Grown-up Dreams

 

I had a vivid dream the other night. My minivan had broken down, and the repairman told me it would cost $3600 to fix it. I had a million places to be, of course, and there were bags of groceries in the back. I told the repairman all about the endless problems we’d had with this particular van—electrical issues, bad brakes, manufacturer recalls—and about how great our last van had been. And if you're thinking right now: WHAT KIND OF DREAM IS THIS? Well, SO WAS I, when I woke up.

Shouldn’t your dream world be an escape from your real life? I started remembering some other thrilling storylines that have graced my slumber in recent months, sometimes repeating the same themes over and over. I dream that I can’t get to the bottom of a laundry pile, no matter how many times I load the washer and unload the dryer. I dream that I’ve been away from home for a few days and forgot to feed the dogs. And this, a popular one: I dream that I’m taking a trip, my flight leaves in TWENTY MINUTES and I HAVEN’T STARTED PACKING YET! This one always stretches itself out, from the hurried scavenging through drawers, all the way to the crazy run through the airport. It’s always good to wake up completely frazzled, with the bitter taste of failure on your lips, when there will be A MILLION things to do that day, every day, of your adult life.

What happened to dreams about flying? Wind rushing through your hair as you soar over mountains, through the windows of tall buildings, over the hassle of life on ground? What happened to that dream where you’re about to go on stage and sing, because you’re an AWESOME singer??? I’d even take those pulse-quickening dreams where you’re in a car on a tall mountain, about to fall off the side. And when was the last time I had what my grandma used to call a “racy dream,” involving a celebrity?

I suppose this is the divide between childhood and adulthood. A child’s subconscious mind is still heavily involved with make believe and possibility, while an adult’s total mind is addled with reality and responsibility. You don’t have to be psychologist to realize that most of my “grown-up dreams” have to do with dropping the juggling balls of adult life. I do notice a change, sometimes, when I’ve been to a movie, or have read or heard an interesting story. New drama might be infused with the day-to-day. Last night I dreamt that one of my son’s coaches had sent some guys to rough up someone who hadn’t paid their team fees. And there was a scary subplot involving a dog, because we had watched a movie in which a woman had to shoot her poisoned dog. So I still woke up unhappy, but at least I could easily dismiss the plot as implausible. The piles of laundry, on the other hand, are entirely too realistic.

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Poem for the Weekend

 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been a student, an expatriate, a political activist, a publisher, a key player in the Beat movement, and he opened the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, where he still lives and works. His life is too full of accomplishments and events to properly summarize, but you can read about him here. For now, one of his poems.  

 



Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  

Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons   

          walking their dogs

                      in Central Park West

    (or their cats on leashes—

       the cats themselves old highwire artists)   

The ballerinas

                leap and pirouette

                           through Columbus Circle   

         while winos on park benches

               (laid back like drunken Goudonovs)   

            hear the taxis trumpet together

               like horsemen of the apocalypse   

                               in the dusk of the gods   

It is the final witching hour

                when swains are full of swan songs   

    And all return through the dark dusk   

                to their bright cells

                                  in glass highrises

      or sit down to oval cigarettes and cakes   

                              in the Russian Tea Room   

    or climb four flights to back rooms

                                 in Westside brownstones   

               where faded playbill photos

                        fall peeling from their frames   

                            like last year’s autumn leaves

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Poem for the Weekend

 

This week's poem is by Li-Young Lee, who is of Chinese ancestry but was born in Indonesia. He and his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was a young boy. You can read about his family's experiences and Lee's career here.

One Heart
by Li-Young Lee

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

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Do You Believe in Magic?

 

 

The other day I took a quiz on Facebook. “Which Once Upon a Time Character Are You?” seemed sort of fun and timely, given that the season premiere was coming up. The quiz took me through a series of seemingly random questions (as they all do), and a few that seemed more relevant to one’s possible fairy tale identity. Which weapon would you choose, which of the seven dwarves, etc. Rapidly, I clicked through (as we tend to do), and after the whole thing was done, I kept thinking about one question and how I’d answered it. “Do you believe in magic?” it asked. And I’d clicked, without hesitation or thought, Yes.

 

I wondered what I meant by that. Do I believe in the type of magic they have on the television show? Potions and magic swords, spells and inherited powers? Well, maybe not, although I’d hate to say a definitive no. I do, however, believe in all sorts of things that don’t fall within the realm of the five senses. What you choose to call them is up to you, but “magic” seems to fit in there somewhere, at least to me.

 

I believe in premonitions, intuition and trusting your gut. I'm convinced that moments of déjà vu are trying to tell us something, and that luck is life’s barometer. I believe in destiny and fate and yet, I also believe that we have the magical power to alter either one. I think love at first sight happens all the time. I listen to vibes. I’m most definitely attentive to negative energy and positive energy and believe each brings more of the same. I beware of karma. I trust in some unseen life force that strives for balance in all things and encourages us to do the same. And just between you and me, I believe in ghosts, who most certainly travel in breezes and with particular scents and probably can traverse dreams. Also, I don’t think UFOs are out of the realm of possibility. Anyway...

 

My favorite author as a kid was Ruth Chew, who wrote about witches and magic and all sorts of spooky things. (Sidenote: Random House started rereleasing her books last year! See here.) When I was young, I spent a brief period trying to harness my mind power. Bending spoons, reading thoughts, willing things to happen. I can’t say I ever had much luck in that regard but even now, I think maybe I wasn’t doing it right. Of course, the writer in me would say that imagination is one of the most magical powers we all have, and maybe when it comes right down to it, that’s all magic is.

 

As for that quiz…I asked my family which Once Upon a Time character they thought I’d been assigned. My husband said immediately: Hook. Which I thought was really weird. The show is full of queens and princesses. Why a male? Why a self-serving egoist with questionable moral character? But then I thought about Hook’s courage, his great leather wardrobe and let’s face it—his irresistibleness. And guess what? The husband was right, and it probably should have come as no surprise when he took the quiz and got Emma. He does not believe in magic, or vibes, or pirate ships that can go through portals. And yet, we all know what’s happening with Hook and Emma this year. The attraction of opposites—another of life’s little magics.

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Poem for the Weekend

Robert Creeley attended Harvard and was, at one time or another, an ambulance driver, chicken farmer, expatriate and publisher. He was said to be influenced by William Carlos Williams and was part of the Black Mountain Poets of the 40s and 50s. They advocated projective verse, an "improvisational, open-form approach to poetic composition, driven by the natural patterns of breath and utterance." Here is one such poem.

I Know a Man

by Robert Creeley 

As I sd to my   

friend, because I am   

always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his   

name, the darkness sur-

rounds us, what

can we do against

it, or else, shall we &

why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for   

christ’s sake, look   

out where yr going.

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