Tuesday, December 29, 2009

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

I knew I would write this morning, because I dreamt of Mark last night. It was like a visual reminder, if you want to write, do it every day, something he told me and we all found out he definitely did when we cleaned out his house. Mark was riding around in the back of an old Nissan Sentra, one with bumper stickers plastered all of over the back of it. This car exists in my real-time life. It belongs to one of the women at the farm that drives me crazy. Mark was there, arm draped over the back of the seat, leather jacket, white shirt, singing in a Bob Dylan twang to my friend Staci. Staci, was laughing loudly, and glancing alternately at Mark in the rear view mirror and to her right at me in the passenger seat.

Our destination was some sort of cookout. Mark headed for the barbecue and didn’t come back for the rest of the dream. Staci and I sat at a long picnic table, laughing about something and were joined by a couple, a couple that clearly couldn’t find any other place to sit, judging by how uncomfortable they seemed sitting with us. It only got worse, when Mandy arrived, plate in hand, her well behaved food sitting in its sections ever so careful to not touch. Soon enough, the couple disappeared too. I cannot blame anyone in my dreams or my real world that feels the desire to evaporate when I am with these two women. It’s a little bit like watching twins that have their own language. There is a divider, while not meant to be entirely exclusionary, it does create a space between the us, and the not us.

There was no major revelation in this dream. I had no great insight, or million dollar idea. The world’s greatest novel was not born in this dream last night. I do think it had a message for me. You see, yesterday, was one of those damn days, the ones where I feel that everything I touch turns to complete crap. Where even looking back, what’s in the rear view mirror looks like ruin, both the places and the people. Right about 4 pm I hated absolutely everything about the last 20 or so years. I couldn’t find a nugget of goodness in myself or my ‘doings.’ Fortunately, I know that these days come and they go. I still find them hard to deal with and in truth, spend most of them crying and feeling inept and without value. I think, the dream was reminding me of those who love (d) me the most, those that do see the good in me, even at my worst. I think I needed that reminder, because it is now, during winter, that I can be dragged into believing there is no good, no hope, left in the world.

There is in fact, a poem that ends with this line “nothing now can ever come to any good” it is a poem about losing someone, and the first time I heard it I felt as though it had been etched into my sunburned skin with a shard of broken glass. It is an amazing thing, the power words strung together just so can have. I only need to think of the poem, the images it creates in my head, some memories, some conjured by the words, and I am standing outside a funeral home in Fairfax Virginia on the coldest day of my life while a man named Archer sits inside at long shiny wooden dining table talking to my mother and sisters about “the remains.” I left before I punched him, but not before I reminded him that the remains had a goddamn name.

I felt better this morning, just a little. I suppose it could have been the dream, or just the bright sunshine through the blinds and the cold dog nose pressed to my forearm. In that, there is hope to share.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes a cold dog nose can cure a multitude of ills.

Hope things look up for you soon!

Mojo said...

A cold wet nose can fix anything. I'm serious! That's why there's always a First Dog in the White House. Can you imagine the train wreck this country would be if the former resident of 1600 P-A Ave hadn't had a dog? No you cannot. Because there has never been a cataclysm so bad as there would have been had Dubya not had the First Nose... erm Dog to fix things.

But just in case Mojo The Dog runs up against a funk he can't drag you out of -- for lack of opposable thumbs maybe or maybe just the language barrier -- then you just call Mojo The Human. Because verily he can tell you just how incalculable your worth is. And more to the point, he will. (Even as he refers to himself in the third person.)

I know the anniversary you dread is coming soon, and if you need a voice in the dark, then or anytime, to steady you, you've got my number. Use it. Any time.

That is all. Carry on.

Mojo said...

By the way, totally diggin' the new avatar photo!

Doctor Err said...

you know.... i believe in that shit. and i believe in you. and i believe food should not touch. xoxo

Space said...

oh, jenny, we MAKE hope.

we string it together from moments of love and carry it with us into our darkness that has no breath, no fire, and no sustenance. that hope, strung together in a sequence to rival even the words that cut you, can power you down the path a little further, any time.

i put a little bit into your dreamcatcher. an inexhaustible emergency supply for you when you can't find yours. there's a little bit in the pottery that flavors your coffee in the morning, too. just in case.

xoxo

rennratt said...

I completely believe in the power of dreams, no matter how strange they may seem.

My favorite dream included my mother walking in and hugging me, my grandfather cocking his leg, farting, and yelling, "That's for you, Rennie!"...and my grandmother flipping him the bird.

I woke up feeling incredibly loved. :)

My deepest hope is that 2010 will be THE year that everything falls into place for you, and all in your favor.

You are loved, my friend.

The Ice Cream Place opens back up on 3/1. We should have a blogger meeting there to celebrate. Seriously.

tiff said...

Thankfully those 'days' are temporary, and there's a little more light every day fro the next 6 months to brighten things up a little.

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