November 29, 2004
listing to starboard
Two nights in a row, what dreams I can recall are traveling dreams. Even my subconscious feet are itchy.
The other night (meaning morning before I woke) I was part of a film crew in rural Japan. In a large house surrounded by green hills, I was meeting with the prop-humans who populate my dreams to sort out the production schedule we’d need to follow to get done. I soon got flustered with them and called a break. There was a lot of barbie pink on the prop-people, although I can’t recall if they were wearing specifically pink sweatsuit sets that are the current style mistake walking the streets. I went into another room in the house (which was actually more of an old Pittsburgh mansion architecturally) which had been converted to a costume room with rods hanging all over and shoeracks piled up. A lot of the elements were odd sizes or damaged, not that it matters in a costume anyway. I began digging though, picking out pieces, examining an interestingly styled boot that clasped across the instep to close, but the clasp wasn’t working right. I don’t remember most of the rest, including why my mom was on the trip with me, off minding her own business, reading in another room somewhere in the house.
Last night (again, morning before I woke) I was taking a trip with Kelly. We were heading east, and were apparently west of here. There were several stops, and this first leg was on a bus. It was, to its credit, a nice bus, with double seats not on both sides, but in a near random pattern thoroughout, making it much more spacious for passengers and their luggage, which was strewn about, used as footrests. The prop-passenger students were mostly Eastern-European, transplants to the US, evidenced by the quiet murmuring in accents. Kelly and I needed to change transportation methods in a place that was essentially one of the dankest streets in the student ghetto of South Oakland. I had not paid yet, and needed to settle up the with driver, which was as awkward as a it possibly could be. I didn’t have the cash, even to the point of telling Kelly I needed to borrow because I had gotten cash, but put it in Ian’s wallet. She pulls out a 2.5 inch thick flat pile of bills and hands me the whole thing. I owed between $40-60, but all the bills had block type double numbers on them: 1020 and 40100, etc., with pinkish patterns, swirled like the common bills, but no faces. I couldn’t figure out the money at all. Passengers, driver, and Kelly are all getting frustrated at my incompetence. I’m holding this huge pile of money on the sidewalk, with my bags open all around me, and thugs walking down the street towards me. “What do I pay? What are these bills?” The explanation was rather cut short by my waking. No great loss that.
Neither are bad dreams, both with elements of my frustration with where I am in my life, both wanting to be in motion, to have a better plan, to have what I need to get to wherever it is I must be heading.
When Kelly and I talked the other day (in waking reality), I was going on, asking “Have I become this aimless woman, devoted only to supporting what my husband is doing, or am I just going through a crisis?” She assured me that it’s just a crisis. I’m not entirely convinced yet.
Filed by joy at 10:14 am under 
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