dream, flood, and Amber

3:41am

Dream of a tremendous flood, floating downriver on a half-sinking boat like a scene straight out of Faulkner's If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem. There are Winnebagos floating by, and they have miniature steamboat paddle wheels instead of tires. The water level is measured on a giant loading rail of an unseen theater. Perhaps, as a dead Englishman once said, all the world truly is a stage.

As I get further along, it becomes difficult to know whether or not I've passed my destination. The water has devoured the land in a manner worthy of Noah, but one side – the right side – has been touched by Moses, a fifty story drop, sheer as pantyhose, separates the new water level from the old. No riverbank or levy divides the two, but it is not strange in the dream. I merely keep a watchful eye on the water and do my best to keep from falling over the edge, ever vigilant for land...

[lapse]

I woke from this dream sometime in the middle of the night, cradled it in my arms, and fell back asleep. It was still with me at sunrise, and I wrote it down along with a second dream that had to do with my yin purchasing a firearm. Both scenarios seemed equally unlikely, but this is beside the point.

The point is that on the way in to work, NPR told me that there is tremendous flooding along the Mississippi River – so great, in fact, that it rivals the great flood of 1927. This tragedy inspired Faulkner to write the "Old Man" chapters of the novel in my dream, and I learned about it not in a history class, but thanks to this song, which I first heard in the aftermath of Katrina.

I wonder about the dream I had last night and what relation it may have to the flooding a thousand miles from here. Given that my friends and are are (in)famous for our inability to predict even where we will go to lunch, it seems patently absurd to construe myself as some manner of soothsayer, psychic, or oracle.

But this is also beside the point.

The point is that I've been at a music video shoot for going on twelve hours straight, which means I've heard the same three songs upwards of two dozen times each. The act is an up and coming country star – very talented, great voice, writes her own songs, and plenty cute.

Amber Leigh singing "Gypsy Girl"

Last night I even went to bed with one of her songs stuck in my head and woke up with another, equally catchy, song. While this bodes well for her future, it has the opposite implications for my own mental health, and I spent some time this morning repeating mantra just to make it go away. My efforts were in vain though, so I've decided simply to give in to it and allow myself to be washed away by the music like that small raft in the dream...