two. I looked out the window and saw Sharon’s red volvo in her driveway. I made my apologies to the moms arriving with children and asked them if they’d fill in for me while I was gone for an appointment for an hour. I felt guilty and remiss in asking them to do that—that I should have known better than to schedule the party and the appointment like that, that it was lame of me to have said that I’d forgotten about the appointment when I scheduled the party. And I was getting more anxious because the more I lingered to make myself feel better about the inconvenience I was laying on these mothers was making me feel worse about keeping Sharon waiting. So I went next door to Sharon’s. Her roommate was there; I knew who it was in the dream, a woman, but I can’t remember now. Was she Sherron, the woman with whom our exchange got heated at the book reading group? Or was it Jane, another woman from the group? I do not remember the therapy session at all; I do remember a sort of non-sequitor where there are a number of us in a rustic lodge, like at Cooper Spur on the north side of Mt. Hood. Sharon’s there, and a man she’s romantically involved with. He’s very tall, maybe approaching 60 years old. Her roommate is there, and maybe some of the mothers from the party. We decide to take a walk up on the mountain, and I’m very eager to show them the snowfields adjacent to the Elliot Glacier where I’ve skied. I notice that Sharon is wearing sandaled pumps with bare feet and realize she won’t be able to go very far, and won’t want to. There are other women who don’t have shoes that would be appropriate for a walk on rough terrain. I go ahead a little bit and see a gravel snow cat path that goes to the base of the snow-fields, I think. I’d feared we’d have to walk a long way to get to snow level, but I see that snow level may actually be fairly low. Some friends of mine are up there and I want to go too, but I also want to bring these other friends with me. So they can see what I’m capable of? It’s like another dream where I wanted to show friends what I could do…the skiing one. Anyway, I return to Sharon and the others and they’re either turning back or they’re in a smaller lodge that’s further up from the one we were at, and not planning to go further. Her romantic interest was still outside, and was smoking a cigarette. In the dream I ‘remember’ that Sharon’s a smoker too. I pause with them for a minute intending to go on. I ask if anyone has some lipbalm, because tho I’d brought sunscreen, I’d forgotten protection for my lips. I wanted to smear a bunch on and hope it would suffice. In the dream I ‘see’ Sharon at various stages in the time I’ve known her—hair different lengths and styles.
It’s interesting how I’ve been having a number of dreams that seem themed: Mt Hood (sometimes T-lodge, sometimes Gov’t Camp, sometimes Tilly Jane cabin on the north-east side, sometimes skiing, sometimes in a lodge, sometimes on cross country touring skis), places of education, high schools and college, sometimes places of education combined with Mt. Hood. Public transportation, sometimes I’m driving through obscure corners of Portland and sometimes on impersonal freeways. Sometimes working as a home health physical therapist.
Leave a Reply