Today I slept in; it wasn't a choice. I woke in the night (first time) because I was sweating. The second time I was sweating feverishly so I yanked off my shirt -- with the same amount of grace a child-magician employs as he snatches the tablecloth from the table, breaking most things in the process. The third time I woke may have actually been the first or second time or both of them blended together; either way I remember three distinct instances of being awake when I didn't want to be.
This morning, when Liz left, I woke suddenly, barely hearing what she had to say as she walked out the door looking luxurious and splendid in her fancy clothes. I remember saying:
"You're leaving?"
I was shocked. She was leaving!? Already!? But I had just woken...Despite my shock, I managed to soothe myself immediately back to sleep, maybe before she even left the apartment.
The next few hours were a quicksand gravity-well, spitting me out and sucking me in again and again. I would wake, half-remembering the dream I'd just been a part of, and I would think, I want to be awake, I want to get up now. But the blanket washed around me and the subconscious undertow dragged me down to the next scene I would scarcely remember.
After hours of that, I convinced my arm to reach for the phone/clock/reality buoy. 11:38. Oh, come on...The frustration of sleeping three hours past my planned real world entry point was enough to get me out of bed.
I don't mind dreaming. I love dreaming. What I have a hard time with is slithery dream thoughts and flighty emotions (which habitually amount to the sentiment of 'it's not enough', or 'I couldn't quite make it.') So many of my dreams, and the way they plot their course in my waking life, orbit around that 'couldn't quite make it' feeling. My goals and aspirations amount to:
"When I can do this...When I can do that...When I am better at so and so...When this thing, that thing isn't in the way..."
It's easy some days to rise with the sun, to move and bustle like a pillar of photons. Some days, the dreams are less mirage than they are marriage of accumulations and aspirations; I can touch them because I know them. I know their names. Other days, I'm sore from treading against the current, yawning through the daze of my psyche's clipped and hiccuped sound-bites. This morning, I could hardly make sense of any single dream, waking or sleeping. Today, everything is just too distant.
This morning, when Liz left, I woke suddenly, barely hearing what she had to say as she walked out the door looking luxurious and splendid in her fancy clothes. I remember saying:
"You're leaving?"
I was shocked. She was leaving!? Already!? But I had just woken...Despite my shock, I managed to soothe myself immediately back to sleep, maybe before she even left the apartment.
The next few hours were a quicksand gravity-well, spitting me out and sucking me in again and again. I would wake, half-remembering the dream I'd just been a part of, and I would think, I want to be awake, I want to get up now. But the blanket washed around me and the subconscious undertow dragged me down to the next scene I would scarcely remember.
After hours of that, I convinced my arm to reach for the phone/clock/reality buoy. 11:38. Oh, come on...The frustration of sleeping three hours past my planned real world entry point was enough to get me out of bed.
I don't mind dreaming. I love dreaming. What I have a hard time with is slithery dream thoughts and flighty emotions (which habitually amount to the sentiment of 'it's not enough', or 'I couldn't quite make it.') So many of my dreams, and the way they plot their course in my waking life, orbit around that 'couldn't quite make it' feeling. My goals and aspirations amount to:
"When I can do this...When I can do that...When I am better at so and so...When this thing, that thing isn't in the way..."
It's easy some days to rise with the sun, to move and bustle like a pillar of photons. Some days, the dreams are less mirage than they are marriage of accumulations and aspirations; I can touch them because I know them. I know their names. Other days, I'm sore from treading against the current, yawning through the daze of my psyche's clipped and hiccuped sound-bites. This morning, I could hardly make sense of any single dream, waking or sleeping. Today, everything is just too distant.
7 comments:
Erk. It's hard to read this and not post a thousand reassuring platitudes.
I'll go with this one: People are capable of doing a bazillion different things if they want to. They're either doing them; or preparing to do them.
In the preparation process, it may seem like everything is snails pace, and nothing is going fast enough, and the eggs are NOT HATCHING..GRR... But there's a plan, and a pattern, and we get to see it when it's ready. All fluffy baby feathers.
That could be my message to the world...but I'm still thinking about it.
Platitudes are fine, haha. I think the pattern of it is the most interesting thing to me. Definitely. I was walking with Gabriel yesterday and we were talking about it. The push and pull of figuring out who the hell we are. It's a fun ride. It's a tiny bit crazy too.
What I need more than reassurance is a loud ass alarm clock.
You have a poet's soul, my darling son. Embrace it and it will lead you to the right place. Love you, M xxxxx
thanks mom. I don't know about poet's soul entirely...probably more finding a way to get out all the angst I saved up in high school and never used. I think embracing it is fun, but I am not very good at grammar or editing.
:)
There is a reason why the dream world is likened to the ocean.. all the debris of what we experience, conscious or not, wind up there. It is posited by the mystics that much of this world is inhabited by the negative sludge of our psyche because the more positive and divine thoughts move up into the higher planes. That which is encountered in our dreams, though always have inherent validity, are so often no understood by- and often find themselves in conflict- with our conscious mind.
awesome insight. Thank you John.
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