While awake...

Laughing at cows . (1994 in V.)

G is dying. She is lying on a bed and her closest family members are tending to her. I see her mother (?) washing her feet. I can barely see her face from the door where I stand. The room is light yet bathing in a yellow glow that is soft and white. G has not much longer to live. She has chosen to spend the last moments alone. Her family retreats to another room and now G is completely alone. She is only with herself. I am so saddened and astonished at this. I am not able to enter the room but watch it from a distance.

Now I am standing near a dinner table at an unfamiliar location. It seems like a restaurant. I see many of my old friends here but I do not speak to them and they do not speak to me. I look for a seat and sit down. The atmosphere is somewhat stuffy. I see A.G. and try to talk to her. Resistance. Now I see G. She is still alive! She is sitting at the table but after a while her sister leads her away and into another building. We hear that she feels nauseus and that she has to rest. We are of course understanding and feel very bad for her. Now I am finally getting some recognition from my friends. Now they speak to me. I am making clumsy comments about G's health and try to relay how saddened I am by the situation. I am not very good at expressing myself. My friends, however, seem to accept me. G is now inside and we know that she is battling a serious disease.

It is night. In my arms a baby boy. He is my brother or son. It is a crisp, but not too cold, winter night. We are standing outside the house that looks like grandma's (A&B). Now we are standing near the wall on the side that faces the strawberry patch. What a night, the little boy exclaims in a very deep thinking manner. Yes, I agree, it is quite a night. It is dark but still beautiful. I know that the boy is very sharp even though he is small and seemingly helpless. Now I watch the sky and see a small light approach far away in the sky. As I watch it I realize it some kind of flying object and I see that it is nearing us. I hurry to get us safe inside. I do not like this flying object and want to get away. Inside the lights are on and I hurry from room to room to turn off lights. In the livingroom I see a Christmas tree and I walk over to turn off the lights. I can see the light switch so clearly, it is white and I struggle in my haste to turn it to the off position. Now I hear the flying shuttle hover near the building and I wonder if I will be able to get the house darkened by the time they get close. I am carrying the little boy in my arms as I move about. It feels much better and safer when the house is dark. Now I walk upstairs. I am going to wake up mom and dad and tell them what is happening. As I walk up the stairs I wonder if I will disturb them. I decide to enter their room anyway. I see someone lying in their bed. Dad is the only one there. Where is mother? I rush over to his bed and try to explain what is happening. They are coming, I say. But the words that I use do not come out clearly and he keeps asking what, what do I mean. The room is in a dusk but I can see dad's face clearly. He is very tired.

I wake up. I am in a room with concrete walls in light blue. The walls have thin cracks that spread out like veins all over the space. I am surprised that cracks have appeared already. Perhaps there is a small magnitude earthquake all the time that keeps moving the walls around? I am not afraid even if I realize the walls might collapse any time. Funny though that I haven't seen this earlier...

I am in a forest. I walk along a dirt road and come to a spot where there is a clearcut to my left and low birch trees to my right. This might not be present time. I hear horses and yelling. A large group of wild people in simple clothing come riding toward me. I jump into the bushes and try to hide. The wild people charges by but one of them comes up to me. I am this person. He walks with me and I/we look toward the clearcut. I know that a small group of people from my time are camping there. I am expecting to find them there. I do not want the wild man to find them because I fear he/I will hurt them. I can hear hiphop music coming from a tent that is lit up from within. The tent can now be seen from the road and obviously the group has not done a very good hiding job. We approach the tent. A tense moment before I open the tent. Three or four people are sitting there. They are dressed in modern clothing. The wildman is now telling them about techniques for how to survive here. He is not dangerous but instead curious and matter-of-fact.

M.H. is pregnant. I see her big belly as she walks by. I am surprised that she would dare to have another baby this late in her life. She wants one last one. She claims that she is 45 and that she is younger that my mother. I accept the statement even if I am confused and somehow know that that is impossible. That would make mom 65, for some reason? I hear a voice that is comparing M and mom. The voice asks her if she really is 45 and she says yes. The voice counters and points out her gray hair and her bent back. M just shrugs and says that she has just aged more than mom. I know that she is overjoyed to be pregnant. Now I am beginning to feel more and more convinced that my mother is young.

I am climbing up gigantic shelves filled with foodpackages and boxes. I am looking for a snack or cup cakes for a party that we are having. But I want a snack before the guests arrive so I am trying to snoop around a little. I am barefeet and poke the boxes with my toes.

I am entering a room and I see several dogs resting on a mat on the floor. A person is also sitting there. I sit down near the dogs and see that they are all pregnant and just about to give birth. One of the dogs is so fat it is about to burst and then I see that it is opening. Now I see the opening as a large hole and small puppies and coming out, one by one. First they come out a little hesitantly but I am trying to lure them out and some of them are in a playful mood. Then I see one puppy that looks very angry and it is showing its teeth. It is so small that I am not scared of it, but it does make me wonder. Later on I see how it also calms down and becomes like the other puppies.

We walk through a church in the very beginning of a mass. People are already seated in the pews. We walk right across the front of the church and later on sit down. A. recognizes an old girlfriend and motions to her. I am watching. We are sitting in the very back of the church. The old girlfriend is not responding.

A train has crashed. It crashed by falling into a great pit in the middle of my hometown. I see the wreck - the train cars are in a jumble and twisted iron is everywhere. I see injured soldiers crawl out of the debris. The pit is where the old leather factory used to stand.
Now I see that M.S. is there. He lives here. I thought he lived in N.Y. He seems to think this part of town is somehow the place to live. There are tall apartment buildings nearby. Together with someone I am flying away from the scene. We see people standing on balconies watching the horror. They have woken up in the middle of the night by all this. They are students. I recognize one of them. It is a girl. She begins to descend an outdoor staircase. Everyone looks so surprised and rather unaware of what really has happened. I do not know where the pit originated from.

Awake...

The Brain-is wider than the Sky-
For-put them side by side-
The one the other will contain
With ease-and You-beside.

The Brain is deeper than the sea -
For - hold them - Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As Sponges - Buckets - do -
-- Emily Dickinson

I am crossing the road from my grandmother's toward the neighbors'. I am wearing black tights and a bulky sweater. I do not feel particularly well-dressed and am a little surprised that I would wear something like this. Almost as if I am hiding my body or something. I see an old school mate on the neighbor's yard. He is working for them. We say hi to each other. I haven't seen him in a long time. I walk up to the house and walk up the stairs to the front door. All of a sudden I remember that my friend's grandmother has been dead for years. Now I am no longer sure of where my friend lives. Will she still be in the apartment in the house? I enter the house and knock on the door. I am expecting to see a dusty and old room - a room where noone lives anymore. I picture furniture covered in thick layers or grey dust. Then she opens the door. She does live there, or at least for now. A.G. is also there and we sit down in the kitchen. School will begin in a couple of days, M says. School? It is in the middle of the year I think to myself, but accept what she says. A is holding an uncut raw piece of filet mignon and she holds it up, tilts her head back, and chews on the end of it. I register that it is raw meat and cannot imagine myself liking the taste of it - but I am not apalled by it. I just watch her do it and continue to talk to her. She is preparing for the school opening and I ask her which classroom she will get. Appearantly she now works as a teacher. She sort of avoids my question and tells me that she doesn't care as long as it is as far away from the teacher's lounge as possible. She doesn't care much for the staff. Now I picture the school and see the different classrooms as I remember them. I sit by M's grandma's kitchen window and is it grey outside. It may be a spring day.

Aldely
I have written a poem. I see the paper and it is a long poem with at least ten verses, a long poem to be written by me. I like it. It is comparable to a visual collage in the sense that I have taken inspiration from different pictures, sentences, and feelings - and created a beautiful poem that now includes all this.
Now I am holding the poem again. This time I see the text being edited with an orange marker. It is my own handwriting. I have made several changes to the text. Then I notice that there are also writings in someone else's handwriting. The handwriting is much smaller and less bold than mine, and it is written in pencil or grey pen. This person has suggested more changes to my poem.
I see all these new words but they do not block the original message. I can still very clearly see my poem, especially one part.
I pick one part that I explain to someone who is with me. See, I say while I point to an article on art and geography in a magazine, see here I got the 'from the north... from the south... from the west... from the east...' part. To me this connectin is something extraordinary and I have a deep need to share it with the person who is with me.
Now I look at the bottom of the paper - and I see a message written by a person who calls himself Aldely.
Now I am driving along a road and I see a large and hip billboard with Aldely's face on it. He is wearing a tightfitting woolen cap so that his eyes are barely visible. Who is Aldely?

While awake...

Dirty Vegas
Days without you...

While awake...

Mena G. Trott
Carl
Truths and lies
The Dialogue Project

While awake...

A wonderful entry by Eliot Wilder on 5.1.02.
---
Modest Needs

It is winter. I am standing by a snowy highway somewhere in the United States. Behind me is a building that seems like a mall with restaurants, however, it seems quiet there and most places are closed. It is dark outside, perhaps early evening, and a group of icehockey players are approaching in full gear. They are about to cross the road to go to the open air icehockey-rink that I can see from where I stand. I know that there are some icehockey players from F and I want to interview them. I walk up to one of them and ask him what it is like to play hockey here. He tells me that he is trying to get used to living here - he says that 'the living part still takes up most of the time'. I ask him if he would agree to let me observe him and interview him, that I am actually developing this method to help people adjust and that I might be able to give him some good ideas about how to deal with things. I am making all this up as I go along and am both baffled and impressed at my coping skills. Obviously it is really important to me that I connect with this man. He looks at me but says nothing. Then he turns away, crosses the road and goes to his hockey practice. I feel disappointed that he didn't answer or say anything. On the other hand he didn't either say no.

I walk into the mall and see an escalator. Inside the mall a small countryroad is coming to a fork. I see a police officer arrest someone and he is putting handcuffs on the arrested person. I need to pass the officer but am indecisive about what to do. I move a little closer and move my hands in a 'what do I do now' way so that the officer can see me. He does not react but continues instead to hold down the suspect. Now I notice another suspect to the right of me. He is handcuffed as well. I see thick plastic handcuffs. They are light blue. I turn around and am now standing in the mall again, this time nearby a closed restaurant of some kind. A woman is standing here. She rushes off to stop a man, and she arrests him! She puts handcuffs on him. Now that I look around, I see people in handcuffs scattered here and there. They are all criminals! Or are they? I am afraid. The woman is again nearby and she motions for us to move away. We have to pass a man who is sitting on a chair. The small woman presses herself up against a wall to avoid being touched by him, and she succeeds. Now it is my turn. I know he will attempt to grab hold of me. He seems like a drifter, who has no shame in his body. I hesitate and then, as quickly as I can, I move past the man. Of course I cannot entirely escape his hand, and I feel him grab at my pantleg. I feel my glove-covered hands hit his hands to get rid of them while an increasing fear is taking over. I move toward the door, the exit. I want to be held by comfort. I wish someone would stand there who would bring comfort. I open the door into the night, open my arms and fold them around the man who stands there. Warmth.

I just found out that A.G.'s close relative is dead. I am standing on grandma's yard and it is dark. A.G. is now present and she looks beyond devastated. She tells me that someone has died, her brother. It takes me a moment to realize whom she is talking about and she has to explain it to me. For some reason I do not recognize his name and even when she tells me the name it doesn't sound familiar. Tears are streaming down her face and she has no idea of what to do with herself. Appearantly she is not aware that another close familymember is also dead. We hug each other and I can literally feel the agony she is going through - it is all so very sad. How can I possibly make it still sadder by telling her?
Eventually she hears what has happened. Everything is so dark. Why do I have to know all this and be the one to tell her? It is winter and dark. Can't we be somewhere else?

While awake...

Home. At work. Back in time. Rich and thick details that fall into the gap that divide night and morning. I am fishing for them but they are so shy and slippery. Patience, I know. Patience and want.

While awake...

Donna's P2P review of Luminous Dreams