notes and variations on Tuesday night's dreams

#1

Dream of a freezing garage with the door cracked open. There is nothing to keep me warm but a toaster oven and a small propane heater. I know the element will soon fail on the toaster, that the fuel will soon be spent on the heater. It is the same garage of my childhood, where our dog Freckles lived in the winter before he ran away. I go outside from time to time to urinate on the tundran ground. No steam rises.

I know the end is near and wonder if this is how Hemingway felt that russet July morning in Idaho. I wonder if I will make it through the night.

Was this the same shotgun?

#2

Dream of a former lover’s wedding. We dated through most of college, and she is alone amongst friends – S___, S____, her mother, etc. Her father is the last in line, and I do not understand why her side is so empty and the groom’s so full. Our parting was my first real lesson in the primacy of timing.

"You have lived many lives," said Krishna to Arjuna. One wonders about the friendships left behind and the reunions scheduled for Austin.

Were these the same people?

#3

Dream of a reunion with a high school friend, a beautiful Asian girl who is happy to see me, but whom I have hurt terribly in the past. Apparently I used her for sex, or broke up with her because she wouldn’t give me sex. I have no recall, however, complete amnesia. I apologize for things I cannot remember, and part of me wonders if they ever happened at all.

Why do we believe our memories? The only authority they carry is that they belong to us, and so often this sense of ownership seems to be the very cause of suffering.

What would it mean to possess memory, eternal and spotless?

#4

A return to my high school campus, walking around and meeting students who now attend. The girl from the previous dream is gone, but there is a music lab. Experiments transpire, and I begin to feel remorse over squandered opportunities. I go up the stairs to a campus comic book store. There are display cases full of Silver Age Captain America and Bronze Age Daredevil with covers drawn by Jim Lee while he was in elementary school.

I imagine how boring and pleasurable it must be to bag and board the old issues each Tuesday before the new shipments arrive; I remember Denver and wonder if I could get a job.

Could I handle the stimuli without falling apart?

#5

Dream of a Subway restaurant or Hungry Howie. I talk shop with the owner, uncertain if I'm still in school or looking for a job. I walk by a trailer home where C___ used to live and consider asking how he is, but I know things have gone downhill.

Ours was another friendship that could not survive the winter, another encounter that lives only in memory and dream.

Can you smell the snow in Boston?