Strange dreams. I dreamt that R was living in England and B and I flew out to visit. Dan was already there with other friends, but was flying back as we flew in. B was traveling after me – I met R and she looked very London trendy (motorcycle jacket and page boy haircut) – I had my cell phone and she wanted us to split up for a bit – I mean go do different things as she had errands to run and she thought I should sight see – I was nervous about it because I wasn’t familiar with the city, but she assured me it would be fine as I was walking and we both had cell phones – how far could we get. I ended up at these two towers made of brick that looked ancient – the tour guide explained that they were solar collectors, but they collected only the solar energy that bounced off the moon. There is a great esoteric detail for you. I somehow got mixed up with a group of people who loved my accent and they took me back to their house – I checked in with R via the phone and things were ok – I had two phones (my cell and my cordless from home, which for some reason worked, but I was concerned that both their batteries would run out before R and I found each other again). I’m having fun with the Londoners and B calls, I tell him where we are and he’s on his way – shortly before he arrives the group begins to make hostile gay jokes and my mood turns dark & concerned – he arrives and it’s good conversation for a bit until it’s clear I am uncomfortable – “What’s wrong?” – “Well we’re in a room full of homophobes” – they get uncomfortable and put their coats on – they begin leaving. One says, “and I don’t believe in sex before marriage.” What a silly thing to say. I don’t understand conservative, close-minded people; but it especially concerns me when they are younger than me. Ignorance, and the fears that are fed by it, are the things I am most disgusted by (including my own of course). B and I leave. R has left a message for B on his cell that her dog has gotten away from her and she’s gone after it (am I the dog in this scenario – a detail borrowed from dinner at V’s last night?). We start to walk in the direction where we think she is. She calls my phone and is very upset, “where are you?” My house phone dies. Very shortly after that we see a women up ahead smiling at us, we are walking through alleys so it’s odd that she’s just standing there, and I figure we’ll ask her directions. She says, “B and Karl, welcome to England – R is over here – we must have only been a few blocks away. We’re in the playground of a school at which R lives and works. She’s sitting at a picnic table. She’s crying and is holding something that looks like a large box of doughnuts. She opens the box and it’s full of political bumper stickers and collar pins in red and white colors – activism for an indeterminate cause. Because she couldn’t find us she had to take the smaller box of promotional material, there is no way to get a larger box now because the bank is closed, and it’s all our fault for not being there, even though she sent me away when I knew something like this would happen.
More than a year post breakup and this is my evening’s psychodrama. All sorts of interesting things here, but let’s unpack that which I determine to be the most ur. When I was very young, perhaps four or five, we took a family vacation to Florida. We went to see some relatives in a trailer park by the ocean. My siblings, some kids we meet and myself all go off to play. My closest sibling in age is seven years older than me, so I am the youngest by far. We go towards the shore and there is this industrial structure, probably some kind of water break, made of blue metal painted battleship gray, but the paint is pealing so the metal shows through in spots. There is a ladder that we have to climb down to the beach. People are concerned, “can you make it?” I can make it fine. I’m a big boy. Then it’s time to go back – we climb back up and everyone is running I can’t keep up. I have just demonstrated that I am fine, that I don’t need anyone’s help. My brother A doubles back and says, “do you know the way.” I think I do so I say, “Yes, you can go ahead and I’ll walk.” They run ahead and of course I lose my way. I am four or five, lost in a trailer park in Florida. I knock on a random trailer door and an old woman on crutches comes out, perhaps in her eighties. I’m crying and lost and scared. Another person comes over from a nearby trailer and they are discussing who in the park has guests, “Well it must be Selma and Leo, they are the only one’s with company.” Before any other action is taken I start to hear my father and my siblings calling my name – this park is sort of forested and the trailer homes are not close together. I see this line of people running through the brush coming to find me – my whole family running in a side-by-side line, so relieved I am safe, so grateful to this woman. Any dream I have of being lost is linked to that experience. I can always close my eyes and see my family running to find me.
Last night at about 1:30 B called as he was almost out of gas and thought he might need a rescue. I called him around two to make sure he was ok – he was fine – hence B on the brain. Today we shall Soulard these dreams away.