Bearing Down

I had a dream last Saturday night that begged for interpretation.

I was driving in upstate New York, likely the NYS Thruway between Utica and Herkimer.  There was an unidentified little girl in the front passenger seat and my seventeen year old daughter was in the back seat, with her head up near the front so she could talk to me.  I was traveling east on the Thruway and it was dusk.  The sky had a sort of clear purple color that was darkening.  I looked into the rearview mirror and saw a tremendous black tornado bearing down on the car (looked exactly like the above picture – it’s like someone was in my brain and snapped a photo.).

For one second, I pressed on the gas and thought I could outrun it.  My daughter saw it behind us and shouted at me to go faster.  Wasn’t going to work though.  I looked on both sides of the car for a place to hide.  There was a small shallow ditch on the driver side and a deeper wider expanse on the passenger side.  It was doubtful that we would be able to get out of the car and get to a place low enough before the tornado consumed us.

At this point, I was conscious enough to begin to manipulate the dream, getting us into the big ditch to safety.  I do not consider this part of the actual dream since I woke myself up. 

I dream a lot, but it’s only the dreams that stick that are the ones that cry out to our conscious to be clarified.  This one demanded to be understood.

Was I running from something?  Was something bearing down on me?  Was it prophetic – were there storms on the way of which I was blissfully unaware? 

I rarely have luck interpreting my own dreams – my daughter is good at it, Starbuck is good at it, but it is Guest Blogger-who-hasn’t-blogged-for-me-in-years who has a remarkable sense of what my dreams mean.  And she should – I do the same for her; we’ve been translating each other’s dreams for years.  We have a good sense of personal symbolism and the sort of things that tic our subconscious. 

So my daughter considered that I had been viewing my past – one full of turmoil and upheaval, the future was ahead and clear and I was driving right into it.  Not bad.  Starbuck wondered the what the tornado could symbolize.  Guest Blogger-who-hasn’t-blogged-for-me-in-years just smiled and said, “The tornado is time.”

You could have punched me in the gut.  That’s when I know an interpretation is on the mark.  It feels right.  The ah-ha moment.

Step aside for a moment to consider – oldest son is married and doing well in his work, pursuing a degree in human services.  Middle boy has just graduated the most difficult educational program the Navy has to offer – Nuclear Engineering – and will be headed out into the murky depths within a year.  But now - the baby that I nursed those years ago is graduating high school in less than a month, and soon to embark on higher education, a major life change on her horizon.

The tornado is Time.  It’s bearing down on me.  The little girl in the front seat is my daughter as a toddler and she’s also in the back seat, a woman.  Me?  Arthritis.  Progressive Lenses.  Middle age.  Wrinkles.  Surprised at the changes when they crop up.  Identifying them.  Combating them.  Coming to terms with them.  Then enjoying it when I see others as they find themselves on the same track.

The tornado is Time.  I can’t outrun it, and though I didn’t realize it, I still try.  I realized though, that as my daughter is headed toward a new and entirely unchartered course in her life, so am I. 

Time.  I was a daughter for 19.5 years.  A wife for 15 years.  Caretaker of the same dog for 16 years.  But I’ve been a mother of dependent children for coming up on 25 years. 

Time.  This is going to be new and unchartered for me too.  It’s pretty exciting.  No bailing out of the car on this one.  It’s time.

Picture Frames

Christmas Song of the Day: A Wonderful Christmas Time

The moon is right
The spirits up
Were here tonight
And thats enough

One of my favorite songs of all time. It takes me back to when I was 17 and my sister Bellie was 15 (more or less). I don’t know know if I or we had made another sister – Ebbie – mad at something (which was pretty likely) or if she was just down, but Ebbie was in the family room sitting and moping about something. She may even have been crying – I was a hateful sister. Anyway, it was Christmas Day and we were helping make dinner and this song came on. Bells and I ran into the family room and started bouncing and singing until we forced Eb to laugh and smile. I can’t hear this song and not think of my dear sisters and I think that’s why I love it so much.

Five years ago, my divorce was a thing of the past, but my feelings of emptiness, loss and loneliness were not. It took me a long time and countless prayers to get over it.

One night, I dreamt I had remarried and my new husband and I were fixing up an old house. There were four bedrooms upstairs that needed to be repainted. It seemed that no matter what I did, I messed it up. I spilled, I painted outside the margins, I was making a mess. Needless to say, I was getting very frustrated. My husband (who’s face I did not see by the way), was so gentle with me. He told me that I needed to take a break and that he hired a fella to do some of the painting so we could go out and get away from the stress a bit and relax. I didn’t want to go, felt like a failure. No, I had to finish, I needed to be more careful, take more time and get the job done myself. No one should be doing it for me.

My gentle partner guided me out the door and told me not to be so hard on myself. That it was ok to take a break and that I shouldn’t worry.

I don’t remember what we did when we went out, and although we had a good time, I remember a feeling of pensiveness. There was so much work left to be done at the house. And I was afraid I would just muck it all up again.

We returned. It was twilight – not yet dark out, but the sun had set. Each room was completely finished and perfectly so. The color of the paint was perfect as well but it’s a color that is hard for me to describe. I walked into my bedroom where the old man was just putting the finishing touches on the room. He turned and looked at me, saying nothing. Not only was the room painted, but exquisitely furnished. He had done all of it for me. As I looked around in wonder, I saw hundreds of picture frames around the room. On the walls, on the dresser, on the floor, everywhere. I looked and saw that the picture frames were empty. The old man smiled and I woke up.

I’ve remembered the dream all these years. With Guest Blogger’s help, I realized that the dream meant several things. I couldn’t take care of things all by myself. That it was ok to ask for help and to accept help when it was offered. And if I let God take care of things, he would fulfill His promise to me to restore all that I had lost and give me still more. That I had to be patient with Him and with myself. I would have happy moments again to fill up those frames.

You know, I’ve been waiting to fill up those frames all these years. I’ve been living the last 7 years waiting. It’s time to realize that I’ve been filling up those frames with people, with family and friends, with blogs and experiences and lessons. I need to remember that life is lived now, I’m living it and I need to be thankful not only for all that have, and for all that I don’t have. It’s all a gift and I still have a lot of frames to put pictures in!

Dream

I had a dream the other night that I will want some feedback on; so if you feel so inclined, please share your thoughts with me on this dream.

I'll tell you that when a dream sticks with me, it means something; sometimes I figure it out, sometimes I don't. I'm also pretty good at interpreting other people's dreams; my cousin and I share our dreams with one another and make an attempt to interpret. It's a good exercise.

I have some thoughts myself on this dream, but as I said, I'd be very interested to see what others think...

I was driving home from work; it was very dark out; to the point you could see stars in the sky, but it didn't feel late so it had a winter feel to it. People were dressed for cool weather, but no coats. For some reason, I was driving through my cousin's neighborhood to get my dog Buddy. He was capering through the community. I got to my cousin's house and Buddy ran into her garage; all the lights were off. We got through the garage and I got him into her house, but I wanted him out on the deck so he wouldn't get hair all over her house or otherwise mess it up. Everything was still very dark; I felt some unease over this, but not much.

Shortly thereafter, my cousin and her husband came home and had expected me. I saw that Buddy was jumping over the fencing of their deck, so I knew I had to leave. There was another woman in the house who looked like Peter Patrelli's mother on "Heroes". 60-ish, black hair, slender, educated. We all sat on a couch for a while and as the four of us were talking, I realized that by my cousin's manner that this was no longer their home. I looked around and was surprised to see blue wallpaper on the walls in one room with sort of a zig zag pattern. It was silky in texture which made the blue color different throughout. It was SO not my cousin's style which sealed for me that this was no longer her home. I got up to go, saying that I needed to go find Buddy and get home to my daughter when my cousin and her husband told me that I wouldn't be able to get home because they had blocked the roads. I had no idea that there was any kind of crisis occurring that would not allow me to get home to my daughter and I began to panic. I decided that once I was on the road toward the apartment, they couldn't stop me from getting home so I would somehow persuade people in charge that once I got home, I wouldn't leave but I had to get to my daughter; that is, I had to get home.

I walked out of the door to the garage and Buddy was sitting there quietly waiting for me. There were kids - dozens of them - but no children I knew - outside playing the house across the street from my cousin's house. It's odd; I'm recalling the day of 9/11 when there were no planes in the sky and things seemed eerily quiet - this whole dream had the same feel to it. Anyway, the kids had the same sense of something was going on, but they had no idea of the gravity of the situation, so they were running about and screaming and having a good time. I approached a man watching the children; his were among the little ones playing and we made some sort of stilted small talk, recognizing that something awful was going to happen but not articulating it. Buddy was running around playing with the kids. I motioned to go, but the man held my hands gently and pulled me to him. It was an odd thing to do I thought, but as he held me in his arms I was comforted. I could actually feel the warmth in my dream and the cushion-y-ness of his chest. I was being taken care of and it was a very soothing feeling. I still knew I had to get home to my daughter and my plan was still the same, but the comfort I received from this person was tremendous.

My alarm went off. Time to wake up. Dream over.