See the Sea

To see the sea 

off-spectrum

is to understand

that there is 

so much that 

we do not 

sense or perceive

in this strange life.

***

 

Hearses and Churches

I had a cascade of dreams recently that included the typical themes of being lost, late, or lonely but the one that sticks out the most involved a church.

In the first part of the dream I was at my son’s basketball game but as night fell I ended up falling asleep in a stranger’s car in the parking lot that was shaped like a hearse.  There were others napping there and I was driven several miles away before I woke up and realized what was going on.  I convinced the driver with a good deal of begging to let me out at the next stop.  The back door with its stained-glass window swung outward and I exited onto a country road in my bare feet.

As I was walking down the road trying to get back to my son I noticed a church set back from the road a bit with a wide green lawn.  The two story building was a pale green color with white trim that resembled a doll house more than anything.  The second floor had a recessed balcony at the right corner that contained a large ornamented couch with three children sitting on it all dolled up in finery that matched the building.  I realized it was a kind of decorative flair to advertise the church as lovely and wholesome as opposed to using a sign.

I continued past it but then the thought struck me that it would make a very interesting photo and so I backtracked to center myself on the building.  As I was trying to frame the shot I couldn’t get my phone to cooperate and in the meantime people started to exit a building next door and walk over to the church disrupting the symmetry of the shot.  They were also dressed in old-timey finery and one disapproving woman approached me to discourage me from taking photos.  She let me know I was not welcome there and whatever fine and pleasant things they were sharing there as a community was not something I would ever be privy to.  

Then I wandered back into wakefulness.

***

A Dream House

Halfway through high school we moved into a large old house that utterly captured my imagination.  It had beautiful woodwork throughout, a grand staircase, some stained glass windows, and a massive attic that could have accommodated a number of rooms if so divided.  I say it “captured my imagination” because I’ve had recurring dreams about moving into a large old house and exploring it since that time.

In fact, I had just such a dream last night.  We were moving back to the town I grew up in and found a large old house near the town square.  Like the house mentioned above it had two stories with a large attic.  The porch was wide and long with pillars supporting its roof.  Inside the front door was a massive foyer that was almost three stories tall.  In most dreams like this over the years  it has been my parents buying the house, but in this one it was me and my children exploring it with my parents in tow.

As they explored the house I went around back and found a large yard with huge mature trees and beautiful landscaping that was contiguous with a town park on the one side and a parking lot on the other.  I remember thinking how very cool it was that there was no real separation between the park and my yard which gave the illusion of a magnificent green expanse that was all my own.  While I was taking this all in some movement above me caught my eye and I looked up to discover there was a glass-enclosed bridge connecting the attic to a large building at the back of the property on the alley.  My Dad was stepping into the tunnel-bridge to follow my kids and they were waving for me to come up to see it with them.

The building on the alley turned out to be an old movie theater that had been repurposed and still had evidence of a ticket booth incorporated into the back corner.  The large window had a small round hole at the bottom where the money and tickets would be exchanged and there was a covered walkway that led from the booth along the building to a side entrance.  There were some designs and stylized letters on the brick along the walkway but the paint was faded and pealing so they could no longer be deciphered.  In a point of detail from the dream I noticed that insulating foam had been sprayed into some of the bigger gaps between the bricks that had shifted with age.  

Inside the building were old style architectural elements and a massive main room that used to be the theater proper with towering side walls covered by bookshelves that reached to the full height of the room.  Persian rugs covered the wide floor boards and old-fashioned chairs and sofas with rounded backs and armrests were situated around the room, some facing the stage and others facing each other.

I heard Anya’s voice coming from somewhere in the back and found her in a large tiled bathroom with an old wooden door that opened to the back alleyway.  I swung it open to discover there was a wooden deck with a  large dumpster sitting at the end of it at the corner of the building filled with junk and rainwater.  Anya, Elias, and I walked to the end of the deck where it was even with the top of the dumpster.  I noticed something disturbing floating on the far side of the dumpster amongst the trash.  It appeared to be wrapped in clear plastic which I noticed extended to our side of the dumpster.  Out of curiosity I pushed down on the part closest to me with my foot which resulted in the opposite side coming up out of the water to reveal a pale face.  I realized it was a dead body that had been dumped in the dumpster.  I made a mental note to call the local police to report it while nonchalantly shewing my kids back into the building.  “Nothing to see here, kids.”

No one was harmed in the making of this dream and I wish all but the last part were true.

***

The Missing Nickel

It is strange.  I fell asleep in the library with my head on a book, but when I woke up I did not believe I was awake.  

Before the unplanned nap I had wandered through the library’s used book sale and found a book  that I wanted to buy but I was afraid that I did not have the cash to do so.  I searched my wallet and found some change in a special compartment for that purpose.  At a glance I had everything but pennies and as I pushed my finger through the coins I was happy to find three quarters, two dimes, and two nickels.

I don’t typically carry change or have bills in my wallet.  Everywhere I go these days they take credit card and I accumulate points to pay for our hotels on vacation.  So it was odd to have change, but then I remembered I’d recently found some coins in the kitchen that had sat there for several days with no one claiming them.  I claimed them for the sake of decluttering the countertop but had forgotten I had done so.

I was happy to find them because the sign for the book sale indicated the paperback book I wanted was one dollar.  I could manage that, if my math was correct, with a nickel to spare.  So I put the correct change on the top of the book and walked to a study carrel to sit and read a different book that I’d checked out earlier in the week (The Land Across by Gene Wolfe if you must know).  

I laid the used book with the change balanced on top of it on the carrel desktop and started reading my library book after taking a seat.  It is a strange book where the man travels to a land that is somehow off the grid and things are not as they seem, both literally and figuratively.  A chapter into it I became exceedingly somnolent and almost involuntarily laid my head on the book and fell asleep.

I did not dream per se, but I could hear voices coming from different parts of the large open building and I felt kind of floaty.  It was not unlike the experience of reading PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke.

When I awoke I was surprised to find I was in the library.  I stretched out my arms, rolled my neck in a circle, and curved my back to unkink myself and buy some time to reorient.  When I was in college I would oftentimes take a nap in the mid to late afternoon much like this but there was a price to pay.  If I slept more than a few minutes, say one hour or more, for the next few hours and sometimes for the rest of the day I would feel there was something fundamentally different about the world I had awakened to.  My frame of reference would have shifted just enough to feel like I was living and breathing in the 3^rd person (“he walked across the quad”) and not the typical 1^st person (“I walked across the quad”).  It’s like that long midday nap had somehow bumped me into a dissociative state and the dreaming world was reluctant to release me.

I looked at the change on top of the book and counted it.  There were the three quarters and two dimes but no nickel!  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  I looked all around the study carrel and on the floor.  I checked my lap, the chair, and even the opening of my bag in case it had somehow fallen in there while I slept.  Surely no one would have bothered to reach over my sleeping form to snag one solitary nickel.

I suddenly felt like I was in that dissociative state from my younger years.  I was pretty darn sure I was awake, but how to explain the uncanny disappearance of the coin?  Fortunately I had that extra nickel in my wallet and I was able to buy the book which was Gregory Maguire’s “WICKED”.  As I shuffled to the library exit in a state of dreamy wakefulness my thumb felt a slight bulge under the book cover.  As it turns out the center of the cover of the book has a large hole in it framing an image of the Wicked Witch of the West which lies on the page underneath the cover.  The nickel had simply slid under the lip of that hole.  

This confirmed to me that I was not in fact still dreaming and could go on with my life in the usual manner without fear of a dinosaur crushing my car or discovering I was only in my underwear in the middle of the parking lot.  Life’s little consolations, I suppose.

He’s not There

Sometimes it feels 

like he’s not there

(just man-shaped air)

with a hole in his soul

and space for despair.

Japanese Grocery Store

 

Like a good Ghibli movie

a Japanese grocery store

is full of mystery and wonder.

The colorful packaging and 

ubiquitous kanji is a feast 

for the eyes and imagination.

It reminds me of my time

in Korea with its peculiar smells

and inscrutable conversations.

But what I want to know is 

why the sign says you should

run and not walk to the bathroom?

***

Mel & Me

 

I had a dream where I am out and about in NYC reading a nonfiction war book a la Tim O'brien and end up running into Mel Gibson.  I'd just read a particularly beautiful and profound passage and wanted to share it with him.  He sees the title of the book I'm reading and it opens him up to talk to me.  We start to talk about our favorite war accounts out there and get increasingly excited about what we are discovering about each other.

He then gets a peculiar look in his eye and he tells me to follow him.  We go to his private pad and he pulls out several sheets of paper of a war movie screenplay he is working on and it is all hand-written.  He has me read some of it and explains the creative process he uses to write.  I offer him suggestions to the story and an amazing chemistry starts to form as we flesh out these ideas making them fuller and stronger.  The thought occurs to me, if this movie actually gets made I might get some credit for it!

He then takes me to Central Park and asks me to help him act out a particular scene.  It seems he has me pegged for a particular character and I do my best to say the lines in a convincing way w/o being too self aware.  My mind starts to race about what all this could mean for me.  Will I be in this movie?  Will I become his new writing partner?  Would I make enough money to be able to switch careers?  

Then my daughter wakes me up.

***

Image is from Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”

A Bird among Birds

 

I dreamt I was a bird, 

but not just A bird

but a bird among birds.

We sang our songs 

sometimes alone 

but usually together.

Above the cornfield

we met numberless

and danced a dance

which might be called 

a “murmuration” though

it was free of murmuring.

We swarmed Scarecrow.

He was not scared 

(but neither were we)

until the humming lines

called to us to rest

our weary wings.

And I felt the fullness

of being alive on a wire

connected and connecting.

***