Thursday, June 11, 2009

Dream on my Shoulder

I woke up with another dream. Literally. This Dream sat on my shoulder, yawned with me and staggered up and also came to have a cup of coffee.

I put on my mascara while it clung to my shoulder like a koala to a eucalyptus tree. Dream perched to the back of my head rest as I hurried to work and it squeaked in protest when I took a corner a little too fast.

This has been “One of those days.” We all have had one of these and although we all apply these days in different ways, all feel the same way about them regardless.

After this day filled with people who also seem to be carrying dreams around like sulky cats or yapping little dogs on too long of a leash, I have decided to talk about mine with the hope that by doing such, it will get down off my leg and politely sit in place.

The first dream this week was about a little boy. He was not mine. His sticky tousled butter hair clung damply to his serious face and large dark grey eyes. I woke up worrying about him and I haven’t been able to turn around without hoping to see him, but to see him with a smile.

The second dream was last night. This was a jumble of candy cane colored street stripes, snow in a high desert, Santa Claus forced up on stilts to be hung on a cross, wind shield wipers blown off by howling winds and losing my favorite shoes as I was forced to slug through a giant pond of a puddle. As I was standing on the other side, glumly glaring at the spot where mud sucked them off, I looked up and around and thought “I have been in this terrible version of Alice in Wonderland for a while. I should be waking up soon.”

With this thought I decided to ditch the car and walk for a bit. My feet bleed and ached but as I was aware that these were my dream feet I wasn’t too worried about it. I seem to be in perfect shape and none the worse for wear whenever I enter a new dream. Plus the wind only howled if I got in the car.

I wandered from the open field into what I thought was another one until I reached the slightly receding road’s bottom and saw wan abandoned, and once very nice, suburban neighborhood. Tumble weed tumbled, as it does; cracked and aching dry sidewalks and driveways split open for weeds and the front yards were filled with burnt yellow grass that tried to wave their tiny tinted blades in the (now)soft wind, but instead broke continuously into dust that sighed around me in the silence.

Where did the snow go? I looked back up. Yes Santa was still up there and yes he was too far away to help and yes there was about eighteen feet of snow….

But here at the bottom it was death valley meets the sub-prime crash of 2007.

I wished for and then looked at the helpful watch that appeared on my wrist. About thirty minutes until the alarm went off. I could wake myself up but I tested my physical self and I was still quite comfortable and deeply resting. Plus I didn't sense danger. It was as if this bizarre broken world did not yet know I was there still.

But then It did. I couldn't see it, I could not smell it but I could breath It. This danger felt like ants had crawled into my lungs and left me gasping for air. The sun was suddenly burning, burning, it was burning my skin! I could not breathe the air that had no life and choked as I tried. My pulse hopped up and as my heart tried to flee, the rest of me tried to stay calm. Where was it? What was thinking this malice and had noticed me? A dry cracked wail broke out from the deadly stillness; throwing hot drenching icy fear to trap and hold me in this world of deep despair.

I thought of waking up but forgot how to shake myself out!

I then thought of green and I thought of home. I thought of blurred hills and glowing moss, I tasted the smell of my best friend, I reached for the thought of my dog’s eyes. But I shivered and I lost them.

-Then I heard her coming.

My Wind Woman’s arms stretched out with her flowing cloaks of starlight, rain and mist. She slipped over the road where I had come from; she covered the snow, swept away the dust, the haunted hills and the road disappeared in her loose waves of grace; (she has a way of taking over everything); As she descends, (her face always haunts me) and I can see her dark, mischievous and dangerous eyes. She came down behind me, caught me up in her midnight blue hair and whispered “Wake up!”

I felt the clean chilling touch of her breath through my bones and sat up in bed.

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